The Counter-Currents 2014 Summer Fundraiser 
Countering the Leftward Drift

The Grand Canyon: proof that great changes can be wrought over long times by gentle, sustained force [1]

The Grand Canyon: proof that great changes can be wrought over long timespans by gentle, sustained pressure

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The Counter-Currents 2014 Summer Fundraiser kicked off two weeks ago today on our fourth anniversary.  So far, we have received 13 donations totaling $1,561.08. Donations ranged in amount from $2 to $534.08. I want to thank all our donors for their generosity. 

The latter amount was arrived at by a rather unusual method. One of our donors took a number of buckets of loose change that had been piling up for years to a coin sorting machine. He got an Amazon.com gift certificate for the full amount and sent me the code. Since Amazon sells practically everything, this princely sum was basically as good as cash.

Our goal is $40,000, so that now means that we have $38,438.92 left to raise by Halloween. With your help, we’ll make it.

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Many of our readers wonder why politics and culture seem to drift ever further to the Left. People on the Right have been pondering this issue for a long time. In 1897, Robert Lewis Dabney saw this drift and predicted the triumph of women’s suffrage based on his estimate of its conservative opposition:

This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader.

The reason for the Left’s continued success is twofold.

First, Leftists understand the importance of fundamental ideas, whereas Rightists generally do not. Leftists find it easy to argue Right-wingers into submission because Rightists generally have minds stocked with Left-leaning ideas that they are too intellectually complacent to question. All Leftists have to do is aid Rightists in drawing the conclusions of their own unquestioned premises.

Second, Leftists understand the importance of sustained effort in shaping culture and politics, and they are willing to support it. For instance, The Nation magazine has been on the vanguard of the American Left since it was founded in 1865. For decade after decade, The Nation has been moving the parameters of debate further Leftward. And it is just one of hundreds of such institutions. Yet, in all that time, The Nation has made an economic profit exactly one year. The Nation could not exist without the support of far-sighted donors, who understand the importance of metapolitics in laying the foundations for political change.

You want to counter the Leftward drift, you have to set up metapolitical institutions on the Right. And if you want Counter-Currents to be around in 150 years, moving discourse and politics in the right direction, then you have to support us this year, because if we don’t make it to year 5, we won’t make it to 150. That’s why we need your support today.

You can make two different types of donations:

Recurring donations are particularly helpful, since they allow us better to predict and plan for the future. We have added several new levels for recurring donations. Please visit our Donations [2] page for more information.

We can also customize the amount of a monthly donation.

There are several ways to make one-time donations:

Please give generously!

Thank you for your loyal readership and support.

Greg Johnson