Disgraceful VICE Article Compares Jordan Peterson to the NXIVM Sex Cult Leader Raniere

VICE have been terrible for a long time, but this article may well win the award for the worst piece they have ever published. In this utterly bizarre excuse for journalism, Sarah Berman opens by comparing Keith Raniere (leader of the horrifying NXIVM sex-trafficking cult) to Ayn Rand, because Raniere was allegedly influenced by her work. The parallels are incredible. Rand insisted that her work was a pathway to objective truth; Raniere’s courses make similar claims. Rand supports unfettered free markets; Raniere’s courses use corporate and individualist rhetoric. Rand had a “cult of personality” i.e. she was a celebrity; Raniere had a literal sex cult full of brainwashed sex slaves. Rand did some unsavoury things in her life (“had affairs” and “ruined other people’s careers”); Raniere did some unsavoury things (sex-trafficking and effective rape). They’re exactly alike!

As far as the “cult” of personality goes, surely Karl Marx would be a much better go-to comparison. He too claimed that he had access to objective truth (“scientific” he called it) and that anybody that didn’t agree with him was operating under “false consciousness.” The difference between Marx and Rand, however, is that Marx’s cult following went on to kill around 100 million people, even though Marx’s future projections had failed to manifest.

But I digress. On with the article. Determining that these apparently shared traits put us on the path to Raniere-ism, Sarah then claims that Jordan Peterson is the latest villain to spread these foul ideas. This is no surprise as VICE publish smears of Dr. Peterson like clock-work every couple of weeks. Peterson is apparently comparable to Rand (whom he has criticised on numerous occasions) because he promotes “individual responsibility” and because he believes that there is such a thing as objective truth. He also believes that reason and rationality are good things, and can be used to bring us closer to objective truth. This puts him in league with Raniere, via Rand. Do you see the connection?

There is literally nothing more to the article than this. Sarah makes the occasional dig at Peterson not being a feminist (three times I think) and seems to assert that Peterson is an objectivist (despite him not even identifying as a libertarian). Simply read it for yourself, and decide whether you wish to continue supporting VICE (if you didn’t have the sense to split once Gavin left). I’m all for reading disagreeable opinions – I regularly turn to Libcom, Revleft and Marxists.org for educational purposes. But I’d like you to read this piece and ask yourself: “does this really read like journalism? Is this simply a controversial opinion? Or is it a smear,  intended to associate Peterson with a sex-trafficker in order to defame his character?”

I’ll let you decide, but will leave you with a reminder that the article opens with a photograph of Peterson next to a photograph of Raniere (who, let’s not forget, are linked spuriously together by alleged similarities to Rand), and the article contains quotes like “one could almost write off figures like Rand, Raniere and Peterson until you realize their followings are on a moral crusade they believe is backed by reason itself” and “we hear Peterson and Raniere argue you need to work on yourself, make yourself rich and successful first, before you can look to solve any other problem in this world…And only thinking about yourself—not looking out in the world for perpetrators of massive power abuse—well that’s the mindset that allowed Raniere to avoid the attention of America’s justice system for more than a decade.”

And now, just in case you’re worried that you yourself might get involved in a Rand-Peterson-Raniere objectivist sex cult, please refer below for the Sarah Berman Objectivist Sex Cult Proclivity Test!

Tick All That Apply

• Do you believe that the use of reason is a pathway to truth?
• Do you believe that there is such a thing as objective truth?
• Do you believe that rationality is superior to irrationality?
• Do you believe in individual responsibility?
• Do you disagree with the post-modernist claim that there is no objective truth and everything is relative?
• Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?
• Do you enjoy Dr. Peterson’s lectures?
• Do you believe that objective truth may be reached by reasoned, rational argument?
• Are you Aristotle?
• Are you Rene Descartes?
• Are you Karl Marx?
• Are you Bertrand Russell?
• Are you planning on operating an enormous, secretive, Scientology-like enterprise which fronts as a support group, fraternity or self-development course but is actually a means to brainwash young women into being branded and used as sex slaves?

If you ticked none of the above, hurray! You are safe for now. Be sure to avoid any thinker that claims to be rational and reasoned, and just focus on authors that embrace irrationalism like Derrida. Do not take responsibility for yourself – blame the “system” until everybody in the world is equally prosperous (the natural way, the way things should be).

If you ticked one or more of the above, uh oh! It is very likely that you have been afflicted with Raniere-ism (aka Peterson-ism, Rand-ism). It is unclear what will happen to you. You may write one of the best-selling novels of all time, you may go on to be the most popular psychologist and philosopher of our age, or you may start a secretive sex-trafficking cult. Tread carefully.

C Hill

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: ‘Unite the Right’ Returns

“Unite the White” would have been a more appropriate title. August 12th marks the one year anniversary of the infamous Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, and the anniversary reunion was ostensibly organised to defend “white civil rights.”

Round two did not quite live up to its expectations. The previous year saw thousands of protesters (white nationalists, alt-righters, confederate heritage defenders and neo-nazis) clashing with counter-protesters (antifa and black lives matter as well as various churches and other non-violent groups) as the police and National Guard failed to prevent violence from erupting. The most shocking event of the original rally was the murder of Heather Heyer, a peaceful counter-protester that was run down by a psychopath in a car (representing the so-called “right” of the conflict).

This obvious tragedy aside, my reaction to the original rally at large was best expressed by Candace Owens: who cares, we have bigger problems to worry about than this silly drag act. In fact, aside from big theatrical shows of strength like Charlottesville, I don’t take the claims of white nationalists very seriously. If white nationalists in the USA are really concerned with forming a white ethno-state, why don’t they move up to somewhere like Maine or New Hampshire where the white population is very high and there is very little ethnic migration? For all their parades and publications, I am not convinced that many white nationalists are really sincere about their goals. It may be that, like their far left counter-parts, they just like to play self-made victims with an unhealthy obsession with group identity.

For the anniversary event, held in Washington after a failed attempt to obtain a permit for Charlottesville, organiser Jason Kessler allegedly demanded “no nazis,” claiming that the rally is simply about white identitarian civil rights and nothing to do with nazism. Quite a shift in tone from last year, which included numerous national-socialist organisations with Matthew Heimbach even booked as a key speaker. However, before you go thinking that Kessler might be a peaceable Jared Taylor-type, recall that after last year’s rally he made public comments claiming that Heathen Heyer deserved to die, even alienating the likes of Richard Spencer.

Speaking of Spencer, he and other ‘leading’ white nationalists and neo-nazis (including the crazies behind Daily Stormer) denounced the event and encouraged their followers not to partake, apparently Kessler is no longer well-liked within American ethno-nationalist circles. This may be why the numbers were rather pathetic, with some estimates claiming less than a hundred attendees, contra several thousand counter-protesters.

There were anticipations that the “anti-fascist” protesters would behave reprehensibly as is usually the case and of course they did not disappoint, getting into scuffles with the police and harassing local media. As usual, the American MSM ignored the violence of the anarcho-communists, comforted by their delusion that their enemy’s enemy is their friend: only our allies at Fox were willing to point out the hypocrisy (thanks Tucker and Tomi). This was the same problem as with the original event, of which it was impossible to find any unbiased, objective account. The closest I found were Keith Preston’s and, most impressively, President Trump’s (Trump and Pence also condemned “violence and racism” ahead of the anniversary event).

First as tragedy, then as farce. What an enormous waste of time for everybody involved. The rally should have never happened, it should have never been counter-protested, and the media should have just ignored it. I’m not even sure why I wrote this article.

C Hill

New Deal or Raw Deal?

It’s July 7th, and only yesterday did Chairman May and her cabinet of commissars finalise their plan for the supposed exit of Britain from the EU. May’s ‘new deal’ features various concessions to the EU, most in stark contrast to what was voted for in the original referendum. Some of these concessions, which can only be fairly described as a betrayal of the British electorate, include:

• The so-called “combined customs territory.” While granting us some minor independence in the setting of tariffs and trade policies, this is simply an open border to the EU, so that “EU citizens” can pass through to the UK easily (without the sort of checks we’d put on, say, Americans) and vice versa, just as can be done now. Of course, given that EU countries must accept refugees from whatever country they first arrive at, usually Italy or Greece, it is only a matter of traveling from there to Britain, and the extra vetting we so desperately needed does not seem possible. In other words, the Islamist threat that is steadily making its way from Syria to Libya to Greece to France to Britain cannot be resisted any better than it could have if the remainers had won the referendum. It would still be un-constitutional (see the next point).
• Absolute submission to the European Court of Justice. No independence for our legal system. Called a “joint jurisdiction of rules” and “joint institutional framework,” UK courts must still abide by EU case law. Legal sovereignty and our common law heritage have been completely abandoned.
• “Harmonisation on goods.” I won’t dress this up, this means that EU regulations still apply. Environmental law has been listed specifically (so don’t expect to be liberated from the Paris Agreement any time soon), as has employment law (so not much luck of challenging the BBC and other institutions on their racially-discriminatory quota systems).

Let’s be clear about this. We have no control over our borders, putting no halt on the extremism entering into our country. Our Parliament is not sovereign, and our courts are subordinate to the EU courts. We have no control over employment law, environmental law, consumer law and other important areas that should not be dictated homogenously from mainland Europe. We seem to have some control over tariffs, and so will the EU, who will no doubt use this as an opportunity to stifle our trade opportunities and make an example of us.

So in other words, this isn’t Brexit. We hear all the time from remainers that “people didn’t know what they were voting for” and “we need a second referendum to define what exit means.” This is plainly ridiculous. While the technical details were not established pre-referendum, we knew what we were voting for. Leavers wanted INDEPENDENCE from the EU. Not nominally, not just on a few issues, but full autonomy. Absolute national independence. Remainers rejected this and wanted to maintain the current state of affairs. Let’s be clear about this: there were no leave voters that simply wanted to be nominally independent, but still wanted open borders and for the EU courts to be sovereign. Nobody. This is the deal that nobody wanted. It is only wanted now because remainers recognise that it is their only means of sabotaging a clean exit. The new deal has Anna Soubry’s finger prints all over it.

Whether backbenchers have the determination to see this voted down awaits to be seen. If they fail, then the new goal is clear.  Britain will not be able to leave the Empire so long as it exists. We need to look to allies in Italy, France, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Finland, Hungary and wherever else there is disaffection with the EU. If we cannot exit alone, then a pan-continental exit looks like our only hope.

C Hill

Book Review: The Churchill Memorandum (Sean Gabb)

“The funny thing about homecomings is the momentary sense of being simultaneously in two different time streams. There’s the knowledge of everything said and done while away. There’s the feeling of having never been away…”

Returning from the USA with an apparently innocuous case full of miscellaneous notes and records, renown historian and Churchill biographer Anthony Markham is oblivious  about the ordeal that will soon befall him. The year is 1959, but Eisenhower is nowhere in sight. Harry Anslinger is president. Gandhi did not survive his most fatal hunger strike, Hitler and Churchill died prematurely, Goring controls Germany, World War 2 never happened and the Nazis have made peace with the Jews. Within this alternate timeline, Markham is on the constant run from a cloak-and-dagger conspiracy intent on capturing him and the mysterious case he is compelled to defend. But why is Markham at the centre of this conspiracy? What were the ‘Pressburg Accords’ and who is so desperate to get hold of them? And what do Enoch Powell, Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand, Vicky Richardson, Harold Macmillan, Michael Foot, the British media, the Soviet Russia and the Indian National Party have to do with it all?

This short thriller by British libertarian luminary Sean Gabb is a recommended read for two reasons: the fast-paced espionage adventure that makes up the story, keeping the reader guessing at every turn, and the alternate future (or alternate past) that frames it. While this reviewer is at a loss for accurate comparisons as far as the mystery/thriller genre goes, The Churchill Memorandum is a gripping, suspenseful and rewarding adventure nested in a bemusingly alternative Albion that never was.

C Hill

Communists Shut Down East Lewisham Hustings, Police Fail to Safeguard Democracy

The East Lewisham hustings were set to take place last Tuesday as a local seat was being contested by various MPs, including “controversial” anti-Islamist activist Anne Marie-Waters along with UKIP, the Lib Dems and the Women’s Equality Party – Labour and Conservative candidates neglected to take part.

The scheduled event, in which candidates have the opportunity to answer questions and address concerns of local residents, was fiercely protested by the Socialist Worker’s Party. “Protested” is to put it mildly, self-proclaimed “anti-racist” activists (that falsely believe extreme Islamism to be a race) blocked the local community from entering the building, screaming “shame on you” to anybody attempting to enter and proudly boasting “they shall not pass.” One of the victims was eighty-three year -old Doreen, a local constituent, who was refused the right to ask questions of the candidates and was prevented from entering the building. Anne-Marie Waters was blocked completely and removed for her own safety, whilst UKIP’s David Kurten was interrupted by a wild-eyed “anti-racist” agitator. The police eventually shut down the event due to concerns over public safety before all of the candidates were given an opportunity to speak.

Media has been absolutely silent on these events, despite the democratic right to stand for office and for local constituents to access accurate information about candidates being denied by violent, ignorant communist crazies. What does this mean for the future of democracy in Britain? If elected politicians, along with private media and state media (BBC, Channel 4) refuse to defend the democratic rights of small local communities, then how are we to move forward?

It has been said before and I’ll say it again: the government and police need to take violent far-left populism as seriously as they take the far right. As a matter of fact, the far left are a far greater threat to democracy and liberty to this country than the far right: if right-wing activists were to shut down an event because a left-wing Islamist apologist was speaking, would the result be the same? Would the media be silent? Would elected politicians turn a blind eye? This is a cultural war, and we will not see progress until the danger of communist vigilantes is absorbed into the popular conscience of the British public. Until the hammer and sickle has the same evil resonance as the swastika, then we can expect more shutdowns from empty-headed neo-Bolsheviks without end. Until that day comes I will continue to say shame on the complacent, self-serving media and apathetic career politicians that have abetted this situation and allowed national morale to sink so low.

C Hill