Counter-Currents
Berkeley Castle, VDARE‘s new headquarters.
1,504 words
After ten conference cancellations with hotels, VDARE finally hosted their first, UnCancelled conference on April 23. Instead of using the pop-up conference model, where none of the attendees knows the venue until hours before the event, VDARE took a no-nonsense attitude. They put their foot down and bought their own venue — not just any venue, but an honest-to-God 137-year-old stone castle in the small, conservative town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
Perched in the hillside over the state park, the castle is its primary landmark. Despite some minor Internet brouhaha after its purchase in 2020, the town has been very friendly to VDARE and its owners, Peter and Lydia Brimelow. If there were protesters this last weekend, nobody knew about them. VDARE wisely bought not only the castle grounds but also the three houses next to it, the 40 acres behind it, and the land across the highway.
It was rumored that there was an International Day at the state park far below the castle. Theoretically, this was a protest against the conference, but Lydia Brimelow was relaxed about it: “I have no problem with that. That sounds like something I’d take my kids to.” My own husband dropped by Saturday afternoon, and indeed, the “protest” was two ladies in a gazebo wielding sidewalk chalk. This “protest” was said to have been organized by a coffee house that has been screeching about VDARE on Boomerbook for two years. According to the locals, it’s been struggling since it began bringing in drag performers. As it turns out, there’s no existing market for drag shows in West Virginia.
The nationalist community, however, is thriving. Conference attendees and volunteers from the area had recently participated in the Berkeley Springs’ cleanup days and tree planting. During the generous lunch and dinner breaks, guests were pulling up real-estate apps on their phones and discussing business opportunities.
It was a boutique conference with about 40 guests, all of whom were successful or influential in one way or another. While the conference was livestreamed to reach a wider audience, keeping the number of in-person attendees low allowed us to have meaningful conversations with each other and hatch plans that otherwise would have required a separate, private dinner.
The talks began on Saturday after a generous continental breakfast. We were celebrating two anniversaries: the ten-year anniversary of John Derbyshire’s “The Talk, Nonblack Version,” and the 30-year anniversary of Peter Brimelow’s National Review cover story, “Time to Rethink Immigration.”
“The Talk, Nonblack Version” was the reason John Derbyshire was fired from National Review and has been with VDARE ever since. It was also one of my first experiences with race realism. I was riding the bus in Seattle when my husband texted me the link. TakiMag’s pink title lettering is disarming, but still, I hoped no one was looking over my shoulder. By the end of it, however, I remember thinking, “This is totally sensible. I don’t disagree with any of this.” From there, it was ¡Adios, America!, The Bell Curve, and The White Nationalist Manifesto.
“Time to Rethink Immigration” was Peter Brimelow’s 1992 cover story for National Review, which he expanded into his seminal 1995 work, Alien Nation, about the immigration crisis in America — and ultimately into VDARE itself. After “Time to Rethink Immigration” was published, National Review cowered to the Left and changed its line on immigration. Now that Brimelow’s 25 years of hard work through VDARE is changing public sentiments in the Republican Party on immigration, National Review tried to capitalize on it. While National Review flopped around for 30 years, Peter Brimelow’s consistent journalistic conscience still rings true: “If it’s true, and if it’s significant, we should write about it.”
The other presentations yielded some excellent gems:
The Democrats have become the party of constant screeching. — Washington Watcher II
There are some facts about race I don’t like . . . If we’re not ready to deal with facts that make us uncomfortable, then we’re not really growing up. — James Kirkpatrick
When your leaders tell you that you need to behave like a conquered nation (like Germany), you are a conquered nation . . . Our founders rejected their orders. — James Kirkpatrick
Bill Kristol has simply gone mad. — Peter Brimelow
James Fulford, managing editor of VDARE, has an incredible talent for tackling even the most serious subjects in an amusing way. Describing his aptly-titled concept of Immigrant Mass Murder, he explained,
It’s not our racism. It’s their racism. They moved here. They felt isolated. They started shooting. It’s the Chechen American dream . . . That’s not the preferable way of doing The American Dream.
The evening culminated in a debate: “We Are Doomed.” In honor of John Derbyshire’s book, We Are Doomed, participants either argued the affirmative, “Yes, we are doomed,” or negative, “No, we are not doomed.”
You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here.
For the affirmative, James Kirkpatrick and of course John Derbyshire, who explained he had actually wanted to title the book We Are Doomed, Doomed but that his publisher protested this was “too many dooms.” James Fulford and Peter Brimelow argued the negative.
Each of the presenters had the opportunity to provide a statement, and then they were asked a series of questions by the audience in panel style. I would have liked to see a back and forth among the participants, but we had a schedule to keep, and I was glad to see the audience jump up to the mic.
Afterwards, the audience was polled. The room came down 15-11 on the affirmative, “We are doomed.” It seemed the younger participants leaned toward the “doomed” conclusion, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They understand what it’s like to be a minority already, and are more inclined toward a revolutionary mindset. They are more likely to understand what James Kirkpatrick had said in his speech: “When your leaders tell you that you need to behave like a conquered nation (like Germany), you are a conquered nation . . . Our founders rejected their orders.”
But I still wondered, what exactly is doomed? The fifty United States of America? The Historic American Nation, otherwise known as the white demographic majority? The immigration restrictionist movement?
I do not believe the immigration restrictionist movement is doomed — but if an immigration moratorium is passed, whites will still be a minority. Whites in the next generation are already a minority. Thus, there are only two ways to halt the dispossession of American whites: for majority-white cities, counties, and states to secede, or the United States as a whole must rethink the citizenship question and consider repatriation.
I suppose if we fail in either of those, we could become a persecuted but fierce diaspora. But I’m not sure we as a race have this temperament in our genes.
Peter Brimelow entertained the idea: “We are doomed. But we persevere, nonetheless . . . You never know what’s going on in the enemy camp.”
The next morning, we were thrilled to see that the elusive Paul Kersey was our surprise guest! He actually changed his entire presentation to assert that no, we are not doomed.
Attendees were in for another bonus: The special, first-ever address from VDARE’s video producer, Noah Arnold. Known for his work behind the lens, the audience was pumped as he told us, “Entertainment is propaganda. We need to create our own.” Even better, we can do it on a shoestring budget. As Paul Kersey reiterated in his own talk, CNN+, CNN’s short-lived streaming service, had a $300 million investment and 500 employees, but they had to close up shop after 23 days because they only had 10,000 subscribers. VDARE has one videographer and 46,900 followers on Twitter. Not a bad ratio. Clearly, Arnold is tilting the propaganda war in favor of truth.
I thought back to James Fulford’s optimistic attitude concerning our future, which was one of the highlights of the conference:
I believe I was doomed by nuclear war, and I seem to have been doomed by nuclear winter . . . I was actually doomed in my personal life by alcohol, but it turns out if you stop drinking, the doom goes away.
Perhaps there are other things we can do to un-doom ourselves.
Even if we don’t, James Kirkpatrick said something I will never forget:
While I think America, and the West, is doomed, I think we in this room are not doomed. And on that note, I am more optimistic, more enthusiastic than ever. Because every single person who enters this movement now knows this isn’t a game, knows they’re going to have to pay costs, and they’re willing to go through with it ‘til the end.
VDARE and their conference-goers know the stakes. Putting on this kind of all-inclusive conference is extremely expensive, and renovating a historic property even more so. (You can donate here.) The castle is not just an event venue; it is a statement of permanence.
On Sunday we brought items to be placed in a time capsule which will be opened in 2087 on Virginia Dare’s 500th birthday.
Someone asked me, “Do you think they’ll still own this in 2087?” I’m sure of it. Like the Historic American Nation itself, they’re not going anywhere.
* * *
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12 comments
“As Paul Kersey reiterated in his own talk, CNN+, CNN’s short-lived streaming service, had a $300 million investment and 500 employees, but they had to close up shop after 23 days because they only had 10,000 subscribers.”
Good one! Learn to code!
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/learn-to-code
This is just the best news on so many levels. If one White Nationalist group (and specifically, Anti-Immigration, which is our biggest bugaboo as well) can get the money together to make their dream (and co-related to all our dreams) come true, it is a great step in the right direction. It’s so encouraging and a step up above ‘doom’. It certainly encourages me to step-up a little more firmly and work a little more focused in the future. And we must all hang together and forget our nit-picking differences, or we will surely all hang separately, which is the dream of the Shifty Leftists.
What an encouraging report, Cyan! It’s hard to think “doomed” after reading this.
There’s hope in thinking differently about territory.
Into the ghetto across the tracks, even back when the nation was considered overwhelmingly racially honest, one could nevertheless wander into pockets throughout it, beyond its general-character’s ability to keep him from harm.
Conversely, a town like the one you’ve described, with people who don’t cry over pro-white castles, could be more of a bulwark against our enemies than the cynical mind would believe.
We might not have an entire nation, state, or even town yet, maybe just a neighborhood or remnant within it; a “no-go zone” of sorts for ill-intentioned others.
This could happen in Any Place, USA (castle, optional). Be intentional!
Are we doomed? Who’s the “we”?
A. The Old (white, Christian, Constitutional, 50 state) Republic? 100%
B. Historic White America? Probably (80% or better likelihood)
C. Civilized existence for whites in North America? 50/50
D. Western Civilization? Probably also 50/50 at this point
E. The white race itself (within 1-2 centuries)? It depends.
There are (in my rough, harsh estimate) 400-500 million real ‘objective’ whites (eg. Trump, Biden, George Bush, Greg Johnson, me, etc) on the planet (there are many higher estimates, but I question what are being called “white”; I’m a racial “strict constructionist”, though not a Nordicist). To say that a number that high is “doomed” (ie, destined inevitably to extinction) is ludicrous, especially when we recognize that whites, with our brains, skills, and deep cultures, are hardly a more numerous version of Andaman Islanders, helpless against the onslaught of modernity.
I am posting part of a relevant comment I made last week over at TOO to an article about the failure of the British Far Right by CC’s Dr. Gullick:
I know little about the UK, but from the total failure of the postwar British Right, as with the American version, I must return to my old (and still only) solution: white and English preservationists in the UK (as everywhere) must gradually relocate and ingather themselves into certain areas of the country, preferably bordering on portions of the nation’s extensive coastline, where they can 1) develop real ideo-political ethnocommunities (dense networks of neighborhoods, relationships, marriages, friendships, and mutually supporting businesses); 2) elect likeminded politicians, so that atomized patriots elsewhere in the UK can at least hear alternative viewpoints in Parliament; 3) develop mutual aid and neighborhood watch organizations (ultimately the basis for future self-defense paramilitaries for the UK’s inevitably coming Time of Troubles); 4) develop parallel educational institutions free of government race-replacist propaganda (their task comparable to that of medieval monasteries patiently preserving the thought of classical antiquity across Dark Ages Europe); 5) serve as personal safety zones for nationalist activists and their families; and 6) be as “Noah’s Arks”, carrying on English identity and culture and bloodlines until times shall once again be propitious for patriotic campaigns to reconquer, politically or militarily, the entire ancestral homeland.
Given the paucity of white numbers, and the heterogeneity of white viewpoints and ideological preferences, I see no other way to save our race and civilization. White preservationists must obtain sovereign territory under our electoral control, or we will be doomed to eventual subjugation, very possible enslavement, and either extermination or passive extinction via voluntary (or coerced) miscegenation.
Our doom if we do nothing is assured. But we can do a great deal, certainly enough to prevent this, and to lay the foundation for white racial recrudescence in the far future.
“Thus, there are only two ways to halt the dispossession of American whites: for majority-white cities, counties, and states to secede, or the United States as a whole must rethink the citizenship question and consider repatriation.”
The first option will not halt the dispossession, obviously(our population will continually decrease as a percentage). Our homeland is being invaded, undoubtedly. Therefore, we have no other option but to repatriate. The alternative is death & that would violate Nature’s First Law (self-preservation). “The Slow Cleanse aka Restoring White Homelands”, Greg Johnson.
Needless to say, our invasion has cost a lot of our people’s lives & continues to inflect assaults & deaths, therefore, our traitors must be held accountable.
Secession and repatriation are not mutually exclusive. De facto secession is already here and growing stronger. There’s more support for secession among Whites than any pro-White politics of any kind. The funny thing, though, is that the more secessionist and nullificationist sentiment you have, the more pro-White outcomes you have. And the more pro-White outcomes you have, the more self-repatriation you’re going to see. Secession is just another way for Whites to express their pro-White sentiments without openly being ‘one of those people’. ‘White Flight’ was a secessionist movement. The more Whites assert themselves, no matter how subtly, the more certain non-Whites will be uncomfortable. Every area will need its own assessment as to how openly pro-White our activists can be and still acquire legitimate authority. Secessionist and nullificationist sentiments work in our favor.
Here is our rough, general strategy (to not be doomed):
White conservative/nationalist relocation from Blue states to Red States + continuous, concurrent WN intellectuality (delegitimation of “Diversity” as a moral imperative) and truth (facts of racial differences in ability and behavior) dissemination —> pro-white political and cultural activism to force GOP (once returned to Federal “trifecta” power) to halt immigration, while locally, to strengthen white consciousness, and build up white communities geographically (by neighborhood) and organizationally (to protect/advance white political and economic interests) —> push for conservative/Red State secession —> once the Union has been dissolved (which some progressives might support, too – to be rid of us so they can build their leftist Diversotopia), we further push for the Ethnostate —> once we have an Ethnostate, we pursue Greg Johnson’s peaceful “slow cleanse”.
If I were a betting man, I would say this is all unlikely. But it is most certainly not literally impossible, or even overly improbable. It can be done over this century. It is what we American denizens of Magna Europa can do for our race. Whites elsewhere may have different options.
The significance of We Are Doomed, Doomed will be lost on most readers. It was the stock phrase of a dour Scottish character in the long-running British comedy series Dad’s Army, about the Home Guard in WW2. From another character, a veteran of African campaigns, we learn that blacks (fuzzy-wuzzies) are characterised by the fact that they don’t like it up’em, which was about as much as we needed to know about any foreigner. Get the boxed set before it’s banned.
Thank you for this. I certainly would not have known this reference.
At the risk of sounding like a cad, Cyan forgot to mention one of the other highlights of the conference, how stunning she looked in her cobalt blue cocktail dress at the Friday Reception.
This is great.
Serious questions: Counter-Currents conference at the castle? Is this the place? Do I move here? Buy property?
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