February 1, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

Confederate Symbols are American Symbols: Destroy One, You Imperil All – The Notable Work of Dr. Brion McClanahan

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Friends,

For some time I’ve been wanting to publicize the stellar work of Dr. Brion McClanahan. Brion, through his labors with The Abbeville Institute, his “Brion McClanahan Academy,” his podcast series “The Brion McClanahan Show,” and his several published books, has contributed mightily to educating our citizens not just about the American South and the War Between the States, but also about the history of the United States, its Founding and its cultural inheritance.

A number of my articles have been published by Abbeville; but hundreds of other thoughtful and well-written essays and studies by distinguished writers have seen the light there. Indeed, since we live in a society increasingly characterized by what we can only call an “historical totalitarian black out,” a black-listing and censuring of any thinking and writing that deviates from a rapidly-advancing Marxist Progressivist Left dogmatism, sites like the Abbeville Institute and a few others have become the slender means to read and understand a tradition-based and realistic appreciation of our Western and Christian history and culture.

When an understanding, appreciation and acceptance of God’s law and the laws of Nature, itself, cease, then society will become the slave of Satan and his minions. Or, to quote the great English poet and playwright, “If you will not have God—and he is a very jealous God—then you must pay your respects to Mr. Stalin or Mr. Hitler.”

Our society now faces that choice as never before. In 2016 it appeared that the very epigones and demons of Hell were preparing for the final coup de grace. The election of the Deep State New World Order “rough beast” candidate (William Butler Yeats’ image), Hillary Clinton,  would have given those “armies of the night” eight years to continue their nefarious work, cement control over the judiciary, and continue their total infiltration of the managerial bureaucracy that has controlled our lives. In short, it would have meant the final extinction of what was left of our God-given liberties.

That did not happen; instead, a hard-talking, bull-in-the-china shop billionaire from New York, Donald Trump, who was unpurchased and unbought, and, most importantly, unbound, was elected. And his success—which was the success of millions of downtrodden Americans, the “deplorables,” somehow aware of the precipitous decline and slide into totalitarianism—brought an incredibly unhinged and frenetic reaction from the Deep State, the New World Order partisans, and the George Soros cabal, so intent on finishing their work of secular globalism: the exact contrary of the historic Christian order.

By no means is President Trump a medieval “knight in shining armor.” He has his admitted faults; he’s a deal-maker and wheeler-dealer. Some of his dealing—for instance, his proposal to offer a “pathway to citizenship” for the DACA “dreamers”—is unacceptable to many of us. About the finer points of American history he is no scholar, about what are called “the conservative wars” (between those who are characterized as “conservatives”) he is unread. He is a trusting soul, and he trusts those who come to him, apparently honestly, but in fact who have secret agendas that are not his Make America Great Again agenda. Bringing in those people may be his greatest mistake.

Yet, his enemies are our enemies: Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the feminists and radical women’s movement, the LGBT types, the Hollywood Left, most of academia and the media, the wild-and-wooly cultural Marxists, the Democrats and the GOP slurpers who slurp at the hind tits of the Deep State (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, John McCain, the Neocon quasi-NeverTrumper, etc.). And the Donald’s essential instincts, his intuition, even against many of his advisors (people he has unfortunately trusted), have been the chief bulwarks that prevent even now the triumph of the renewed Deep State assault on the president and the presidency...and the end of our country and culture as we have known it.

I’ve pointed out before that the attack on Confederate and Southern symbols is just the tip of the iceberg; the Progressivist Left, the assembled demon forces of bloodthirsty and filthy Orcs whom we term the “Establishment,” have comprehended that those symbols and monuments and memorials are the easiest targets. But they are just the first targets in a multilevel, long range campaign to destroy and transform our culture and society. It is a strategy first formulated back in the 1920s by Communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci and others, that then was developed and instrumentalized by a group of Marxist Jewish academics (refugees from Nazi Germany) who set up shop at Columbia University in the 1930s. Their influence over our culture, in our understanding and writing of history, in such fields as psychology, sociology, and race and sex studies, has been tremendously influential and critical in shaping how our society thinks.

Yet, millions of Americans—those average citizens who work and make this country work and keep it going, many of those “deplorables”—were not part of this revolutionary movement of Progressivism. Indeed, the Progressivist Revolution, in its hasty panzer advance, had left them behind; after all, they did not possess “power,” they did not occupy significant positions that needed to be conquered and won over by the fanatical demons of the Deep State. 

But they still did vote…and in the depths of their consciousness they understood, if only vaguely, in November 2016 that “things weren’t right,” that they were being drowned and submerged in something that was not only the totalitarian end of their liberties, but the very perversion of their souls—the end of humanity not only as we have known it, but as God intended it to be.

That is why this battle for Confederate symbols is so extremely important. For there is a seamless unity between those particular symbols of and in our culture, and the symbols of the entirety of our culture and history. Those manifestations tell us who we have been and who we are; they are public expressions of our history and what we value.  The Progressivist Revolution is not just intent on erasing and removing the symbols of Confederate memory, but effacing and destroying all the traditional symbols of American history that do not fit its dogmatic, ideological standards on race and sex, as part of a concerted effort to change and transform our society and culture. And, in effect, it is the ultimate in rebellion against the God-given order and the laws of Nature.

This is precisely why we cannot “compromise” with the minions of the Left; for one cannot compromise with what essentially, at base, is a form of theological evil which seeks “the abolition of man.”

That is why the work of such champions as Dr. McClanahan is critical and why I recommend his labors to you.

Dr. Boyd D. Cathey

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American political discourse has become so irrational that having an intellectual discussion about any issue is nearly impossible. Just try on social media. This problem has been building for decades but has become more pronounced in the last several years. Perhaps the clearest example is the current attack on all things Confederate. Paul Graham's hilarious little book Confederaphobia: An American Epidemic (Shotwell Press, 2017) provides dozens of cases where people irrationally lost their minds at the mere sight of a Confederate symbol. He accurately labels this a "phobia," a mental disorder that can be cured but must be identified. No one blames spiders for arachnophobia or the number 13 for triskaidekaphobia, but Confederate symbols are fair game. The problem is, as Graham points out, a belief that these symbols have a "psychic power" over people. That is emotivism, a modern political trend that philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre masterfully explained in his After Virtue. "I feel" has replaced "I think" in political discourse. You cannot rationally address an issue if you are "feeling" rather than thinking. I once had a rabid feminist leftist professor smack down anyone who began a statement with "I feel." She wanted to be taken seriously, to have her thoughts rationally discussed, and saying "I feel" reduced them to emotion, and as a woman and a feminist, she thought it created an environment where people could reduce her to hysterics. It was sexist to say "I feel." This is no longer true. In fact, it could be argued that most issues in our "culture war" are byproducts of emotivism, including the assault on Confederate symbols. We don't have rational arguments over these issues because you cannot reason with people who, in the case of Confederate symbols, irrationally "hate" an inanimate object that cannot do anything to them. The same can be said for other cultural issues, and as more Americans vote with their heart rather than their minds--and as a result debate with "I feel" rather than "I think"--we are descending into an irrational political nightmare. The cure is education, but we cannot place our hopes in the "system," so it comes down to thinking outside the box, with educational websites like my  McClanahan Academy or  LearnTrueHistory.com, "think tanks" like the Abbeville Institute, Mises Institute, or the Tenth Amendment Center, podcasts like my Brion McClanahan Show and the Tom Woods Show, or by picking up some literature like Paul Graham's Confederaphobia or other Shotwell Press offerings, or of course any book by yours truly. I discuss all of this in Episode 138 of The Brion McClanahan Show. Don't forget, The Brion McClanahan Show is now being offered on video as well as audio. Go to my Youtube page and you can see the show as well as listen to the show. If you want Brion McClanahan Show gear with my new logo, go to my RedBubble store and pick up a t-shirt, pillow, clock, or stationary. There are several gifts to choose from and all help support the show. And if you do buy something, send me a picture of you with the product, and I'll share it on social media.