BRADEN N. PLYLER writes at The Counter Revolution: American capitalism is as intrinsically evil as communism. This isn't a controversial or centrist position to take. Capitalism and communism are not a dichotomy, as there are a plethora of other systems to choose from. While in the West communism is viewed as a force of evil, and capitalism its opposite, they have more in common than one would think. Both are two sides of the same coin - materialism. Any idea which supposes material ownership is above morality (or in a case where morality is exclusively based on rules pertaining to materialism) is a system in which God and people do not matter. While communism is a system which usually erodes and fails after a certain amount of time, secularist capitalism is a slow and agonizing death. Morality should never be a "free market", and truly, luxury or greed should never be what dictates economic policy. One virtue of capitalism is that compared to communism, private property is allowed. Truly, private property is the basis of the need for the state and healthy to man. Where it fails to uphold private property is that wealth concentrates very quickly as agrarianism tends to give way to urbanization. Land and wealth concentrates among a certain elite, who usually end up bribing or paying off government officials, which usually gives rise to socialist-like policies. Even worse, mass capitalism of all aspects of society would be…

JANE S. writes:

Okay, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Karen Rinaldi is right: marriage and motherhood are drudgery. She implies that a career is fulfilling and liberating. But she does not give a jot of supporting evidence.

Presumably, an established author like Rinaldi works from home, or maybe rents an office space. She is an elite who enjoys more autonomy and creativity than the majority of women in the workforce. I don’t know who if anyone cramps her style, unless it’s her publisher.

She should spend some time in the high-tech work environment, where you are under constant surveillance, where you are required to wear a badge that tracks your every move, where digital timekeepers monitor everything you do down to the microsecond, including your bathroom breaks.

We can then see time how long it takes before she’s had enough. It won’t be long. Then she can explain how spending eight hours a day suffocating in a cubicle is so much better than staying at home changing diapers.

Today’s typical work setting is not only more oppressive and soul-crushing than Rinaldi imagines, in her fictitious female empowerment world. Workplace bullying is rampant. It is said to be four times more prevalent than harassment based on illegal discrimination.

And, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute, “Woman bullies famously target other women in 80% of cases.” A supervisor is not only much harder to please than a husband, the supervisor who makes your life hell is more likely to be a woman. I can personally vouch for that. (more…)

THERE’S no such thing as transgenderism in classical ballet.

As the brilliant E. Michael Jones says in this interview about his new book, “How Meyer Lansky took over the Cincinnati Ballet and what Four Ballerinas did about it,” ballet is about male/female relationships. Feminism and the entire social engineering project to confuse sexual differences are contrary to the romantic ideals of ballet, which glorify male and female and their efforts to understand and complement each other.

Modern dance is entirely different. It turns dancers into “sex robots” and is essentially about failed relationships.

“Every year we have to suffer through a new version of the sex robot dance at the Cincinnati ballet,” says Jones, whose son is a ballet dancer for the Cincinnati company. “… Everybody got sick of it.”

Four ballerinas rebelled against the sex robot dance and its political agenda. They realized that every time they did modern dance, they were “silent propagandists for failed relationships,” Jones says.

Learn more about Jones’s book — and what the mobster Meyer Lansky has to do with all this — in the interview with Judith Sharpe. It will be available free at In the Spirit of Chartres for another week. The final ten minutes of the interview are especially important. (more…)

THIS is a funny cartoon (found here) that makes the same point I made in recent entries (here and here). Tattoos are projections of pretend strength. Judging from appearances, individuals who suffer from weakness and uncertainty are more likely to get tattoos. Many people today are wimps inside. Their childhoods have been chaotic and often sad and confusing. Their minds have been reduced to mush by pseudo-education and popular culture. They have no courage or inner strength. Their bodies are mush too. Many look like walking marshmallows. The tattoo is a symbol of toughness, formerly favored by military men and outlaws. Just last week, I met a government clerk who had a huge tattoo across her chest that was visible under her blouse at work. She was otherwise sallow and unhealthy looking. The cast of her complexion was that of someone who had spent a long period of time in a prison cell. Despite her best efforts to appear tough, she projected an overwhelming impression of softness, or squishiness, and defeat, not confidence. Many Americans today lack any sense of the glorious heritage of their own spiritual natures and that the body is literally a temple of an immortal soul created in an individual act of creation by God himself. We were created out of nothing and are only held in existence every moment of the day by the will of God. Tattoos are rank ingratitude. Most people in the modern world are insane…

FROM "How Donald Trump Threw Peace and Prosperity Under an AIPAC Bus" by Phil Butler: Shortly after 11:00 AM, Wednesday August 2, 2017 US President Donald Trump declared full scale economic war on Russia. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is joined by millions of us who’ve now lost all hope of peace and reconciliation in the world. Cold War II is on. Dmitry Medvedev attacked Trump’s decision to sign the bill in the same way most of us analysts will, chastising the US President after his clear bow to a US Congress unified in its hysteria against Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the Russian Prime Minister did not delve into just “why” Trump is praying to the altar of neo-conservatism today. Trump feigned disagreement with sections of the law his team said are “unconstitutional”, but the force behind these sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea is hidden. Let me enlighten you on what is really taking place in Washington. Two days ago, a close colleague of mine was on the line from Greenwich, Connecticut to discuss my upcoming book when the conversation turned to these new Russia sanctions. My colleague related a story from Capital Hill and an insider who explained the vote on the sanctions law. The gist of this insider’s revelation was that the overwhelming “yes vote” in Congress indicated one powerful player behind the curtain – America’s pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. When I heard AIPAC stood behind, my mind…

FROM a sermon on The Transfiguration of Jesus by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1876:

THE garments which clothe our soul, are the good works which we practise, according to our station in life. If each one of these were performed with the purest intention, and were free from every stain of imperfection, what an adornment they would prove to be, how they would embellish the soul, and what a gain they would be for heaven! Unfortunately this is seldom the case. There are few of our works whose brightness is untarnished by sin.

We will consider today, particularly, the stains which deface our daily works, and meditate upon the best means of avoiding and guarding against them. Mary, thou who, according to Holy Writ, standest robed in garments of gold, before the throne of the Most High, thou, purest of the pure, in thought and deed, grant that we, taught and guided by thee, may gain strength to free ourselves from every stain of imperfection and sin! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God.

St. John, speaking in the Apocalypse of the saints in heaven, says: “They were clothed in white robes.” These white garments and these shining, precious material of which they are made, says he, are righteousness and good works. This material is made up principally of our daily works. For, in order to become holy it is not necessary to perform great and astonishing outward deeds. The Almighty has not chosen or called every one for such a career; hence every one has not received the divine grace which it requires. As to those great works of which we read in the lives of the saints, they were not the means of making them what they were; it was, rather, the perfection with which they performed their daily duties which made them so rich in merit.

A friend of St. Francis de Sales used to say of this saint, that he did nothing unusual, and yet all that he did seemed unusual, on account of the perfect manner in which it was performed. And what are the stains which cling to our daily works and deface them, and often even totally destroy them, by robbing them of all merit for the life to come? They are these:

First, the stain of indolence, arising from a want of energy to rise early, and always at the same time, in order to say our morning prayers and to implore God to protect and bless us during the day. All who are indolent in rising, who begin the day slothfully and without devout, earnest prayer, stain thus early in the morning the robes of their soul. (more…)

AS IF women weren’t demoralized enough when it comes to sacrificing ambition for motherhood and home, New York Times writer Karen Rinaldi comes up with a new twist on the Don’t-Waste-Your-Life-At-Home argument.

She says motherhood is essentially selfish.

Rinaldi, the author of The End of Men, writes:

  He who is afraid of falling distrusts his own strength, avoids as much as possible all dangerous occasions, and recommends himself often to God, and thus preserves his soul from sin. But the man who is not fearful, but full of self confidence, easily exposes himself to the danger of sin: he seldom recommends himself to God, and thus he falls. Let us imagine a person suspended over a great precipice by a cord held by another. Surely he would constantly cry out to the person who supports him: Hold fast, hold fast; for Gods sake, do not let go. We are all in danger of falling into the abyss of all crime, if God does not support us. Hence we should constantly beseech him to keep his hands over us, and to succour us in all dangers. --- St. Alphonsus Liguori

ALEX KAFRI “was given to believe” that his father’s family had been entirely wiped out in German gas chambers during World War II, Haaretz reports.

But Kafri recently learned after his father’s death that in fact he had many relatives on his father’s side. A huge reunion took place in London last week. This is a happy story, folks.

May there be many more of these happy reunions.

This story is as happy as the admission by Polish and Jewish authorities that after years of reporting that four million Jews were killed at Auschwitz, no more than 1.1 to 1.5 million inmates of various religions died there. The whole world should rejoice that millions did not perish there! (more…)

ALAN writes: George Orwell wrote: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” But naked brutality would be needed only to tyrannize people who can recognize evil and summon the will to oppose it. In the years when Orwell wrote, many people could do both. Today, most Americans can do neither. In place of naked brutality, I see a somewhat different vision of the future: It stares at us wherever we look—in public places, on public transit, in newspapers, in magazines, on television, on the Internet, in commerce, in advertising, in retail stores. It is the image of a young feminized woman having “fun” and wearing a perpetual, vapid, adolescent-witted smile: Multiculti mush and poison dished out by the Feminoid Sisterhood fronting for Nanny Government. Equally bad are the endless announcements on public transit instructing passengers to “use the sidewalks and crosswalks for safety”, recited in computer-generated recordings designed to mimic a woman’s voice. Imagine a "partnership" of Feminoids and Nanny Government instructing us for our own good. I need a good laugh: Tell me that Washington, Jefferson, and the other early Americans would have listened to such announcements and said, “O Thank you, benevolent Nanny Government, for giving us those instructions. We are so dumb that we would have walked directly into a stampede of horses were it not for those instructions provided by such a sweetheart government.”

The man whom the Lord afflicts in this life has a certain proof that he is dear to God. ”And," said the angel to Tobias, ”because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptations should prove thee." (Tob. xii. 13.) Hence, St. James pronounces blessed the man who is afflicted: because after he shall have been proved by tribulation, he will receive the crown of life." (Jam. i. 12.)   --- St. Alphonsus Liguori, from his sermon "On the Advantages of Tribulations" (More audio sermons and biography)

IT was the largest gathering yet on the anniversary of the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, an event that foreshadowed the murder and mayhem to come under Bolshevism. Here’s a story about Russia that wasn’t covered in America’s insane Russia-hating media. A few weeks ago in Yekaterinburg in the Sverdlovsk region, an estimated 60,000 Russians participated in a procession to mark the 99th anniversary of the assassinations. At dawn on July 17th, the tens of thousands marched to the forest where the mutilated remains of the royal family had been buried.

Shortly before midnight on July 17, 1918, the royal family — Tsar Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra; their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia; and their son Tsarevich Alexei were taken to a basement room of the house in the Urals where they were imprisoned. While they were posing for what they thought would be a photograph portrait, they were shot and stabbed with bayonets. The entire family has been canonized by the Orthodox Church.

The executioners entered the room and read out the order for their execution. Saints Nicholas and Alexandra died under the hail of bullets, but the children did not die right away. They were stabbed and clubbed with the butts of rifles. Their bodies were taken to an abandoned mine, cut into pieces, then piled in front of the mine. Sulphur and gasoline were poured on the bloody mound and set on fire. When the fire went out two days later, whatever remained of the bodies was thrown into the mine and grenades were tossed into it. Then the ground was plowed so that no trace of the disposal of the bodies remained. [Source]

Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov ordered the executions. Jacob Yurovsky, head of the local Cheka, or state secret police, led the operation. (more…)

FIRM evidence that Russia hacked the U.S. election does not exist. Most Americans probably don’t even care. But say it often enough — “Russia hacked the U.S. election,” “Russia is undermining our democracy” — and it becomes true.

A Congress of dumbbells is now leading us to war. Millions of ordinary Russian people will be hurt by the new sanctions voted for by Congress and awaiting Trump’s signature.

The White House says President Donald Trump will sign legislation implementing tough new financial sanctions against Russia.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says in a statement that Trump read early drafts of the bill and “negotiated regarding critical elements of it.”

She says the president has “reviewed the final version and, based on its responsiveness to his negotiations, approves the bill and intends to sign it.”

The legislation includes language that bars Trump from easing or waiving the additional penalties on Russia unless Congress agrees. It also imposes financial sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

Moscow has responded by ordering a reduction in the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia and closing the U.S. Embassy’s recreation retreat. [Source]

Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute comments, “They’ve established as a fact on the ground that Russia hacked the election and therefore no one needs to question it…. People in Congress are not very well informed.”

Trump has been backed into a corner. “We have passed the line of rationality,” says Former US diplomat Jim Jatras. “They [Congress] want to take away from the president one of his most solemn duties as the Commander in Chief, which is the conduct of affairs with foreign states and they want basically to put the Mark of Cain on Russia .. not a declaration of war, militarily, but a political war.”

Ron Paul writes of hostility toward Iran and North Korea: (more…)

BEWARE of the recently-released movie The Keepers about the 1969 murder of the Baltimore nun, Sister Cathy Cesnik. See more at TheMediaReport.com.

WHAT HAPPENS in the Orthodox Jewish community when a family accuses someone of sexually molesting a child? The victims are shunned, bullied and persecuted in many cases, as the community at large tries to prevent public airing of the crimes and criminal charges. See this unusually probing 2012 piece in The New York Times. From the article: Abuse victims and their families have been expelled from religious schools and synagogues, shunned by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews and targeted for harassment intended to destroy their businesses. Some victims’ families have been offered money, ostensibly to help pay for therapy for the victims, but also to stop pursuing charges, victims and victims’ advocates said. “Try living for one day with all the pain I am living with,” Mr. Jungreis [father of a victim], spent and distraught, said recently outside his new apartment on Williamsburg’s outskirts. “Did anybody in the Hasidic community in these two years, in Borough Park, in Flatbush, ever come up and look my son in the eye and tell him a good word? Did anybody take the courage to show him mercy in the street?” A few blocks away, Pearl Engelman, a 64-year-old great-grandmother, said her community had failed her too. In 2008, her son, Joel, told rabbinical authorities that he had been repeatedly groped as a child by a school official at the United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg. The school briefly removed the official but denied the accusation. And when Joel turned 23,…

S., a female Indian immigrant, writes:

Scene: Inside the subway on a hot day in New York, in a packed car with no air conditioning.

Participants: Me, average New Yorkers and a Chinese father and daughter pair seated opposite me. The girl is dressed in a skirt and blouse.

A white girl in her early 20s boards the car. She is dressed in a see-through white, cotton vest with a colored bikini under it and denim shorts. She proceeds to take off the vest and ties it around her waist, presumably because she is melting from the heat.

Chinese Father erupts in a low volume, jaw-grinding volley of Mandarin, pointing towards the white girl and then gesticulating a slapping motion, presumably implying that should his girl ever be in a state of undress in a packed subway he would spank her. Meanwhile the men are staring at the beautiful, educated young women, possibly a student in an elite institution, in her bikini.

Liberalism is doing away with your values while allowing minorities to stick to their own. (more…)