WILLI MUNZENBERG AND THE SEDUCTION OF THE INTELLECTUALS

by Mike Newland

How did it come about that much of the British intelligensia, for decades, was persuaded of the moral superiority of Communism, and of its inevitability as the future political system of the world?

One man, virtually unknown and unnoticed, can claim the dubious distinction of being the prime mover. Willi Münzenburg was born in 1888, the son of an alcoholic innkeeper in Thuringia, Germany, who killed himself cleaning a gun while drunk.

REVIEW: BLOOD IN THE SQUARE

Blood in the Square
by John Bean
Ostara Publications, 119 pages
Available for purchase from Amazon here

Reviewed by Mike Newland

Few reading this will have direct experience of living in the earlier 1960s – let alone that distant time shortly after the end of WWII.

Much of it to those who were there seems like a dream so great has been our disillusion as the high hopes of sunlit uplands dissolved into a decaying country of which we are being dispossessed. But to understand the now we need to grasp how we got to where we are and how it could have happened.

John Bean’s new novel is shrewdly set in the world of Britain just before our accelerating fall.

THE USES AND ABUSES OF ARAB NATIONALISM

White Nationalist Lessons
from Brown Nationalist Failure

by Colin Liddell

AUDIO VERSION AVAILABLE HERE

The easiest way for most people to deal with the Middle East is to mock it, show it contempt, or ignore it. This is understandable because, even at the best of times, the Arabs come across as a rather unpleasant bunch; while untangling just what is going on in the Middle East is about as inviting as unravelling a rats' nest.

MANCUR OLSON AND THE DECLINE OF NATIONS

The last days of Rome.

by Mike Newland

Why do great and powerful nations which appear unbeatable decline and fall? One might immediately conclude that they are simply overcome by the growth of inevitably superior forces despite all the advantages in resources which being powerful has brought them.

The best known example is Rome which enjoyed extraordinary abilities in organisation and in the technology it could apply by the standards of the day yet still collapsed.

Mancur Olson (1932-1998) was an American economist who addressed this question from the point of view of how things work in societies as a result of the formation of groups pursuing particular interests. How do incentives to combine together in self-interest affect what happens? See his book "The Rise and Decline of Nations."

The virtue of democratic government at first sight is that any group which feels itself disadvantaged can form a coalition and lobby to improve its position. That is certainly the version of democracy purveyed by politicians on the stump. It’s in principle correct if you ignore the obstacles placed in the path by a system protecting its power interests against interlopers.

But there is a paradox here, Olson argues. It is logical to think that if enough people are discontented and agree on a common interest that they will act in concert and influence how things work. In reality they often do not.

"BORN UNDER FOREIGN SKIES"

How Britain is heading for ‘Zones Urbaines Sensibles’

by Mike Newland

There is little awareness in Britain that five million people in France live in what are designated as ‘Zones Urbaines Sensibles’ or ZUS and what it means.

Anyone who does not find the following frightening and ominous for we Europeans is complacent to the point of madness.