Kevin Alfred Strom

Marginalia

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  HENRY FORD ARTICLE REPRINTED: Thanks to Indonesian blogger Mengenai Saya for adding my article, "The Wisdom of Henry Ford" to her online English course. Note, though, that the address mentioned in the reprint is out of date, and anyone wishing to write me should use the "contact" link at the top of this page.

  Contrary to the media's propaganda image, Ford was a gentle man with a philosophical turn of mind, deeply committed to peace and understanding between peoples. He did not "hate Jews," and in fact worked closely with Jewish peace activists, whose insights were partly responsible for inspiring his book The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem -- which was not only a best-seller, but at one time was given as a bonus to everyone who bought a Ford automobile.

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  PERPETUAL DIVERSITY: Their symbol is Pisa's leaning tower; one of their slogans is 'Save Europe'; their staff includes Mrs. Sharity Ross-Petit, a Black woman who leads their Motherland Project, an effort to reclaim the African heritage of her people and get compensation for those who were enslaved -- and Bob Hoy, former newspaperman and Reagan appointee, now a top expert on Russia and a leader in bringing understanding between our two countries: They are the Center for Perpetual Diversity, and their goal is  to stop the cultural and genetic destruction of Europe which, they say, may reach the point of no return within ten years. Globalization and racial homogenization destroy diversity, so the Center is well-named.

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  FRENCH TRANSLATION PUBLISHED: Thanks to the 843@rien site for publishing a French translation of my essay Facing Racial Realities, and thanks also to the indefatigable Irmin Vinson for doing the translation.

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  ART GALLERY RESTORED: After a too-long absence due to serious damage done by hackers, my art and photography gallery is now back online! Let me know if you experience any glitches or missing images. There are categories for paintings, sculpture, portraits, personal photographs, digital art, and more. It can be accessed using the 'Art' link in the menu near the top of this page.

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  OUTRAGEOUS IMPRISONMENT: Two Britons -- Simon Sheppard, a writer and behavioral scientist, and Stephen Whittle, a freelance writer and satirist -- languished a year in American jails though they committed no crimes whatever under American law. They fled to the U.S. seeking asylum because they fell afoul of tyrannical anti-free-speech laws in Britain and faced imprisonment merely for expressing their ideas and publishing the ideas of others -- such as Robert Crumb cartoons! -- on a Web page. If anyone deserves asylum here, they do. The pair, dubbed the Heretical Two, are prime examples of our abandonment of our once-proud tradition of freedom of expression. They've now been forcibly returned to Britain, where they face sentencing for their "crimes" on July 10. Before we cast stones at Iran, we need to examine our own societies.

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  MORE WAR RUMBLINGS: It seems that the oligarchs of the so-called "West" (actually, Russia seems to stand for traditional Western values more than America or the EU does these days) not only want to conquer Iran, but to surround and intimidate Russia as well. According to South Ossetian political scientist Irina Kadzhaev, "Georgia's war against South Ossetia may easily turn into NATO's war against Russia. This would be a third world war." And according to Canadian think tank Global Research, American and NATO military men are being trained to regard Russia as "the enemy."

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  THE FOUR FREEDOMS?: Corruption rules modern America. It is a truism, mentioned by Mike Gravel among many others, that both parties and their candidates take in considerable sums of money from hedge funds, oil companies, lawyers' associations, and numerous multinational corporations -- to say nothing of the Israel Lobby. But it's nothing new.

  A (much older) friend of mine, who worked for Army intelligence during World War 2, once told me that many Washington insiders routinely referred to FDR's "Four Freedoms" as "The Rake Off, the Pay Off, the Shakedown, and the Fix." And so it goes.

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  PROMOTE DIVERSITY: A college student wrote, saying that his teacher (with whom he did not agree!) was saying that interracial marriage "promoted diversity." How sad. Especially sad since racial mixture doesn't promote diversity -- it destroys it.

  It destroys biodiversity just like forcing or encouraging the varieties or subspecies of, say, eagles to live in the same territory and crossbreed would destroy biodiversity.

  Just like forcing or encouraging the subspecies of the lovely shell-builders of the genus Murex to interbreed would destroy biodiversity -- and destroy much unique beauty as well.

  Evolution is the process which gave us all this diversity and beauty.

  And evolution is a branching process, with subspecies varying -- at first almost undetectably, then quite visibly -- and eventually evolving apart enough to form new species.

  It's insane, pointless, and destructive to try and force the branches back together when they have begun to evolve apart, as the major human races certainly have.

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  USA NOW MARXIST?: I suppose it had to happen sometime after the accession of Barack I, but it's still an historic moment: a writer on Russia's Pravda has described the U.S.A. as "Marxist" and called for Russians to rethink their American investments.

  Pravda has quite a bit of courage and some good articles these days. Wish they'd do two things, though: 1) put their best material in audio form and start an Internet radio network with licensable hourly newscasts to compete with the "Western" corporate media (which could also be put on shortwave); and 2) stop running the sensationalistic/sexy stuff with which they salt their site in an apparent effort to increase ratings and revenue -- it hurts the credibility of the serious pieces.

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  LOCAL CURRENCIES: Some communities are partially opting out of the debt-money system that is ruling us, failing us, and taking our wealth. They issue their own currency and back it with goods and services produced locally.

  The local-currency movement displays a fascinating set of trends: away from globalization, away from corporate control, away from central government control, away from homogenization, away from commercial banking control over wealth and credit, and away from the appalling unsustainability of credit-money at compound interest.

  These trends are all good things; all things that could ultimately tend to the preservation of local values, and diverse human cultures and types, across the planet. I wish them well!

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