The Political Spectrum

As if we need more proof that "paleoconservatives" have offically left the reservation and need be shunned, there are these charming missives from Samuel Francis and Pat Buchanan (the former via Volokh.) First there's Francis' words of wisdom on race in light of the Sheridan-Owens intro on Monday Night Football and the Jackson-Timberlake Super Bowl fiasco:

Like the Jackson-Timberlake performance, the Owens-Sheridan ad was interracial and brazenly so—if only morals and taste had been the targets, the producers could easily have found white actresses who are less obviously Nordic than the golden-locked Miss Sheridan, but Nordic is what the ad's producers no doubt wanted.

For that matter, if you only wanted to take a swipe at morals and taste, you could find a black woman to rip her towel off or replace Mr. Owens with a famous white athlete (there are still a few).

But that wasn't the point, was it? The point was not just to hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity. The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it.

So far only one voice has mentioned the ad's racial meaning and denounced its "insensitivity" (to blacks)—that of black Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy.

Blacks are permitted to notice race. Whites aren't.

But the ad's message also was that interracial sex is normal and legitimate, a fairly radical concept for both the dominant media as well as its audience.

Nevertheless, for decades, interracial couples of different sexes have been sneaked into advertising, movies and television series, and almost certainly not because of popular demand from either race. The Owens-Sheridan match is only the most notorious to date.

And then there's this from Buchanan on the Ukraine situation:

But, on election day, Yushchenko, like Kerry, lost by three, as the populous eastern Ukraine delivered the same huge margins for favorite son Yanukovich as did western Ukraine for Yushchenko.

Into the streets came scores of thousands of demonstrators, howling fraud and demanding that Yushchenko be inaugurated. Engaging in civil disobedience, and backed by the West, the crowds intimidated parliament, President Kuchma and the judiciary into declaring the election invalid.

John Laughland writes in the Guardian of the double standard our media employ:


Enormous rallies have been held in Kiev in support of the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, but they are not shown on our TV screen ... Yanukovich supporters are denigrated as having been "bussed in." The demonstrators in favor of Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are spontaneous.


Laughland is saying the Yushchenko demonstrations may be as phony as that U.S-Albanian war in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert DeNiro film "Wag the Dog." He calls Pora "an organization created and financed by Washington," like Otpor and Kmara, which were used in Serbia and Georgia to oust leaders Washington wished to be rid of. Pora's symbol, writes Laughland, depicts "a jackboot crushing a beetle."

Racism, conspiracy theories, anti-Americanism, support for Russian authoritarianism: these are the hallmarks of paleoconservatism.

But yeah, we are the apostates.