2,400 words
“War is a bad thing, but peace can be a living horror.” — Ray Bradbury, “The Concrete Mixer”
I trust I am not alone among Counter-Currents readers in my appreciation for the late Ray Bradbury, my favorite author as a boy. Though Bradbury is often categorized as a science fiction author, his stories are just as suffused with magic and myth as they are with the futuristic technology that so repelled and terrified him. (more…)
1,942 words
Over the years, I caught bits and pieces of John Milius’ 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian — starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the big lug himself — on cable TV. But I was never tempted to watch the whole film. I finally gave in when I started writing my series on Classics of Right-Wing Cinema, and friends urged me to add Conan to my list. I admit that a film about Robert E. Howard’s iconic hero, with visuals borrowed from Frank Frazetta, starring the future California Governator, and directed by Right-wing Jew Milius sounds like a formula for a classic of Right-wing cinema, teeming with paleo-masculine heroics and illiberal political realism. (more…)
3,081 words
John Ford’s last great film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) enjoys the status of a classic. I find it a deeply flawed, grating, and often ridiculous film that is nonetheless redeemed both by raising intellectually deep issues and by an emotionally powerful ending that seems to come out of nowhere. (more…)
Detail, Henry Arthur McArdle, Dawn at the Alamo, 1905.
2,144 words
Say what you want about white nationalists, they play life on the highest difficulty.
— Some leftoid on twitter dot com
If you read Leftist and conservative treatments of why people join terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, you see a lot of hand-wringing about poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity, et cetera. (more…)
Emanuel de Witte, The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, 1653.
1,568 words
Like many people in the Dissident Right, I have been following the GameStop short squeeze with feelings of excitement and enthusiasm. I haven’t felt this excited about current events since Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. While I have always enjoyed movies about the stock market, I never thought that a bunch of gamers would be able to beat the financial elite at their own game. (more…)
Max Brückner, Valhalla in Flames, 1894.
1,638 words
I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. Although most of these mistakes have merely led to embarrassing moments and memories, I am starting to notice the consequences of my lifestyle choices. To put it bluntly, I have wasted a lot of time pursuing the wrong women, friendships, and careers. (more…)
Simon Marmion, The Eight Phases of the Song of Roland, ca. 15th century.
1,863 words
I sold my car before moving to Europe a few years ago. I had this car for several years and took it on various road trips across the US. During a few of these trips, I thought about The Song of Roland, the French poem from the 11th century. From tales of tragedy to stories of heroism, this epic poem has given me a lot to think about during the various road trips of my life. (more…)
1,902 words
Terrorism is at times a nebulous concept, but a useful definition is the use of force or the threat of force to coerce populations and governments, usually for political or religious ends. Using that definition, America has undeniably been terrorized by the dregs of society for the last six months in an unceasing campaign of domestic terrorism. (more…)
8,088 words
O my brothers, I dedicate and direct you to a new nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future — verily, not to a nobility that you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers’ gold: for whatever has its price has little value. (more…)
5,462 words
“Socialism” is intrinsic to the “Right.” When journalists and academics refer in one breath to “liberalism, neoliberalism, and the Right-wing,” that attests to their ignorance, not to the accuracy of any such bastardization. Even at its most basic level of understanding, it seems to have been forgotten that in Britain there were Tories and Whigs in opposition. Now, Toryism has become so detached from its origins (more…)
Winslow Homer, The Woodcutter, 1891.
6,121 words
I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods sometime in college. I found it more Flannery O’Connor than Marvel Studios, but it’s hardly surprising that the latter interpretation seems to have driven the new television series’ production team (but I haven’t watched). (more…)
Hollósy Simon, Zrínyi’s Charge on the Turks from the Fortress of Szigetvár, 1896.
1,304 words
Nikola Šubić Zrinski is an opera written in 1876 by Croatian composer Ivan Zajc that retells the Siege of Szigetvár. It is Zajc’s most accomplished work and is considered the national opera of Croatia. An excellent recording of the opera was released in late July featuring the Rijeka Symphony Orchestra (more…)