MISH has picked up on an important aspect of the recent job numbers that shouldn’t be overlooked. Not all sectors are shrinking…

190,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 263,000 jobs last month.
62,000 construction jobs were lost vs. 64,000 last month.
61,000 manufacturing jobs were lost vs. 51,000 last month.

Whereas,

45,000 education and health services jobs were added vs. 3,000 added last month.

Government jobs stayed steady, but, as MISH notes, “this trend is likely to reverse in a major way with as of yet unannounced son-of-stimulus and grandson-of-stimulus jobs packages.” Making stuff is out, working in hospitals and public schools is in. If the U.S. economy ever does recover, it will be changed utterly—and socialized to the hilt.   

Larry Auster offers a helpful digest version of the New York Times‘s coverage of the Fort Hood massacre:

A proud first generation American, born in Virginia, Nidal Hasan wanted nothing other than to serve his country. But the bigotry against Muslims that he encountered in the Army, plus the American occupation of Iraq, plus, finally, his anguish at being ordered to deploy to Iraq as part of the U.S. forces there, drove this deeply patriotic son of the Old Dominion to the point where he felt he had no choice but to launch a martydom operation against the U.S. Army and shoot down scores of his fellow soldiers.

The neopagan takeover of the GOP has begun.

Village Voice
Steven Thrasher, Nov. 4 2009

Holy Tyr! Queens voters made American history tonight, when they chose Dan Halloran as the nation’s first openly heathen elected official.

Halloran will serve as the City Council member from the 19th district, representing Bayside, Auburndale and part of Flushing. He and Kevin Kim were involved in a bruising campaign to the finish, which included many religious and racial fights and allegations.

Trips to both campaigns’ offices on Election Night revealed how different the two were. Shortly before the polls closed at the Kim campaign office, there was not one white person working there. Beneath a Shepard Fairey poster, a couple dozen Mandarin speaking volunteers hustled up rides to the polls on cell phones.

At Halloran HQ, there was hardly one non-white person, and the walls were adorned with ads for Tea Party protests.

And then comes my favorite two lines from the piece:

Ironically, one of the first things Halloran said when addressing his supporters after Kim conceded was “I could never have believed in my wildest dreams of the coalition we have put together.” It didn’t look like much of a diverse ‘coalition’ to us, unless you count the mix of heathens and Roman Catholics.

It’s called the “Takimag Strategy,” and apparently it can win in Queens!

(Our recent discussion of paganism and Christianity can be read here, here, and here.)

It’s worth noting that Halloran is a “King” (that is, high priest) of a New York sect of Theodism, also known as Ásatrú. No postmodern New Ager, Halloran, a former Roman Catholic, appears genuinely dedicated to re-discovering the original spirituality of Europe, and not simply embracing one more religious metaphor for egalitarianism.

So reports the website Religious Dispatches:

He received his BA from the City University of New York in History and Anthropology, and conducted archaeological field research in Ireland on the Norman and Viking periods. Like many Neopagans, who tend to read more and have higher levels of education than the average American, Halloran was drawn to the mythology and lore of ancient cultures that exposed him to an entirely different religious world than the one in which he was raised. Halloran’s particular fascination with ancient Germanic culture led him to Heathenism, a branch of contemporary Paganism devoted to the beliefs and practices of Northern European cultures.

We should learn more about Halloran before deeming him some kind of AltRight champion; however, from the little I’ve learned so far, Halloran already strikes me as infinitely more interesting then this Doug Hoffman fellow, whom the conservative movement has fetishized in the most stupid and embarrassing of ways. As I wrote yesterday, Hoffman represents less of a “conservative insurgency” then a reminder of just how widespread mainstream Republican milk-toastology actually is. Embracing Third World immigrants, promoting consumerism, and practicing fiscal responsibility by doing something as meaningless as cutting earmarks isn’t just the platform of John McCain and George Bush, but also of independent candidates who claim to run to right of the GOP. In this mild-mannered accountant, Stacy McCain and friends have appeared to have found a new guru.

One of the great benefits of living in a city full of vibrant cultural diversity and hyper liberal white people is being relieved of the feeling of a civic responsibility to vote. When primaries were held here in my New York City enclave of Park Slope back in September, I took a glance at the slate of candidates and what they supposedly stood for, mostly out of curiosity, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to be governed by any of those damn people. I vowed never to take part in the New York electoral process. I momentarily considered voting against Bloomberg yesterday in the mayoral, just to teach that arrogant killjoy a lesson, but the race was too close, and I was afraid Bloomberg’s black liberal, Sharpton-endorsed opponent, Bill Thompson, might actually win. I surmised that abstinence was still the best policy. (Unfortunately the Constitution Party, or a similar type outfit, hasn’t made any inroads up here, which would have allowed me to have at least lodged a principled protest vote of some kind.)*

My frustration aside, it’s hard for me to summon even one cheer for the supposed nation-wide “conservative revival” I’ve been reading about perusing the right-of-center blogosphere. Robert Stacy McCain, for instance, has annoucned, “the [Doug] Hoffman congressional campaign has ignited a revolution within the Republican Party, the results of which are already being felt.” A “revolution”? Really? Let’s look at where this accountant from New York’s 23rd stands on the issues:

Health care reform

Although universal health care sounds great in theory, we can’t afford to do everything at once… especially when it means adding an additional trillion dollars to the deficit we are handing to our children and grandchildren. I believe our first step should be to bring the spiraling costs of healthcare under control so the cost of healthcare does not destroy the budgets of hardworking families and retirees. Then, as the economy picks up we can work to insure everyone.

Socialism, just not all at once.

Immigration:

There is no question that our immigration policies are flawed. The answer, though, is not to put up a wall and stop all immigration. The answer is to create an easier path for immigrants to enter the United States—and to work here—while at the same time getting tough on illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

This is a typical Republican pose in which the illegality of mass immigration is opposed, and yet the candidate expresses his desire to make it even easier for Third World migrants to enter the country. 

Spending

I would cut the pork and wasteful earmarks.

Oh yes, we wouldn’t want to touch anything else. And clearly, cutting earmarks for bike trails and pet projects would make a big dint in the $70-100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that will be coming due in the next few years.

Stacy also quotes Erick Erickson of RedState.com, who claims that the Hoffman campaign “demonstrated to the GOP that it must not take conservatives for granted. … The GOP had better pay attention.” Ooh! Taken for granted no more!  Well, perhaps Newt can’t count on the Tea Parties to follow his every order, as I feared might be the case. But to me, this recent episode proves just how few politicians—even ones like Hoffman, who, one would think, have absolutely nothing to lose—and professional conservatives understand the crisis we’re in, or are willing to talk about it.

Perhaps Obama has “lost the middle class” with his spending programs and inept comments about his good friend at Harvard, HL Gates (though I think it’s far too early to date the end of the white middle-class’s willingness to vote for someone like our Multiculti Messiah.) But if the Middle American Radicals have no alternative force to turn to, then their incipient rebellion at the Tea Parties and Obamacare town halls is nothing but noise. 

*Why someone with my views would ever live in this city remains a mystery to many. Not too long ago, the Times did a special report on the one family in my neighborhood that dared display a McCain-Palin yard sign—the estate seemingly “as lonely an outpost as the Alamo.” And the Observer has investigated the disquieting rumor that an active Republican was a member of the renowned Food Co-op on Union St. Without question, I’m the only ones in Park Slope who’s ever made a tax-deductible donation to VDARE.com.

In his StupidParty article, Ellison failed to mention that the GOP’s new webpage is also honoring a certain misunderstood captain of industry. 

(ht: World-of-Crap)

Good news and bad news. First the bad, Tom Woods has been keeping an insane schedule for some time now. It was only a year ago that he gave me a call saying that he was going to be a bit late with a Takimag article because he was writing a book on the financial crisis. This book was, of course, Meltdown, a New York Times bestseller and sound introduction to Austrian economics which Tom wrote in a frenzied six weeks. Since then he’s been touring and lecturing with the Campaign for Liberty and has simply hit a wall. His wife has wisely ordered him to get some rest, and he’s had to cancel a couple of events, including the Mencken Club meeting. 

We definitely plan to have Tom come speak to us next year. Stepping up to pinch hit will be Steve Sailer, who’ll lecture us on Jewish liberals and how they got that way. Though we’ll all miss Tom, I’m sure Sailerholics will be happy to learn that they can get a double dose of Sailer this weekend.

The good news is that the response to the Mencken Club has been tremendous. We broke triple digits in attendance last week, and I expect a surge in registration over the next two days.

Many Takimag types—people who “think like us,” so to speak—think that they’re all alone in a world gone mad. They are not alone. And I can’t imagine a better place to meet like-minded individuals and rub shoulders with the likes of John Derbyshire, Sailer, Kevin Gutzman et al.  Get your last-minute tickets here. 

A reader informs me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed:

I just wanted to alert you to the Snopblocks urban legends) explanation of this… the store manager may have been a kind of Muslim-Borat naif in his celebration of a particular Islamic moveable-feast, but he apparently wasn’t trying to celebrate 9/11 as such:

* Imam Ali was not a hijacker, but a 7th century religious figure… attacked by an assassin while praying in a mosque… and died two days later, so the 21st day of Ramadan is (among the Shi’a branch) a day of special significance, a day for honoring the martyrdom of the Imam Ali.”;

* The months of the Islamic [lunar] calendar move around from year to year with respect to the Gregorian calendar. In 2009… the 21st day of Ramadan… coincidentally fell on the date of September 11;

* Store manager Imran Chunawala was stunned [by the reaction] because the holiday had nothing to do with 9/11… ‘If people thought that that’s what this was about, I apologize,” Chunawala said. “That was not what this was about. I’m clarifying once again and I seriously am sorry for any misunderstanding that this caused.”

A friend of Paul Gottfried sent Takimag this report from his last trip to the mall in Houston, Texas: 

Today I went to the Harwin Central Mall to pick up some crystals. The very first store that you come to when you walk from the lobby of the building into the shopping area had this sign posted on their door. The shop is run by Muslims. I couldn’t stay in the building, it made me so sick.

The text reads, “We will be closed on Friday, September 11, 2009, to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Ali (A.S.).” The message is repeated in Spanish. 

I’ll grant Tom that Richard Dawkins (who’s made time between writing hysterical liberal op-eds to compose a 500-page tome on recent advances in evolutionary research) might be motivated by a residual Anglican prejudice against the Catholic Church. This prejudice also has a historical foundation: there was something about that Spanish Armada that made Elizabeth and her subjects suspect that, yes, foreign papists really were trying to take over their country. I guess what makes me dubious about a lot of contemporary Catholic trads is that I sense they want to have it both ways with the history and character of their church. Putting aside the issue of whether a Darwinian outlook might actually re-enforce many values and commitments Tom and I share, I think it’s safe to say that Richard Dawkins represents the very height of scientific, leftish modernity: there’s the atheism, the rejection of the past as mystical obfuscation, a little polymorphic sexuality thrown in, the dreams of a more rational global society in the future, the whole lot. Thus, why exactly would Catholic traditionalists get bent out of shape if this man dislikes their church and faith? Shouldn’t they expect him to do so? Shouldn’t this re-enforce the idea that their church is still on the right path—and still relevant? Shouldn’t the right response be, “There he goes again…” Doesn’t the church have a proud tradition of standing athwart history (or at least modernity) and yelling “stop!” Didn’t popes oppose the secularizing ideology of a great many nation-states, including England and America? Aren’t these aspects of the church some of the major reasons people become traditionalist Catholics?

Just this afternoon (providence perhaps?), I received an email about a fascinating anti-Darwin conference that shall take place in Rome in November:

Scientific Conference Refuting Evolution Theory to be held in Rome, Italy

In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard

ROME, ITALY –  The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. 

The conference, “The Impossibility of Evolution” will be held on November 9 in the auditorium of St. Pius V University (Via Cristoforo Colombo, No. 200) beginning at 9:30 a.m.

 
I have nothing against the holding of this conference; indeed, many of the participants are impressively credentialed. But the existence of such an event makes me think that it’d be more intellectually consistent for Catholic trads to view eternal damnation-bound Dawkins as a mortal foe, and not expect him to address the pope with proper salutations and refrain from saying ugly things about the church. 

In many ways, this discussion reminds me of some of the nostalgic reveries penned by prominent Catholic paleos about the Habsburgs and their empire, usually with Kaisers Franz Josef and Karl I depicted as saintly Christian rulers. There is, of course a great deal of truth to such portrayals, the later having made well-intentioned efforts to end the blood-letting of the Great War. But the House of Habsburg only became benign, warm, and fuzzy in its late, decadent period when the Old World was collapsing all around it. Three hundred years early, Habsburg rulers showed little compunction in ordering the slaughter of their Saxon Protestant enemies (my ancestors, by the way). I’m sure Genghis Khan, too, was a dear old chap on his death bed.

I don’t write any of this because I hold some excessively longstanding historical grudge—I don’t. To the contrary, I’ve always had a deep admiration for the glorious contributions to the arts the church patronized during the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation. I guess I just respect and admire the church more when it’s in a bold, aggressive, “pagan” mood, and less when its leaders demand universal tolerance and cry victimization.

Tom: unfortunately, I don’t have time at the moment to go into this. (I’m preparing for the HL Mencken Club, and one minor personal emergency has followed another.) But I would just like to say that I don’t think the Anglican Church could have endured as long as she has if an irrational (groundless, do you think?) antipathy towards the Catholic Church were her foundation. It is true, of course, that Protestant identity has been intertwined with the development of modern national identity (and England is not alone in this regard.) But to suggest that a country’s independence from Rome makes its intellectuals more prone to atheism is a bit of a stretch. Moreover, Dawkins’s recent blog is embarrassing and conventionally leftist, to be sure, though the man is no buffoon as a scientist, nor I do think his work is a part of soccer hooliganism. I myself picked up the England-bashing paddle the other day, but in my mind, if Britain is worse than the rest of Europe, it’s only by a matter of degrees. And I’m not holding out hope that the West will be saved by Italy or Spain, or the Catholic Church, to be frank. Who knows what motivates the political Left? I am sure, however, that the contemporary Right is not well served by dwelling on ancient hatreds.