We recently concluded the eighth annual meeting of the HL Mencken Club.  If you were a participant, I would like to thank you personally for making our meeting the momentous success that it seems to have been.

As the leading forum of the Independent Right, the Mencken Club offers a home to those who want to discuss a wide range of issues completely free of concerns about political correctness.  While mainstream conservatives fret about offending the Left and, as one of our speakers Carl Horowitz pointed out, “hypocritically attack the Left while slavishly mimicking it,” we take on at least some of those questions that faux conservatives are terrified to address. 

Our gathering focused on how elites function in our society and how they advance their agenda even in the face of popular resistance.  Our panels considered this issue in different areas of activity, including the political, economic and cultural.

Among our provocative speakers were Michelle Marder Kamhi, who gave a well-received address on modern painting, illustrated with slides.  Other speakers included Raymond Wolters, Jack Kerwick, Keith Preston, Ed Rubinstein, Robert Weissberg, David Frisk and a visitor from Brazil, Tulio Borges.

At the Friday evening banquet, I spoke about my friend, social theorist Sam Francis, ten years after his death, and discussed the reasons why this outstanding thinker of the Right has been turned into a non-person by the hired scribes of Conservatism, Inc.   On Saturday evening, Peter Brimelow reviewed the current state of debate on immigration in America, with many references to Ann Coulter’s provocative attack on elite attitudes in her new bestseller, Adios, America!, The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole.

We will soon be posting audio recordings of all the speeches on our web site.  If you missed the conference, you will be able to hear the talks on our website.

We’ve already begun planning for our 2016 conference, and we trust that our prospective speakers will meet the same high standard as those who have addressed us in the past.  There will be periodic updates as our plans take shape, but there is something you can do for us right now.

Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250, or $500.  Whatever you can afford will help keep us on a sound financial footing and enable us to attract the high quality of speakers who have made our conferences such memorable events.  We would also like to offer scholarships to young people, as we have done in the past when funds were available.

Mainstream organizations that do absolutely nothing to reverse the leftist tide are awash in funding from foundations and wealthy donors.  The Mencken Club, by contrast, accomplishes a great deal on a bare-bones budget.  Your support today is vital for us to maintain our present efforts.  More importantly, it will make our organization better known to the many Americans who are looking for alternatives to the vapid banalities of the Murdoch media empire.

Remember, if you make your contribution before December 31, you can obtain a deduction on your 2015 taxes.  The Mencken Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and contributions to it are fully tax-deductible.

If you are interested in keeping up with the Mencken Club online, consider liking our Facebook page, or following us on Twitter. We are also maintaining a blog on this site, to which you are encouraged to subscribe.

Paul Gottfried
President
The HL Mencken Club