Tag Archives: Margot Metroland

O’Brien (Richard Burton) demonstrates that 2 + 2 doesn’t always equal 4.

2,306 words

Did the international crises of 1947 and 1948 leave their mark on the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four? I’ve spent a lot of time on this question, and so far as I can tell, the answer is – yes; but only obliquely. And George Orwell may not even have been conscious of the fact.

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Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 234
Happy Birthday Nineteen Eighty-Four!

Margot Metroland

65 words / 52:55

To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

June 8th is the 70th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Greg Johnson interviews Margot Metroland on some of Orwell’s sources and influences, the loosely “Trotskyite” political context in which he wrote, and the possibility that he was bumped off by Stalinists. Read more …

Published: June 8, 2019 | Posted in Counter-Currents Radio | Also tagged Communism, Counter-Currents Radio, Cyril Connolly, dystopian fiction, George Orwell, interviews, James Burnham, Nineteen Eighty-Four, podcasts, Trotskyites | 5 Responses

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Your Nineteen Eighty-Four Sources in Full

Margot Metroland

3,232 words

Connolly, Burnham, Orwell, & “Corner Table”

“In the torture scenes, he is merely melodramatic: he introduces those rather grotesque machines which used to appear in terror stories for boys.”
—V. S. Pritchett, The New Statesman, June 18, 1949

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Bret Easton Ellis’ White

Margot Metroland

2,103 words

Bret Easton Ellis
White
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019

When you see Bret Easton Ellis emerge as a Generation X elder, you know you’ve moved pretty far along the abattoir ramp. Technically he’s not Gen X at all, as he was born in 1964, but Simon & Schuster brought out his first novel (Less Than Zero) when he was still an undergraduate at Bennington, and Ellis’ precocity was part of the sales pitch. Read more …

Published: May 30, 2019 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged American Psycho, articles, book reviews, Bret Easton Ellis, Charlie Sheen, Dwight Madonald, James Wolcott, Jay McInerney, Lauren Hutton, North American New Right, originals, Patrick Bateman, Richard Gere, Robert Taylor, The Daily Beast, Tom Cruise | 12 Responses

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If Whiteness is Sick, What is the Cure?

Margot Metroland

1,496 words

Jonathan M. Metzl
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland
New York: Basic Books, 2019

The most impressive thing about this strange little book is its merchandising. That includes its provocative, in-your-face title as well as its promotional blurbs and media spin.

Published: May 13, 2019 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged American Identity Movement, Amy Chua, articles, book reviews, Donald Trump, Dying of Whiteness, epidemiology, J. D. Vance, Jonathan Metzl, North American New Right, Obamacare, originals, Vanderbilt University | Comments closed

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Misreading Animal Farm

Margot Metroland

1,695 words

If you’re seeing a lot of Nineteen Eighty-Four editions showing up in bookstores these days, it’s because 2019 marks the seventieth anniversary of the novel’s publication. Read more …

Published: May 1, 2019 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged 1984, Animal Farm, articles, book reviews, Communism, George Orwell, North American New Right, originals, propaganda, Soviet Union | Comments closed

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Robert Brasillach & Notre avant-guerre:
Remembering Robert Brasillach, March 31, 1909–February 6, 1945

Margot Metroland

Robert Brasillach at his trial in 1945.

3,574 words

Today is the birthday of Robert Brasillach, French journalist, novelist, and film historian (The History of Motion Pictures, co-written with Maurice Bardéche).

It is Brasillach’s fate mainly to be remembered for being the only collaborateur sentenced to death (by firing squad) for “intellectual crimes.” Read more …

Published: March 31, 2019 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Albert Camus, Alcazar Palace, Belgium, Ce Soir, Charles Maurras, Colette, commemorations, France, Francisco Franco, Georges Bernanos, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Henri Massis, Jacques Maritain, Je Suis Partout, Jean Cocteau, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, La Cabeza, Léon Degrelle, M. de Lequerica, Maurice Bardèche, North American New Right, Paul Claudel, Pierre Cousteau, Pierre Daye, Pierre Gaxotte, Popular Front, reprints, Rexist Party, Robert Brasillach, Spain, Vendredi | Comments closed

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Perused with Pleasure in 2018
My Top 5 Books

Margot Metroland

1,530 words

I was using my Spectator-co-uk digital subscription to search for odds and ends in its wonky archive. What, I wondered, did the Speccy have to say about the Angry Young Men in the late 1950s? Better yet, what did they have on Colin Wilson and his friend, the ever-elusive Bill Hopkins?

Not an awful lot, as it turns out. Read more …

Published: December 27, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged 2018 Roundups, articles, Ben Macintyre, Bernard Levin, Bill Hopkins, book reviews, Charles De Gaulle, Charles DeGaulle, Colin Wilson, David Halberstam, Julian Jackson, KGB, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, North American New Right, originals, Paul Willetts, railroads, Richard White, space program, T. S. Eliot, The Spectator | Comments closed

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Bernardo Bertolucci & The Conformist

Margot Metroland

1,340 words

Reputation-wise, Bernardo Bertolucci (1941-2018) missed a good bet by not dying a quarter-century ago, rather than lingering on for years of illness and diminishing fame. Orson Welles spent his lengthy dotage introducing himself to new generations as a pitchman for Paul Masson wine, and that seemed pretty sad, but at least people knew who he was. When the equally talented Bertolucci died on November 26, he had almost no public profile at all. Read more …

Published: December 12, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged 1900, Alberto Moravia, Bernardo Bertolucci, fascism, films, Francis Ford Coppola, Last Tango in Paris, movie reviews, North American New Right, originals, The Conformist, The Last Emperor | Comments closed

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Uncle Max & the Commie Hunters

Margot Metroland

Maxwell Knight (right) and friends.

2,074 words

The spymaster’s fascist background is just one of the many obstacles in telling the Maxwell Knight story.

One of the oddest television projects now in development is a forthcoming series about master spy Maxwell Knight, the real-life “M” of MI5. Read more …

Published: November 30, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Benito Mussolini, British fascism, espionage, fascism, Henry Hemming, homosexuality, North American New Right, originals, Rotha Lintorn-Orman, Tom Driberg, Tyler Kent, William Joyce, World War II | Comments closed

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Father Coughlin, Ralph Ingersoll, & the War Against Social Justice

Margot Metroland

Father Coughlin

1,815 words

The public career of Rev. Charles E. Coughlin during the 1930s and early ‘40s is massively documented. Newsreels, publications, speeches, and broadcast recordings are all at your fingertips online. Yet the historical significance of this Canadian-American prelate (1891-1979) is maddeningly elusive. You may have read that he was an immensely popular but controversial “radio priest” with a decidedly populist-nationalist bent, or that he published a weekly magazine called Social Justice (1936-1942), Read more …

Published: November 9, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Alger Hiss, articles, Communism, Crockett Johnson, Dr. Seuss, Father Charles Coughlin, Fortune magazine, Francis Biddle, Francis Parker Yockey, George Sylvester Viereck, Harold Ross, Henry Luce, I. F. Stone, Lawrence Dennis, Marshall Field III, Michigan, New Journalism, North American New Right, originals, Philip Johnson, PM newspaper, Ralph Ingersoll, Royal Oak, Saul Alinsky, Shrine of the Little Flower, Social Justice, The New Yorker, Time magazine, Walt Kelly, Whittaker Chambers | Comments closed

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Cass Sunstein, the Unprincipled Man

Margot Metroland

Cass Sunstein

2,345 words

Cass R. Sunstein
Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014

Do people actually read Cass R. Sunstein? Millions, maybe, are vaguely aware of him as a talking head on cable TV. Others might recall that Sunstein held an obscure but sinister-sounding sinecure in the Obama administration (Administrator, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, 2009-2012), or that he is frequently touted as some kind of esteemed legal scholar at Harvard Law School. Read more …

Published: September 24, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged anti-Trump paranoia, articles, book reviews, Can It Happen Here?, Cass Sunstein, climate change, conspiracy theories, Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas, globalization, It Can't Happen Here, North American New Right, originals, progressivism, Sinclair Lewis | Comments closed

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Revilo P. Oliver & Francis Parker Yockey

Margot Metroland

1,718 words

The writings of Francis Parker Yockey have fascinated the far Right for a half-century and more. I would argue that the person most responsible for this popularity is the late classics professor Revilo P. Oliver. While Prof. Oliver had little practical input in the distribution of Yockey writings (that credit would go more to Willis Carto and George Dietz), it was Oliver’s imprimatur that lent Yockey a gravitas that ensured he would be cherished as something other than the author of some controversial, obscurantist tracts. Read more …

Published: July 9, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Elisabeth Carto, Francis Parker Yockey, George Dietz, Kerry Bolton, Kevin Coogan, Liberty Bell magazine, National Youth Alliance, North American New Right, originals, Revilo P. Oliver, The American Mercury, Willis A. Carto, Wilmot Robertson | Comments closed

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Lothrop Stoddard’s Reforging America

Margot Metroland

1,835 words

June 29 is the birthday of T. (for Theodore) Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950)—scholar, lecturer, journalist, polymath, and author of many, many books.

Stoddard is best known for 1920’s The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy, discussed two years ago here. Along with Madison Grant (1865–1937), author of The Passing of the Great Race (1916), and Prescott F. Hall (1868–1921), eugenics crusader and founder of the Immigration Restriction League, Stoddard can rightly be considered a father of the sweeping Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson-Reed Act). Read more …

Published: June 29, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged American identity, Blacks in America, book reviews, Chinese exclusion, Chinese in America, immigration, immigration restriction, North American New Right, originals, Reforging America | Comments closed

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Lord Haw-Haw of MI5

Margot Metroland

William Joyce

3,327 words

William Brooke Joyce, the Berlin propaganda broadcaster known as “Lord Haw-Haw,” and the last man to be executed in England for treason, was an agent for MI5. He went to Berlin in August 1939 at the behest of an old friend and spymaster, and wound up becoming the English voice of Nazi radio. Then, in 1945, he was brought back to London, tried as a traitor, and hanged on January 3, 1946.

This was done to please the Kremlin, and to protect Communists in the British government and intelligence services. Read more …

Published: June 22, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Anna Wolkoff, articles, Colin Holmes, Guy Burgess, Guy Liddell, Joseph P. Kennedy, Kim Philby, Margaret Joyce, Maxwell Knight, North American New Right, originals, Tyler Kent, William Joyce | Comments closed

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Céline Goes Hollywood, Part 2
Céline Gets Graphic

Margot Metroland

1,037 words

The novel-memoirs of Louis-Ferdinand Céline have a peculiarly cinematic texture, like that of rough drafts for projected screenplays. He flashes sense-impressions and side-thoughts at the reader. For the neophyte, this can make for some hard going.

On the other hand, these impressionistic prose-sketches can provide a series of clear visuals for anyone attempting to hammer a Céline tale into a script. This is particularly true of his Exile Trilogy Read more …

Published: May 28, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, comics and graphic novels, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, North American New Right, originals | Comments closed

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Céline Goes Hollywood

Margot Metroland

1,860 words

One of the saddest episodes in the life of Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, alias Louis-Ferdinand Céline, came right after he published his first novel in 1933.

Voyage a la bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) was a succés d’estime from the start and before long a bestseller too. Surely it would be soon made into a major motion picture.

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The Gospel According to Goldberg

Margot Metroland

2,037 words

Jonah Goldberg
Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
New York: Crown Forum, 2018

Anyone expecting Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West to be a new meditation on James Burnham’s 1964 classic[1] about the moral degeneracy of liberal democracy is in for a laugh. Having borrowed Burnham’s tasty title, Goldberg goes off in another direction entirely, often inverting Burnham’s argument. Read more …

Published: May 17, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Ayn Rand, book reviews, capitalism, Deirdre McCloskey, free market, James Burnham, John Locke, Jonah Goldberg, liberal democracy, Max Weber, North American New Right, originals | Comments closed

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‘Zine Master Adam:
Remembering Adam Parfrey, April 12, 1957–May 10, 2018

Margot Metroland

Adam Parfrey in Hollywood, 1990

1,655 words

Adam Parfrey, the publisher of humor and esoterica who parlayed a 1980s “‘zine” sensibility into a durable niche publishing house, has died at his home in Port Townsend, Washington. He was 61.

His main publishing imprint, Feral House, specialized in topics pertaining to pop culture, far-Right politics, and conspiracy theorizing. Read more …

Published: May 11, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Adam Parfrey, Amok Press, articles, Edward D. Wood Jr., Feral House, Françoise Hardy, J. G. Ballard, Johnny Depp, Ken Swezey, North American New Right, obituaries, originals, Woodrow Parfrey | Comments closed

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Robert Brasillach & Notre avant-guerre:
Remembering Robert Brasillach, March 31, 1909–February 6, 1945

Margot Metroland

Robert Brasillach at his trial in 1945.

3,574 words

Today is the birthday of Robert Brasillach, French journalist, novelist, and film historian (The History of Motion Pictures, co-written with Maurice Bardéche).

It is Brasillach’s fate mainly to be remembered for being the only collaborateur sentenced to death (by firing squad) for “intellectual crimes.” Read more …

Published: March 31, 2018 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Albert Camus, Alcazar Palace, Belgium, Ce Soir, Charles Maurras, Colette, commemorations, France, Francisco Franco, Georges Bernanos, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Henri Massis, Jacques Maritain, Je Suis Partout, Jean Cocteau, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, La Cabeza, Léon Degrelle, M. de Lequerica, Maurice Bardèche, North American New Right, Paul Claudel, Pierre Cousteau, Pierre Daye, Pierre Gaxotte, Popular Front, reprints, Rexist Party, Robert Brasillach, Spain, Vendredi | Comments closed

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Sick Noir for the Holiday

Margot Metroland

It was never really wonderful.

1,319 words

A few years back—let us say, forty—some TV boffins decided there was a perfect and archetypal Christmas film that must be broadcast every Yuletide season. And that film was the disturbing and surreal It’s a Wonderful Life with James Stewart. A downer-fable about failure and suicide, it flopped resoundingly with critics and public alike when it came out in 1946. Director Frank Capra himself counted it among his least favorite efforts. Personally I’ve never met anyone who really likes the movie. Read more …

Published: December 24, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Christmas, Double Indemnity, Film Noir, Frank Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life, L.A. Confidential, Mildred Pierce, movie reviews, North American New Right, reprints, The Boy with Green Hair | Comments closed

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Henry Williamson & T. E. Lawrence

Margot Metroland

Henry Williamson

2,114 words

December 1st is the 122nd birthday of Henry Williamson (Dec. 1, 1895–Aug. 13, 1977), English naturalist, novelist, and nationalist.

One of Williamson’s unique distinctions is to have been T. E. Lawrence’s literary friend and personal confidant during the last seven years of Lawrence’s life, 1928–1935. It is a matter of record that when Lawrence had his fatal motorcycle accident, he had just been to the post office to send a telegram to Williamson. Read more …

Published: December 1, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Henry Williamson, North American New Right, originals, T. E. Lawrence | Comments closed

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Mosley Reconsidered

Margot Metroland

1,135 words

November 16, 1896 – December 3, 1980

November 16th is the 121st birthday of Sir Oswald (“Tom”) Mosley, English MP, baronet, political innovator, fascist and nationalist.

We’re at a strange new moment in history now, when figures such as Mosley can be honestly appraised without our falling into cant or parroting someone else’s hobby-horses. Read more …

Published: November 16, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, commemorations, North American New Right, reprints, Sir Oswald Mosley | Comments closed

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The Counter-Currents 2017 Fundraiser
Encountering Counter-Currents

Margot Metroland

818 words

Greg asked me to pen this week’s fundraiser update to bring a fresh voice and perspective. Since last week’s update, we have received 23 donations (including 12 all-important pledges of monthly support) totaling $2,045.04. This brings the total for our fundraiser to $44,973.56. That puts us just short of 75% of the way to our goal of $60,000. Read more …

Published: October 20, 2017 | Posted in news item | Also tagged 2017 fundraiser, new items | Comments closed

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Remembering Revilo Oliver (July 7, 1908–August 20, 1994)
The Professor & the Carnival Barker

Margot Metroland

3,434 words

Professor Revilo Pendleton Oliver died in 1994, full of years and honors, as they say; and also notoriety. Long a Classics professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana, he gained his PhD in 1938 with a translation and commentary on a 1500-year-old Sanskrit drama. Read more …

Published: July 7, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, commorations, John Birch Society, Louis Byers, National Alliance, North American New Right, originals, Revilo Oliver, Robert Welch, the Jewish question, William F. Buckley, William Pierce | Comments closed

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Special Pleading for Fascist Daddy

Margot Metroland

2,183 words

Francis Beckett
Fascist in the Family: The Tragedy of John Beckett MP
London & New York: Routledge, 2017 (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)

Here is a book of deep political scholarship and heartbreaking family history. It misses being great because the author lost the plot during the many years he worked on it, and he wound up hanging his father’s story on a lurid promotional “hook,” which I’ll get into below. Read more …

Published: May 22, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged A. K. Chesterton, book reviews, Chapman Pincher, Duke of Bedford, Fascist in the Family, Francis Beckett, Graham Mitchell, John Beckett, Nigel West, North American New Right, originals, Oswald Mosley, Peter Wright, Roger Hollis, William Joyce | Comments closed

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The Weaponized Nonsense of George Lakoff

Margot Metroland

1,446 words

Sometimes you read a newspaper column that starts off so pointlessly and insipidly you can’t tell whether it’s supposed to be a parody of bad writing, or the writer just wants to introduce a humorous idea but can’t find the right hook to hang it on. This happened a few days ago (April 10) in The Washington Post, with a column by one Steven Petrow. Read more …

Published: April 14, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Alt-Right, Andrew Ferguson, Donald Trump, George Lakoff, North American New Right, originals, Steven Petrow | Comments closed

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The Enigma of Whittaker Chambers

Margot Metroland

Whittaker Chambers, underground man.

2,070 words

(Written in the style, if not quite the spirit, of senior TIMEditor Chambers’ weekly newsmagazine.)

Rumpled, paunchy Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901-July 9, 1961) has long merited haughty sneers and raised eyebrows on America’s nationalist Right. Reasons: his shifting ideologies, his inscrutable motives.

Among the most compelling critiques of Chambers we may count those of Classics professor Revilo P. Oliver. Read more …

Published: April 4, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Adolph Berle, Alger Hiss, Arnold Toynbee, Ayn Rand, Bambi, Calvin Fixx, Chiang Kai-Shek, Czar Nicholas II, Evelyn Waugh, Felix Salten, Harry Dexter White, Henry R. Luce, James Agee, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Ford, Joseph Stalin, Marxism, Noel Field, North American New Right, originals, Oxford University Press, Priscilla Hiss, Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard M. Nixon, Sam Tanenhaus, The Grapes of Wrath, Theodore H. White, Time magazine, Whittaker Chambers, William F. Buckley Jr., Witness (book), Yalta Conference | Comments closed

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Robert Brasillach & Notre avant-guerre:
Remembering Robert Brasillach, March 31, 1909-February 6, 1945

Margot Metroland

Robert Brasillach at his trial in 1945.

3,570 words

Today is the birthday of Robert Brasillach, French journalist, novelist, and film historian (The History of Motion Pictures, co-written with Maurice Bardéche).

It is Brasillach’s fate mainly to be remembered for being the only collaborateur sentenced to death (by firing squad) for “intellectual crimes.” Read more …

Published: March 31, 2017 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Albert Camus, Alcazar Palace, Belgium, Ce Soir, Charles Maurras, Colette, commemorations, France, Francisco Franco, Georges Bernanos, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano, Henri Massis, Jacques Maritain, Je Suis Partout, Jean Cocteau, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, La Cabeza, Léon Degrelle, M. de Lequerica, Maurice Bardèche, North American New Right, originals, Paul Claudel, Pierre Cousteau, Pierre Daye, Pierre Gaxotte, Popular Front, Rexist Party, Robert Brasillach, Spain, Vendredi | Comments closed

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Whose Jane Austen is It, Anyway?

Margot Metroland

Mock ad by Michael O’Donoghue & George W. S. Trow, 1971 National Lampoon

2,215 words

For the past couple of weeks there’s been a lot of media blather about how the novelist Jane Austen is an icon of the Alt Right. The distress this causes Leftist critics has been a thing of high comedy and low hysteria.

If you haven’t been keeping up, I review some articles immediately below. Otherwise, feel free to skip about halfway down, where I get into matters of cultural appropriation and Austen sex roles. Read more …