Frank Sinatra vs the Boomers

 

I’ve never been a fan of Frank Sinatra or any popular singer/ musician of the 20th century prior to the advent of Rock. I much prefer 19th century music, such as Civil War songs, to much of 20th century popular music. I can appreciate the talent of men like Gershwin, Armstrong, Berlin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kahn, Porter, and etc. I can see how certain artists/entertainers were seminal in some way and highly influential, even on Rock, but have a hard time tuning into their sensibility. (Likewise, despite the wonders of Old Hollywood, movies for me really begins in the 1950s, especially with World Cinema.) This extends even to Rock n Roll. Notice how young people today are interested in Rock Music going back to the 60s, but young people in the 1970s hardly listened to anything prior to the 50s/60s. It suggests a continual musical culture for around seventy years, from early 60s to now, with the decisive break having taken place somewhere in the 50s. I don’t recall any of my friends showing any interest in Elvis or 50s Rock n Roll. As for Sinatra and the like, that was considered grandpa’s music.

Plenty of music critics and scholars have heaped praise on Frank Sinatra. Some even claim he was the greatest American singer of the 20th century. Personally, if I had to play old style music, I’d rather listen to Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, and Bobby Darin, to be sure, a rather slippery figure to categorize. If I have a soft spot for a crooner, it’s Engelbert Humperdinck. And some black singers managed to combine more classic styles with the trendier tempos: Lou Rawls especially with “You’ll Never Find”.

Still, one can understand Sinatra’s towering place in 20th century music. More than most performers of his kind, he was able to grow and change while, at the same time, remaining true to his essence. He aged like wine, culminating in “Strangers in the Night” in 1966, perhaps his greatest song. Also, while other singers had prettier voices, his had a richness, a gently intoxicating quality like a glass of rum.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no overt boomer hostility against Sinatra. He just wasn’t on their radar. Besides, even before the arrival of Beatlemania followed by Counterculture, Sinatra had been knocked down a few pegs by Elvis Presley and other Rock n Rollers. There was a sort of the Return of the Italians in the early 60s, but it was composed mostly of Teen Idols like Frankie Avalon. Sinatra had by then become an institution but wasn’t really culturally relevant, just like John Wayne continued to make movies into the 1970s but as a nostalgia act; Clint Eastwood was the one changing movie culture.

Though initially critical of Rock n Roll and Elvis the Pelvis, Sinatra understood the times had changed, and there was the famous duet of him and Presley on TV in 1960. Girls screamed for Sinatra but went crazy for the King of Rock n Roll. (The scene in DINER about Sinatra vs Johnny Mathis shows how Elvis could still be scandalous to those who came of age on the eve of the Rock Era. When Mickey Rourke’s character says he prefers Elvis to both Sinatra and Mathis, he is rebuked as ‘sick’.)

And yet, one might argue Sinatra-ism won out over Elvis-ism. Once the novelty(and shock value) of Rock n Roll wore off, what was there but professionalism? Indeed, Elvis Presley himself abandoned his earlier style and morphed into a performer much like Sinatra. He became a Las Vegas act. One might even say Sinatra-ism won out over Dylan-ism. Bob Dylan was the greatest artist of Rock, but once the artistic well ran dry, again, what was left but professionalism? For good or ill, one of the biggest acts around is Adele who is above all a professional.

There was clearly an ethnic angle to the Sinatra phenomenon. It’s usually the case that kids from underprivileged backgrounds try their luck in sports and entertainment. Italian-Americans, who lagged other white ethnic groups, were over-represented in sports and music. There was Joe DiMaggio in baseball. Rocky Marciano and Jake LaMotta in boxing. And lots of singers. But, the Italian-American role in Popular Music may also have owed to a rich cultural heritage. Italians had opera and lots of colorful folk tunes, though a lot of this got watered down for Anglo-American tastes(like what Chef Boyardee is to Italian Cooking). Paradoxically, precisely because the Italians were so rich in musical heritage, they may have missed the boat, relatively speaking, in the boomer Sixties given to novelty and experimentalism. To some degree, this was also true of blacks. Though blacks played a huge role in 60s musical culture, they were overshadowed in the second half of the decade in terms of innovation and originality. Blacks, awfully proud of their own styles, mostly stuck to soulful or bluesy standards while White Rock pushed the envelope into new amazing directions, with additional inspirations from surprising sources, even Hindu music. During this period, Jimi Hendrix and Arthur Lee(of Love) were outliers. Indeed, Ellen Willis the female rock critic described Hendrix’s output as part of ‘White Rock’. In contrast, the British, not known for a great musical heritage, eagerly adopted whatever seemed exciting and ran with it, producing the revolutionary sounds of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, the Kinks, and others. And Led Zeppelin combined hard blues with Wagnerian operatics. Without much of a musical pride of their own, the Brits took to the new frontier with passion. Those without spices of their own are more likely to try new spices. No wonder Anglos suddenly became the biggest ‘foodies’ around the world.

Perhaps, Italian-Americans felt they had an excess of musical culture/color. Also, the Italian style was more complementary with Jazz, a combo of brass, sass, and class. Though Jazz culture could be lurid and kinky, it was also about dressing well and looking stylish, thus appealing to Italian-Americans. (In MEAN STREETS, even lowlife street hoods wear proper attire.) Italian-American community may have leaned Democratic and politically liberal but remained culturally conservative, with greater emphasis on family, clan, and community. And the Church. So, the Rock Culture that defined the boomer generation could be a turn-off. Even the Rascals, perhaps the best Italian-American rock band of the Sixties, had more of a sentimental attachment to established musical genres. Their best song, “How Can I Be Sure” has an Old World flavor.

Rock n Roll may have been more amenable to Italian-American culture. Though low and crass, its aggression made for tribal mentality, the kind in WEST SIDE STORY. So, even if Rock n Rollers didn’t mean their music to be street gang music, it went well with leather jackets and switch blades. The Jets vs the Sharks.

Rock Culture, in contrast, was about love and peace(even as some of the music got louder and crazier). The new tribalism was really an anti-tribalism, about flower power and grass than fists and turf. No wonder the Rock n Roll kid in I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND(Robert Zemeckis comedy about the arrival of Beatlemania in America) hates the Fab Four whose joyousness negate the machismo of Rock n Roll. And THE WANDERERS(directed by Philip Kaufman) ends with an Italian-American kid in the early Sixties ruefully gazing at the dawning of the Folk Music scene(that would have a profound impact on Counterculture).

Not that Frank Sinatra was about tribal hostility. Politically, he went out of his way to oppose racial discrimination against blacks. In Hollywood, he made a not-very-good but rather surprising WWII movie that treated Japanese soldiers with a degree of sympathy: NONE BUT THE BRAVE.

Still, Sinatra wouldn’t have been nothing without distinctions. The private life was not to be confused with the public life. There was professionalism and amateurism. One had to dress for the occasion. The stars took the stage or screen, and the audience remained in the seats. (To be sure, during the height of Sinatra-mania, a harbinger of bigger manias to come, things did get out of control with the girls.) The Italian-American community was more prone to feeling that way. Italian-Americans had more a culture of respect for the elders, cultural if not always familial. If the likes of Sinatra and Dean Martin set the standards, those were ones worthy of emulation. (If Dean Martin seems somewhat out of place in RIO BRAVO, it has less to do with his Italian-ness than his plain cowboy clothes. It was Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Westerns that really added style to the Western genre.) Martin Scorsese once remarked that Sixties culture was so different from the Italian-American community he knew. His ethnic enclave was, at the time, insular and indifferent to vast socio-cultural changes happening all around. Later, when an Italian-American became the prominent face of popular music, it was John Travolta in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. Though disco was hardly Italian-ish, it was about dressing up and spending inordinate amount of time on one’s hair.

Though hardly a fan of Sinatra, what he stands for has special meaning for me on account of two movies. Indeed, these two movies illustrate the special standing Sinatra has in American Cultural History despite the profound changes stemming from the boomer era. These are not the well-known Sinatra movies like FROM HERE TO ETERNITY or THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, or one of the several musicals he made. Rather, Sinatra-ism stands out in precisely because the films are about the world in the process of boomer transformation.

The first is BABY IT’S YOU(story by Amy Robinson), the only truly great film by John Sayles, an intelligent director who marred most of his works with nods to social significance. Who the hell wants do-goody Peter-Seegerism in movies? BABY IT’S YOU is the exception and may well be, along with DINER, the best movie about young people in the 1980s. John Hughes dominated the youth movie market in the 1980s by pandering to the lowest common denominator, but the decade’s two best movies about youth are set in late 50s and mid-60s and based on personal memories. BABY IT’S YOU is about Jill, an upper-middle-class Jewish student majoring in drama. She’s headed to some elite college full of Wasps and Jewish girls from affluent families like her own, but in her final year of high school, attracts the attention of some Italian-American guy know as the ‘Sheik'(like Rudolph Valentino). While the times are changing, the guy is resolutely old school when it comes to dress, hair(oily), and style. In contrast, Jill is attuned to the newest trends in the arts and culture. She wants to fit in with the Zeitgeist.

It all comes to a head when both their illusions go up in smoke. He was so infatuated with instant stardom that he never realized that success owes to natural talent + hard work + luck. It doesn’t just fall at your feet because you dress well and have high self-esteem. He thought he’d become a star in music even though he can’t sing because he’s got the looks and is liked by tourists in sunny Florida. It never seems to have occurred to him that Sinatra had real talent and worked extremely hard at it, not least because he wasn’t so hot in the looks department. Without musical talent, would Sinatra have made it in the movies or been noticed by women?

As for Jill, she saw herself as leaving behind her humdrum middle class milieu and seeking authenticity as an artist, but she’s overly sensitive to peer perception and follows every new trend. They meet again, probably for the last time, in their painful moments of self-realization. Still, before they bid farewell and go separate ways, they share a final moment on the college dance floor. Though a psychedelic band plays the gig, they take his ‘weird'(because ‘square’) request to play “Strangers in the Night” by Sinatra. Other students, who’d been rocking to the latest music, seem bemused but slowly ease into the mood of Ole Blue Eyes.

The final part of BABY IT’S YOU could be a corrective realism to THE GRADUATE, actually a fantasy. Benjamin manages a fairytale ending as he runs off with Elaine Robinson, but there is no pie in the sky for Jill and the Sheik. And that everyone begins to dance to Sinatra, their parents’ music, is suggestive of what Mike Nichols said about the two elopers: They will end up like their parents.

The meanings are threefold. For the Italian-American Sheik, it’s his final gift to the girl. He’s back in the image that caught her eye in the first place, in high school where, unlike the other boys, he dressed in style and moved with confidence. For her, he plays that role one more time. But, it is also what he will always be. Despite the loss of illusion — he’s not cut out for stardom — and a future like his old man’s(blue collar work), he can always take pride in looking good and dressing well. In a way, this was Sinatra’s gift to the men of his generation. At the very least, no matter however humdrum their station in life, they could look a bit classy by taking pointers from men like Sinatra.

For Jill, the song speaks a timeless truth. At every moment in her life, she met boys and girls with whom she thought she’d bond forever, but ultimately, they are all like strangers in the night, especially in modern and mobile America. Just like she drifted apart from her high school friends, she will forget her college friends. And even though, for a time, she fell for the Sheik as the love of her life, they are incompatible in so many ways and must go separate ways. The Counterculture said the Moment is everything. Summer of Love will change the world and what’s happening now is what really matters. In contrast, “Strangers in the Night” is resigned to the timeless truth that life goes on, strangers become lovers, lovers become strangers. The song was both reassuringly old in style and a departure for Sinatra. In its air of alienation and detachment, it could even be ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ by the standards of the day. Not quite 007 but the new face of Sinatra who, unlike many of his peers, was capable of change, walking the fine line between nostalgia and fashion. It’s also a song that only an aged voice could have pulled off.

The other memorable Boomer/Sinatra moment is in LOST IN AMERICA. The movie has a contemporaneous setting. It’s the yuppie eighties, and David Howard(Albert Brooks, who also wrote and directed) is a thoroughly status-and-material-obsessed professional in advertising. But when denied the promotion he’d been dreaming of, he decides to give a big middle finger to upper class aspirations. Ironically, it’s not because he’s put off by excess materialism but because his ascendancy isn’t fast enough. His principled stance is the perverse product of his thwarted ambition.

As a ‘bold’ gesture to prove to the world and himself that he’s no longer in the rat race, he embarks on a late-blooming quest to search for America, what the guys supposedly did in EASY RIDER. The first notable song in the movie as he and his wife drive out of the city in a Winnebago is the 60s rocker “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf. But these two, who ostensibly want to ‘touch Indians’, decide to spend a night in Las Vegas where the wife, in a fit of wild abandon, gambles away all their ‘nest egg’. Of course, Las Vegas is more Sinatra-ville than Hippie-stan. (The Sixties became associated with great events, like Woodstock. But events come and go, whereas industries like Las Vegas remain.) And, what can be more crass and materialistic than gambling? And yet, her loss of inhibition could be regarded an expression of the Sixties spirit. After all, the message of Counterculture was to liberate yourself from traditional notions of responsibility and do what comes naturally. And so, the couple is faced with a conundrum. She acted ‘liberated’ and, as a result, lost all their money to Big Capital, the enemy. In contrast, he insisted on prudence so as to maintain the conceit of their ‘liberation’. Indeed, he is later forced to admit that the guys in EASY RIDER could pull it off only because they were, after all, supply-and-demand capitalists who sold drugs and stashed away the cash in a safe place.

But without the nest egg and without high-paying jobs, Howard decides to make the best of it… that is until, in the role as school crossing-guard, he gazes at a Mercedes Benz(with seats of leather apparently, perhaps a warped allusion to the Holocaust and human lamp-shades). Then and there, all the illusions vanish into the air, and the couple is driving across America to none other than the Big Apple to Sinatra’s rendition of “New York, New York”, which like “Strangers in the Night” was both old school and relatively new(as the song came out only in 1977 with the release of Martin Scorsese’s movie).

All this reminds me of a scene in Oliver Stone’s NIXON. It’s near the very end when Anthony Hopkin’s Nixon, upon signing the letter of resignation, finds himself alone with the portrait of JFK. He mutters, “When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are.” With the passage of years, the generation that wanted to regard themselves as the messianic John Lennon of “Imagine” ended up more like Frank Sinatra. Now, any comparison of Sinatra and Nixon may seem absurd as Sinatra was a big star whereas Nixon was considered unpleasant in look and style. Yet, Sinatra’s stardom was somewhat unlikely because he really didn’t look that good. Apart from his success in singing, his stardom owed to luck and connections. He played the game and was tainted by corruption.

In a way, it’s difficult to imagine a cultural figure as multi-faceted and multi-involved as Sinatra, especially when compared with the big stars of the Sixties. Among boomer youth, there was a saying, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty”. That meant, ideally at any rate, the Rock artists shouldn’t involve themselves too closely with business. They should just make personal music. (Or engage in business in a utopian manner, like the Beatles with Apple Corp after Brian Epstein’s death; it turned into one big fiasco. Another ideal was to put on free concerts, like the Rolling Stones at Altamont. Another fiasco.) Also, even if boomers were politically engaged, the ideal was to remain clear of the bastions of power and privilege. Protest against the Man, don’t be part of the Man’s structure(until Saul Alinsky advised otherwise).

As such, many of the key musical figures of the Rock Era had limited involvement with the real world. In contrast, Sinatra was engaged in many areas. Not only did he make it in music but he became a movie star. He was also associated with gangsters who reputedly helped his career a few times, which became the basis of Johnny Fontaine in THE GODFATHER, another reminder of what the boomers really became. He also played the role of middleman between the mafia and politicians. Though he came to prominence in more ‘innocent’ times(before the crazy Sixties) — it’s as if US went from less innocence to more naivete —, he was more comfortable with compromise and corruption as ways of the world. Yet, despite all this, he too fell under the illusion that he was on the side of angels because he supported the right causes(such as Civil Rights) and became close with Mr. Camelot John F. Kennedy. His sins would be washed away with the right connections. But then, the Kennedy brothers turned against the mafia(that had helped rig the election), and Sinatra found himself on the outside. It wasn’t long before he was supporting Ronald Reagan as governor and Nixon for president. He had truly become the Chairman of the Board. He also got entangled with the likes of Mia Farrow.

Boomer hippies romanticized about going back to nature, as if Fountain of Youth was waiting for them in the New Eden of Woodstock. After three days, Woodstock became a disaster zone. And, eking out a living from trees and dirt was no cakewalk. In the end, real potential was in the cities that Sinatra sang about: Chicago, his kind of town, and San Francisco, where he left his heart. And of course, New York, to which Albert Brooks is headed in LOST IN AMERICA. Blacks sure gained more from moving to cities than American Indians did by remaining in rural reservations.

Sinatra’s signature song was perhaps “My Way”, which is loaded with the contradiction that, to do it your way, you must join the company. Boomer ideal was to be personal, authentic, true to oneself without compromise. But just about all boomers who ended up doing anything became the suits. Perhaps a timeless truth about the nature of power, one which the boomers thought they could finally cast aside, only to end up, like Albert Brooks in LOST IN AMERICA, discovering the Real America by heading back to the city with high rises, high-paying jobs, and connections that matter. George Lucas built an empire independent of Hollywood and did it his way… only to churn out very Hollywood-ish movies playing to age-old conventions of pleasing the crowd. And he sold his personal dream to Disney.

One of the reasons Sinatra fell out of favor in the Sixties was that, despite his political credentials of being a good progressive, he had ties to the mafia. This didn’t jibe well with the New Frontier thinking of the Kennedy era and beyond. And yet, fast forward to today, and the Power Boomers no longer need to be associated with the mafia because they are gangsters or gangstoids themselves. In a way, Michael Corleone was naive about going legitimate and turning away from organized crime. There’s a better way: Legalize the criminal vices, and all that was once illegit becomes legit. Just like that. With gambling legalized just about everywhere, we are living in Sinatrapolis. And given the state of US foreign policy as dictated by Jewish boomers, the old mafia seem like small potatoes, hopeless amateurs. In 2020, the system cynically employed black thugs and Antifa to burn down cities just to gain a few percentage points in the black vote and to embarrass Trump. And Big Pharma has proven to be a global-gangster operation under the Covid Regimen: They made the world an offer it can’t refuse.

And yet, triumphalism isn’t what Sinatra-ism is about. Even in the song, “My Way”, there is a note of melancholy and resignation as well as pride and defiance. It’s not about a man who always got to do things his way and feels exultant. Rather, it has the sound of man who betrayed or abandoned so many dreams but still managed to make it to the finish line and keep something to call his own. It’s more a song of survival than victory. And especially his later songs are more about the mood after-the-party than during it. A sense that no matter how intense the moment, it will burn out and lights will dim and life will go on as it always has. That is the beauty and sadness of BABY IT’S YOU’s final moment, and maybe a saving grace for the boomers as well.

Whit Stillman and the Philosophy of Dance

 

“Before disco, this country was a dancing wasteland. You know the Woodstock generation of the 1960s that were so full of themselves and conceited? None of those people could dance.” – Charlotte

Whit Stillman’s films are mainly known for their dialogue and have been compared with the works of Eric Rohmer. And yet, music plays a key role in their themes of civilizational anxiety. If some artists focused on the cracks of desperation on the facade of bourgeois respectability or social conformism(like in FAR FROM HEAVEN and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD), Stillman traced the lingering remnants of conservatism in a world committed to ceaseless change. And especially given the character of American Conservatism — to conserve the engines of free enterprise that facilitates nonstop constructive destruction — , there’s hardly any respite, let alone sanctuary, for the true conservative.

William F. Buckley held a stop sign to a locomotive moving at full speed but was in love with its very engine. Therefore, true conservatism is hopeless in America(and modern West in general) as everything is in constant flux amidst vast changes beyond the control of any individual or institution. And yet, vestiges of conservatism remain at the margins as part of human nature, more so among those with certain dispositions. Thus, for Stillman conservatism is less a political philosophy than a style and approach to life. It’s telling that the socialist in METROPOLITAN fits in very well with the hierarchy. At the very least, he has the manners and a sense of honor(that even leads him to call out the dragon to save the damsel). And in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, the 70s music scene associated with shameless homos, salacious blacks, and tasteless goombas(mainly due to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER) is presented as something like neo-camelot for the well-heeled and privileged.

Some of the songs in METROPOLITAN are by black singers, not exactly a marker of high society, but there is royalty in any kind of excellence. And, despite the story being set in 1969, the songs featured are of an earlier period, as if the Summer of Love and Woodstock never happened. (Keeping with tradition can be regarded as behind-the-times but also timeless, and the casual viewer could be forgiven for thinking the story is set in another time, earlier or later. In this, METROPOLITAN has something in common with David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET that seems set in the 80s but stuck in the 50s, or early 60s. When the film came out in 1990, the initial impression was of an upper crust variation of John Hughes brat pack movies. Given budget limitations, Stillman didn’t dwell much on period details and one could almost believe it was about some hidden socialite corner in the here-and-now. Stillman could be mistaken for a youngster himself when, in fact, he was a boomer born in 1952, nearing forty when he finished his first film. But then, John Hughes was even older and faked his rapport with 1980s youth.)

Since the Jazz Age, it’s been commonplace for whites to draw inspiration from black music, which had both a sharpening and loosening effect, like a strange drug. In one way, it could mean getting down and dirty, crude and vulgar, all nasty and shit. And yet, there was also hopeful desire to encourage or elevate blackness toward finer sentiments and higher passion. Some blacks internalized this, becoming self-consciously arty and turning jazz from popular idiom into bona fide art music. It was as if blacks had the voice and energy, but whites(many of them Jewish composers) had the finer sensibility.

For METROPOLITAN, Stillman chose black songs that are kinder and gentler, with emotions not so out-of-place in the world of Jane Austen. From Stillman’s quirky perspective, perhaps, there’s an overlap between the black world and the WASP(or UHB) world. Both exist in the margins, privileged or not. It is the late Sixties, when blacks were making the climb while the Wasps were beginning to feel the slip, but with neither commanding the center of American Life, up for grabs and soon to fall into the hands of Jews. (Even today, Wasp elite sentimentality toward blacks and hostility toward white ‘deplorables’ may derive from such mindset. If Wasps are to relinquish power and privilege, then blacks, with their soulful history of injustice and just being soulful, are more deserving than the ‘insensitive’ masses of ‘redneck’ truck drivers and ‘white trash’ with MAGA hats.)

METROPOLITAN is somewhat like AMERICAN GRAFFITI for high society youth. If George Lucas’ film depicts the more ‘innocent’ Sixties before everything blew up with drugs, race riots, and the Vietnam War, METROPOLITAN is like the last hurrah(or final whimper) of the socialite culture. Higher up in society, they could afford to be somewhat aloof and remain less affected by events on the ground; still, social changes have seeped into this world as well in lifestyle and attitudes — Nick Smith(Chris Eigeman) hallucinates to mescaline, albeit gazing at a Babar comic book. It’s also like a minuscule version of THE LEOPARD(by Luchino Visconti) though with comic than tragic overtones; it’s as if they’re doing it for appearances for maybe the last time before their world becomes a museum piece.

Though we don’t see much dancing, the gatherings often center around debutante balls(or whatever such are called). These gatherings are in stark contrast with the kind of dance usually associated with the late Sixties where hippies, high on drugs, moved their bodies anyway they felt like(in tune with the cosmic groove?) On the evidence of GIMME SHELTER(The Rolling Stones film), maybe drugs-and-dancing should be avoided like drinking-and-driving. Though a key event in the Summer of Love billed itself as the Gathering of the Tribe, there was little that was tribal(in the real sense) among the hippies who were too loose to establish a lasting community. After all, tribal societies tend to be rather rigid and demanding, than trivial and libertine. Dancing in a primitive tribal setting serves a purpose. It could have spiritual significance or serve as a rite-of-passage. It’s not something youths do just for the hell of it. Even though the world of high society is far removed from primitivism, there is a link between the tribal village and high civilization in their observances of rites and rituals, in their insistence on cultural significance regarding certain acts. In METROPOLITAN, the young men and women aren’t just hanging out for fun but keeping with a tradition that has been handed down(and ideally should go on indefinitely). They aren’t merely of the whims of the moment but the bonds of history, which is perhaps why the betrayals of parents(though hardly seen) are especially painful as they failed in their duty to the graceful transition between generations.

For Stillman, dance-as-ritual is key to civilizational health. Without dance, society is stuffy and repressed, its vitality stifled. But then, dancing also poses a threat to civilizational order with its summoning of animal spirits and sensual delights. John the Baptist surely got nothing out of Salome’s dance. For this reason, Stillman prefers a kind of philosophy of dance, a compromise or even a compact between the exciting animal spirits and the sensible man-made rules.

The dance cultures of METROPOLITAN and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO are light years apart but have in common a sense of form and standards. The young men and women go about their lives in METROPOLITAN mostly oblivious to the cultural upheavals of the Sixties(rather like the mafia guys in GOODFELLAS), and the characters who frequent the club in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO act as though the Sixties never happened. The most memorable dance moment in METROPOLITAN is a casual cha-cha-cha, a much forgotten number. The characters are hopelessly but charmingly are out of time. In contrast, the boys and girls in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO are very much with-the-time(though to realize at the end that disco vanished as quickly as it appeared, and they are suddenly find themselves out-of-time), but what the older forms of dance and disco have in common is a sense of definition and criteria. No wonder SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was about a dance contest. Can anyone imagine a hippie dance contest?

Though disco was no one’s idea of conservatism, it did come with a set of standards and hierarchy. It wasn’t just about dancing anyway you felt like but dancing well. And even though the disco look soon became the look, there were do’s and don’ts. You couldn’t be sloppy like the people at Woodstock. Not for nothing did Mike Royko write a column about confusing a hobo with a hippie.

Not that THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO has much in common with SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. (The John Travolta movie was the biggest thing associated with disco, but Josh is disdainful of it. If anything, the characters seem to cherish the exclusivity of their favorite haunt. While the club in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER is open to anyone, even an ex-priest and fat girls who can’t dance, the very appeal of the club in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO it’s so damned hard to get in. Even the self-designated socialist can’t believe his good fortune.) Stillman seems to have a natural aversion to Deplorables and isn’t a true conservative but a conservatoid. For him, conservatism is less a matter of core values than style, look, and feel. It’s the kind of ‘conservatism’ that might argue ‘gay marriage’ is ‘conservative’ because some homosexuals dress well, maintain well-kept lawns, and salute the flag(while serving in the deep state). Just like Stillman would rather not think about the messy and slovenly Sixties, he almost never touches upon the white working class. Even though his films are mostly about well-heeled whites(mainly wasps), there is a nod to blacks(at least in music and as dancers); also, the honest working man is depicted by Negroes in DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. Just about the only reference to the white working class is the image of rough looking types with ‘Disco Sucks’ T-shirts and TV footage of proto-deplorables who took part in Steve Dahl’s DISCO DEMOLITION, a precursor to the 1/6 ‘Insurrection’, or Deep State Demolition.

Stillman is about hierarchy, and he appreciates the world of style, manners, and knowledge. Even the socialist in METROPOLITAN may be egalitarian in thought but elitist in manners and erudition. As for blacks, Stillman regards them as the royalty of popular music. Of course, we’re not talking of gangster rap and the like, which Stillman most probably doesn’t care for. But there was a time when black music aspired to higher emotions than just wallowing in the morass of ‘muh dick’ and ‘muh booty’. Back then, they were the Duke of Earl(at least on stage) than Da Kang of Bling. Whiling away in a hospital(over what turns out to be a trifle), Charlotte Pingress(Kate Beckindale), the most amoral and conniving character(though rivaled by Des McGrath), begins to sing “Amazing Grace”, either exhibiting her softer side or her self-delusion(that she has any redemptive bone in her body); still, if she’s a phony, she’s a ‘real phony'(like Holly Golightly in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S) because she sincerely believes in all her self-justifying rationalizations. But on another level, the use of the song could be an allusion to the slave trade and the complex relationship between whites and blacks, though disco is too fun and happy for anyone to think about anything.

THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is mostly apolitical — the only explicitly ideological character is the IQ-conscious socialist Dan Powers(aka Departmental Dan), an object of mild mockery — , and the characters could be Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or depends-on-the-issue types. What matters is status, prestige, and position, which back then were possessed or accessible through many more options, which is no longer the case. In our time, just about the only path to elite prestige/position is through the Democratic Party and globalist ‘values’. The GOP is still well-represented in government but only electorally through the votes of the white middle and working class(and even the poor). All other pathways to privilege and power require one to be a Democrat, a self-abasing RINO(who caves to Democrats at every turn), or a Neocon(who has the backing of super-rich Zionists who take care of their attack dogs). Even though Democratic domination of elite institutions has a long history, one could gain position and respectability as a conservative in the Cold War era. Many more views were acceptable and tolerated on a host of controversial issues. There were holdouts in academia and media for people with views that could get anyone ‘canceled’ in an instant today. One could even be an ‘Arabist’ and hold high position. There was a time when Pat Buchanan was one of the most widely read columnists in America. One could admire Robert E. Lee and hold critical views of nonwhites. And of course, the Cold War reserved a place for the American Right. Today, they tear down Robert E. Lee monuments, and even whites in the South just hunker down in shame or cowardice.

This sad state of affairs for the Republicans might be traced back to Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon who played hard for the white working class and southern white vote(even though neither man was a strong social conservative). While rank-and-file Republicans may be about core values, the elites of the movement always put status and social approval above all else. They figure, what’s the point of being conservative if one can’t enjoy the fruits of privilege and respect, which nowadays only come by the way of globo-homo and the like. If the problem with conservatism in the past was it couldn’t win over enough ordinary people, the problem today is it offers little to snobs and social-climbers. The biggest problem for the GOP is it’s toxic to the elitist-minded.

Country Club Republicans and the moderate wing were okay with someone like Dwight Eisenhower who didn’t take a particularly strong stand on anything. This way, the Republicans could gravitate toward whatever was fashionable among the movers and shakers. Increasingly, the white working class and southern whites were falling out of favor among the elites, but Nixon appealed to both hard in 1968 and 1972(though his policies ended up stabbing both in the back). Fast forward to the future, and the GOP is downright apologetic about its two electoral pillars being the white middle and southern whites. If American politics were genuinely democratic or populist, this wouldn’t matter, but the real power is held by the elites, and GOP’s appeal to them is hampered by its reliance on the two most disreputable groups in America: The Deplorables as lowlife losers and Southern Whites as ‘redneck-white-supremacist-racists’. Why does this matter? Because in winning over those groups, GOP became radioactive to the elites and wanna-be-elites whose values came to be directed toward homo-celebration and black-worship under increasing Jewish domination.

While the characters in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO could still conceivably be Republican, all such well-educated urban types today in New York and other big cities would certainly be Democratic. In the short run, the loss of the white working class to the GOP was a big blow to the Democrats, but it was also cut the party loose from deference to corrupt Labor Unions and economic nationalism. By adopting ‘free trade’ and deregulation, Democrats could be more acceptable to Big Capital that relished the moral high-ground held by the Democratic Party. And, end of the Cold War meant the Democrats could no longer be accused of being ‘soft on communism’, and the shift from Big Labor to Big Capital meant the Democrats no longer needed to pander to losers and could finally bank on the winners of society. And over time, immigration would diminish the electoral power of the white working class at any rate. And now, we are told the American middle class has less wealth than the top 1% that is solidly in the Democratic aisle.

Of course, even as GOP depends on Deplorable votes, it does little but pander to the super-rich even more than the Democrats do. Why do the successful lean heavily to the Democrats? It’s because the elites are nothing without conceit of superiority, not only economically and culturally but morally. And as the post-ideological America re-conceptualized morality and values in terms of special identities, mainly centered around Jewish, black, and homosexual, the elites and wanna-be-elites naturally go along. Of course, education played a key role in this, and there are plenty of people with no elite aspirations who nevertheless spout the same nonsense coming from the ivory tower. Still, the main reason why kids of elites study so hard has less to with love of truth and knowledge than want of success and acceptance, though they’re too self-deluded to realize this.

The reason why many white haute-conservatives went over to the Democratic Party is mostly about status. Take Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Why did he vote for Obama? And why did National Review magazine turn into National Disgrace? How come the new ‘conservatives’ are so eager to flash their pro-homo credentials? Some on the Right believe hierarchy = conservatism, but elitism can come in many flavors, especially if the elites don’t have to practice what they preach. Christianity had a long run among European nobility because they didn’t have to act very Christian. They only needed to signal their sanctimony once in awhile. And it’s usually enough just to show that you support BLM and globo-homo(and got many covid shots) without actually having to live in da hood or take it up the arse as a badge of honor in the Current Year. Whit Stillman, a conservative by sentiment than core conviction, is mostly about sniffing for the vestiges of conservatism(real or delusional) in a world where conservatism is all but dead.

The elitism in METROPOLITAN is plain to see(however doomed it may be), but it takes a special kind of mentality to maintain the facade of conservatism/hierarchy in the post-60s age. Then, it’s no surprise that the theorists of dance in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO and DAMSELS IN DISTRESS are borderline cuckoo. Most people into Disco never gave it much thought. Thinking about disco is like bringing a book to a rock concert. Disco just happened. And soon, even non-disco acts got into the act, with the Rolling Stones releasing SOME GIRLS and Rod Stewart singing about people wanting his body. And given its Afro-funkery and homo-narcissism, it was no one’s idea of conservatism or respectability. But for Josh Neff(called ‘loon’ by on/off friend Des), it’s more than the latest trend or fashion in music. “I love the idea that there’d be all these great places for people to go dancing after the terrible social wasteland of our college years… I still consider myself a loyal adherent to the disco movement.”

Now, ‘movement’ implies something radical, like the French Revolution, and there is a morally zealous and reformist side to Josh that evokes Robespierre. It could be his zeal to fight corruption is an extension of his own struggle with inner demons. However, in his need for form and order, there is a semblance of conservative sensibility as well. There are facets to Josh’s character that can lean radical or conservative. Depending on where his mood, he could be a hardline crusader or a defender of propriety.

If this is conservatism, it is of oddballs who don’t quite fit into the normal world but don’t want to surrender to anarchy either. Perhaps, a kind of paradox comes into play among certain natural weirdos. While some weirdos are happy in their weirdness, others are acutely aware that something about them is off and is in need of balance & stability. The character of Des takes his normality for granted, indeed so much so that he plays loose and gets reckless at times. Why not take chances when he can easily go back to being boringly normal again? In contrast, normality is something Josh has to constantly grasp for through mental discipline, medication, dedication to rules, and the philosophy of disco(perhaps as only he sees it)… but then, there are some who see ‘conservative’ messages in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, so he’s not alone. Thus, oddly enough, the ‘loon’ is the most righteous and ‘normal’ character in the film.

Some critics dumped on the film for being rather staid and square for a disco movie, but they missed the point. It’s not about disco but how members of a social class one wouldn’t naturally associate with disco nevertheless find their own existential meaning from it. Stillman is a sort of disconservative, or discon.

DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, one of the funniest films I’ve seen, has a similar character, both funnier and more disturbing. If Josh is borderline ‘loon’, Violet(Greta Gerwig) is a functional nutter. Granted, the film is a comedy whereas THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO is drama with comedic touches. Several roles in DAMSELS IN DISTRESS are caricatures than characters, and the situations are often set up for laughs. And yet, pathos also come into play. Violet, though pleasantly goofy and upbeat in her helpfulness, is really quite fragile and walks a mental tightrope, and we stop laughing when she spirals into depression and contemplates suicide.

One reason for her eagerness to help others is as a distraction from her own problems. And she’s obsessed with dance forms(as opposed to mere dancing) as a mediator between chaos and civilization. Dancing brings out the animal spirits, but dance-forms give them shape and erect fences around the barbarism inherent in music/dance. She’s like Nurse Ratched and Randall McMurphy(of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST) rolled into one. If the vulgarized form of Foucaultism says to let loose your inner craziness, Stillmanism says to strive for normality and clarity through the mental fog even if it is an insurmountable Sisyphean feat. The nobility is in the struggle than in the surrender.

There is nothing to suggest POLITICAL conservatism in DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, but as in THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, there is a conservatoid yearning for form and meaning rooted in tradition. While Violet’s fixations may not be a red-blooded right-wing patriot’s idea of conservatism, it is distinct from the liberal tendency of letting go and abandoning oneself to the ‘liberation’ of senses. Even as she’s drawn to the sensuality and excitement of dance, she needs the security of rules and standards. She’s open to change, the evolution of dance, but feels most at home with dance forms requiring technique and training. (The flamenco-inflected dances in BARCELONA are also big on proper form and technique. Sensuality contained in tradition.)

I haven’t paid much attention to dance trends over the years, and I’m sure one can find plenty of young ones doing impressive things in countless music videos, but dances that come to my mind over the years are the retarded punk dance(where people just pile onto each other like the demolition derby), 80s club dancing(without any distinct form), bumping-and-grinding(especially with the rise of hip hop), heavy metal hair-shaking & beer-burping, and of course, ‘twerking’ of late where women, especially black ho’s with big booties(though some homo men seem to get into it too) pump their asses up and down like they’re having sex. Stillman is obviously too much of a gentleman(or craven coward) to touch to on the black problem — he’d rather swoon about early 60s black songs and philosophize about the disco era — and falls back on associating barbarism with Steve Dahl’s Disco Demolition crowd or the beer-can frat boys who don’t bathe enough(at least with the proper soap) and wage inter-frat war on those aspiring toward better taste. Still, given what has happened to the culture of dance — mostly skankass ho’s ‘twerking’ their asses or simulating sexual motions than being seductive — , Stillman’s philosophy of dance may seem quaint, but it is also like an oasis, the last refuge of some semblance of sentiment, manners, and form in a world gone totally sheboonic.

“Disco will never be over. It will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this, that was this big, and this important, and this great, will never die. Oh, for a few years – maybe many years – it’ll be considered passé and ridiculous. It will be misrepresented and caricatured and sneered at, or – worse – completely ignored. People will laugh about John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, white polyester suits and platform shoes…” – Josh

Jared Taylor ponders, ‟Black Crime: Why Our Rulers Hide It‟. He should also ponder, ‟Jewish Power, Why I Won‛t Address It‟

Black Crime: Why Our Rulers Hide it.

Hiding the truth is an essential part of this colossal fraud of pretending that this multi-racial society is going to work and — worst of all — that if it isn’t working it’s *our* fault. We’re supposed to believe that blacks and Guatemalans and Muslims would be just like us if only we would be nice to them. You can’t build a nation by hiding the truth. You destroy a nation by hiding the truth. And that is exactly what’s happening to the United States.

BLACK CRIME: WHY OUR RULERS HIDE IT - American Renaissance

"Black Crime: Why Our Rulers Hide It"

Okay... but how about "Jewish Power: Why Jared Taylor Won't Name It"

So much truth and untruth. In the above remark, Jared Taylor's standing as a bold critic and his reputation as a craven cuck both come into focus. In the video, he goes on and on about black violence and crime, something all of us in the racial-reality-sphere is well aware of. I suspect plenty of Democrats, mainstream Republicans, and 'censorals'(which are what so-called censorship-crazed 'liberals' really are) know the actual facts on the ground as well, but as 'Blaconography' and 'Blacrements' are of the pseudo-spirituality of the age, it would be neo-blasphemous to speak the obvious.

How could anyone fail to notice that black violence and criminality are the main causes of urban decay? But then, even as people's gut feelings are informed by raw reality, their deep sense of Good vs Evil and the Sacred vs the Profane are instilled and cultivated by indoctrination, narratives, rapture, & idolatry/iconography; and the academia & media that offer glowing images and moving tales are in the hands of the Anti-Whites. So, even as one may be rattled as a witness or victim of black street crime, such is an animal response. It's intense and powerful but hardly inspiring or uplifting. At the very least, if race-ist(meaning race + ism = belief in the reality of race and racial differences) realities were accepted as common knowledge, people could honestly process instances of black violence they've either witnessed, heard about(from friends, family members, or co-workers), or experienced. But, because what should be a matter of open knowledge and discussion is suppressed by the taboo mechanism of Negrolatry, mental processes simply fail among many who feel dirty and 'sinful' for their negative emotions and fears(about foul Negro behavior).

So, they draw themselves even nearer to the narratives and idolatry of Black Sacredness to repress their inner 'racist' doubts about the project of racial integration and America finally realizing redemption and true greatness through the Sacred Negro Heart. After all, MLK is now bigger than all the white men of US history, and Harriet Tubman than all the white women. 'Good' whites have been taught that white 'racism' once denied justice and opportunity to innately noble blacks(who have real souls whereas whites got 'holes' instead), and therefore, whites must profusely beg forgiveness and mend past wrongs by making ever bigger gestures of atonement.
No wonder then that one of the great white fantasies is to root for black success, triumph, and riches, indeed to want blacks to succeed more than oneself and one's people. Take Michelle Obama, an affirmative action fool, but she is the idol of so many urban-gentry white women who feel personally invested in her success(despite bogusly acquired) on account that Michelle Obama represents what Harriet Tubman could have been had she lived in a just society.
Now, there's nothing wrong with rooting for past underdogs to do well in the present, but the sheer exaggeration of black achievements is way out of proportion, what with so-called 'well-educated liberals' solemnly intoning about Neil DeGgrassie Tyson as a great scientific mind or pretending Tehinisi Coates or Ibrahim Kendi X are 'intellectual heavyweights' and our moral betters. In just about every white American heart, there is a tug-of-war between the reality of black thuggery and the myth of black nobility, with no resolution in sight(except in sports and rap, where the thug-factor is a big turn-on for jungle-feverish whites in awe of black toughness). For one to accept the reality, one must do away with the myth of Negro Nobility, and to maintain the myth, one must suppress the facts of black thuggery. Generally, people like warmth more than cold, and facts are often cold and hard, whereas myths glow with hope and dreams. Unless the facts are overwhelming and inescapable, people generally favor the myth, and this is why so many whites are so hopeless in their fantasies of the Negro as a figure of divinity, like with Morgan Freeman dispensing hickory-smoked wisdom long-forgotten by whites and retrievable only through the Negro soul.

So many people, including plenty of so-called ‘conservatives’, willfully or disingenuously disregard the facts about race, and people like Jared Taylor certainly have a leg-up on them on matters of racial truth. But, Taylor’s blind-spot blocks him from realizing he’s guilty of the same failing that he accuses the ‘woke’ and cucky whites of. Perhaps, it’s not a blind-spot but a sensitive issue he is very much aware of but overlooks for the time being for strategic reasons, i.e. eventually the ultra-rich and high-IQ Jews will see the light and realize their future can only be secured in an alliance with whites.
But, it seems less a strategy than a matter of desperation, like the Hail Mary pass in the last seconds of the fourth quarter of a football game. After all, the clock is running out for the white race, and there are no signs that Jews will ever regard whites as equal partners or even junior partners. Jews must have their ethno-supremacist hegemonism over the world, and whites are acceptable only as servants, agents, managers, and soldiers(or dogs and horses).

Perhaps, Jews are gravely miscalculating their future odds by pinning their supremacist dominance on the subjugation and humiliation of whites(though, of course, the white collaborators, or House Honkeys, are fulsomely rewarded with carrots), but that’s how they think and operate. At the very least, Jewish forecast of future events, however misguided it may be, is nevertheless far less delusional and demented than the white race-realist hope that there will one day be a secular conversion of the Jews towards a defense of the white race and civilization.
In other words, Jewish delusions are still less nutty than those of Jared Taylor, John Derbyshire, and the like. In the 1980s and 1990s, whites on the American Right may have felt encouraged with their inroads into the Jewish Community, but what they ended up with were the Neocons. Besides, it wasn’t so much a case of the American Right winning over the Jews but Jews worming into the American Conservatism to remake it into yet another vehicle(and battleship) for Jewish Power.
Indeed, the ONLY racial angle that Neocons ever cared about was Jewish identity and interests embodied by Zionism and Yinonism. Neocons, insistent upon whites serving Jews, worked with Neo-Lib Jews to suppress any last vestige of white identity, pride, and interests. Neocons weren’t Jews allied with white conservatives against Jewish so-called Liberals but Jewish ‘conservatives’ working with Jewish ‘liberals’ behind the scenes to manipulate white conservatives into serving Jews, much like how Jewish ‘liberals’ had manipulated white liberals for the same purpose. Neocons fulfilled the Jewish Dream of gaining total control of both political parties. Democratic Party had traditionally been the base of Jewish Power, and the GOP became yet another Jewish tool through the machinations of Neocons who ran circles around the likes of Bill Buckley who proved to be weak men.

Over time, patterns emerge, and one can't help but notice Taylor has been willfully leaving out the Jewish Factor in his criticism and commentary. This seems odd when the group most responsible for his marginalization and deplatforming has been Jewish. Is Taylor fearful of Jews? They’ve done much to destroy his life and reputation, but can they do even more to totally break him? Or, is Taylor’s last conceit of ‘respectability’ — “At least, I'm not like David Duke or Richard Spencer” — , which gains him access to a few venues available for American Renaissance conferences, so precious to him that he won’t go all the way and name the Jewish Power, whereupon he will be shut out from absolutely everything?

At any rate, there are parallels between the Jewish Strategy and the Taylor Strategy. Jews(who control academia, media, deep state, and whore politicians) remain silent about black thuggery, criminality, and pathology for the same reason that Taylor remains silent about Jewish subversion, gangsterism, and pathology. An ulterior motive is at work in the tactical silence about certain topics to gain a bigger advantage. Jews-in-the-know(and most Jews know far more than they let on to the dimwit goyim) privately understand what Taylor means about racial differences and black problems. Jews have long done business with blacks, and they have as many gripes about blacks as blacks do about Jews. It’s true Jews fleeced many blacks, but blacks were often obnoxious, derelict, and unreliable(and whatever they earned, they blew on bling like idiots); and wherever possible, blacks stole and grabbed whatever they could from Jews. Jews know racial differences are real and all that. But that knowledge, if made public and acceptable, could undermine Jewish Power that relies so heavily on white cuckery to the Tribe.

Granted, even without whites cucking to Jews, Jews could be successful and wealthy on meritocracy alone, but Jewish Chutzpah-ism isn’t content to live with whites as equals or partners. No, Jews must have power over whites, and that means control. As it’s nearly impossible for Jews, a mere 2% of the population, to physically conquer and subdue the much larger white goy population, whites must be manipulated emotionally and ‘spiritually’; their hearts must be played like a violin. Jews figure they tried peaceful co-existence with white goyim, but it led to the Holocaust. (Of course, Jews omit the reasons as to why Germans and the like were driven to such hatred. If anything goes wrong between Jews and goyim, the Jewish Narrative would have us believe pure-as-snow Jews were suddenly pogromed by goyim-gone-mad, just like Mad Vlad Putin happened to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to invade Ukraine.) And so, Jews have decided they must rule over whites, especially Anglo-Americans and Germans.
With the latter, it’s easy as Germany has been the whore-puppet of the US since the end of World War II, and there’s also the Eternal Holocaust Guilt, which obliges Germans to suck up to Jewish demands at every turn, even if it means, ironically enough, lending material and moral support to Sub-Nazi elements in Ukraine being employed by Jews against Russia. With Anglos, the trick has mainly been to guilt-bait(and jungle-feverize) them with blackness for two reasons: Black Slavery in the South(and Jim Crow) and Black Stardom in popular music and sports. White Americans, amazed and dazzled by blacks in sports and music, are prone to feel guiltier about whatever wrongs were done to them. (Of course, Jews did their share in Western Imperialism, slave trade, and exploitation of blacks, but never mind.)

So, even though Jews know blacks are exceedingly problematic, they also see them as black gold as a leverage against whites. If Jews had to choose a white world and a black world to live in, they’d obviously choose the white one. With whites, they could have civilization and order. With blacks, they’d be surrounded by savages who would drive Jews crazy. But, the danger of living in an all-white world is that whites may come to resent Jews out of envy and/or aggrievement, and the worst case scenario for Jews is explosions of ‘antisemitism’ followed by exile(yet once again), or even something like the Shoah. So, ‘diversity’ is ideal for Jewish Power, especially one that involves whites and blacks as Jews could play one against the other. Blacks, for reasons stated above, are optimally useful to Jews for their over-representation in the visceral fields(which fills whites with admiration and awe) and in poverty(which can be blamed on ‘white supremacism’ or ‘systemic racism’).

Anyway, that is why Jewish control of academia/media is so invested in suppressing the facts about black pathology, thuggery, and criminality. Jared Taylor once surmised that once whites become cognizant of the real sources of black problems in the civilizational setting — combination of lower IQ, higher aggression, and jive-ass nature — , the power of ‘white guilt’ will begin to fade. They will realize most black problems stem from nature rather than history.
Now, we can understand why blacks would object to such knowledge for reasons of pride and grift. Black egotism or Afromania is too vain and boastful to admit there’s anything wrong with blacks or blackness, and blacks know a good thing when they see one: ‘White Guilt’ is the golden goose for black race-hustlers.
Of course, there’s also the element of fear as whites are frightened of black riots and rampages, but then white fear doesn’t lead to (re)action precisely because of the paralysis of ‘white guilt’. After all, whites have long feared black thuggery and red savagery(out in the Western frontier), but they reacted with equal or greater violence in the past because whites weren’t burdened by the ‘guilt’ thing. But because of Negrolatry and white reverence for blacks(even for a lowlife scum like George Floyd), white fear doesn’t burn as white rage and reaction but shrivels into flaccidity at the feet of BLM charlatans.

Taylor has acknowledged how blacks exploit ‘white guilt’, but why won’t he discuss how Jews are also invested in it for their own interests? Why is Taylor so chicken to name the Jewish Power? Or, does he tell himself that it’s really just a matter of strategy because, as things surely get worse, the smart-and-rich Jews will have no choice but to come over to the white side, and the Ju-White Alliance will seal the deal for the future of the hu-white race?
Whatever his reasoning or motives, the fact is Jews have the intelligence of Episcopalians but the character of Sicilians. With Jews, the Rule of Law becomes a matter of Lawfare(or Jewfare), or manipulating the law as a political and/or racial weapon. Too many Jewish judges and lawyers(and of course journalists) act like mafia dons, bosses, and hitmen without any sense of principle or honor(unless absolute loyalty to the Tribal supremacism counts as some kind of higher value).

Perhaps, Jews are just as deluded in their Jewish-Black Alliance as Taylor is in his dream of Ju-White Alliance, but there it is, incontestably so, and only a fool, liar, or coward would claim otherwise. Taylor’s running cover for Jews when Jews beat him with a stick is downright pathetic, up there with Donald Trump sucking up to Jews while they ram him in the arse. It’s all the worse because Taylor, a totally vilified figure with zero respectability in mainstream circles, has nothing to lose by naming the Jewish Power.

Furthermore, it’s not necessarily true that naming the Jewish Power will lead to the fate of David Duke who, by the way, ruined his reputation for life not so much by criticizing Jewish Power but by playing silly games with the KKK and the like. Nicolas Fuentes, despite being banned from just about everything, has been gaining in popularity because he’s a straight shooter on matters of power and how that power is often used for tribal purposes. Noticing and criticizing Jewish Power need not be associated with KKK or Neo-Nazis or such tomfoolery.

Perhaps, as the saying goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and Taylor is simply of a generation that can’t break free of the spell. They remember a time when Anglo-Americans ruled and Jews were ascendant(yet not dominant), when a Jewish-White alliance based on mutual respect and understanding was a possibility. That ship sailed a long time ago. As such, when the likes of Taylor and Pat Condell go on and on about Muslims, it’s worse than delusional; it’s downright pathetic.
Besides, even as Jews find anti-Muslim feelings among whites to be politically advantageous — Jewish ploy is always make-goy-fight-goy, and it sure comes in handy for Neocons when white dummies are led to fight Wars for Israel against Arabs/Muslims — , they also find it a bit unnerving. The way Jews see it, expressions of ‘Islamophobia’ are eerily a variation of ‘antisemitism’ of yesteryear. Today, it’s hate-the-Muslim-Semites, but it wasn’t all that long ago when Western hostilities were directed at Jewish Semites. Jews have opined numerous times that they dread to live in an all-white society as there is always the chance that whites will turn against Jews. Perhaps, Jews are being paranoid, but the history of Jewish-White relations hasn’t always been easy or pleasant, to say the least. Also, despite endless warnings about ‘antisemitism’, I suspect many Jews know full well that anti-Jewish feelings often result from anti-goy deeds by Jews. But, just as the cult of BLM always makes blacks out to be the victims, the current orthodoxy holds that Jews are never in the wrong vis-a-vis goyim(especially whites) and no blame must ever be placed at the feet of Jews.

If Taylor were honest, he would admit he is guilty of the very same thing he accuses the elites of academia/media/government of. He too is selective with facts and omits certain issues from the discussion. Jews know their power rests on white submission, which is secured via ‘white guilt’ mainly about blacks(and so, we have endless media lamentations about Emmett Till). In addition, as Jewish Power and Wealth are now so excessive, Jews sensationalize the bogeyman of ‘white privilege’ and ‘systemic racism’ as misdirection from the fact that the West is ruled by Jewish Supremacism and Zionist Exceptionalism. When it’s not Evil Whitey, it’s Russia-Russia-Russia, with some side servings of China-China-China and Iran-Iran-Iran. Any trick to make goyim in the West bark at anything other than Jewish Power(and its key allies, homos and blacks). Frame it all on whites.

But, Taylor plays the same game. In a kind of battered-wife-syndrome, cucky Taylor is like a wife who clings to the hope that her abusive husband will return to her, and they can live happily ever after. People like Jared Taylor and John Derbyshire long ago concluded that Jews are not only rich and powerful but indispensable because whites rely on Jewish brilliance, wit, and genius to make Western Civilization work. So, just like the father awaiting the return of the Prodigal Son, the likes of Taylor pray for the Prodigal Jew to finally see the light and embrace their fellow-whiteness and use their genius, influence, and wealth for the security of white folks. And so, the whole truth and nothing but the truth are never to be expected from people like Taylor. They will mention blacks, Muslims, Latinos, Asians, and etc. but they will ignore the 800 lb Jewish Gorilla in the room because their strategy hinges on the change of the Jewish heart.

JARED TAYLOR || PHILADELPHIA: DESTINATION FOR LAWLESSNESS