Since the neocons’ takeover of the foreign policy apparatus of the United States, their political opponents have begun to examine the influence of Leo Strauss on the neoconservative world view. Virtually all of the leading neoconservative intellectuals, from Irving Kristol to David Horowitz, cite Strauss as a major influence. Some, like Paul Wolfowitz, are his former students. The left-wing scholar Shadia Drury describes Straussian thought as extremely elitist in nature, rooted in a belief in the unfitness of the masses for self-determination and the need for political authority to vested in Machiavellian leaders whose principal function is to preserve those myths and fairy tales, whether religious or national, by which the masses can be rallied to the defense of the state. The role of the intellectual is to serve as a court advisor to such leaders. Strauss’ adoption of such views seems to be rooted in his experience as a German-Jewish refugee from the Hitler regime. Strauss blamed the liberal political climate of the Weimar Republic for allowing the ascendancy of the Nazis. In his view, this discredited political pluralism as a means of achieving sanctuary for the Jews. While he may not have said so directly (a not surprising fact given his taste for esotericism), Strauss seems to have developed the idea that the best course for Jews would be to develop authoritarian states that they would either rule directly, such as Israel (Strauss was a rabid Zionist), or serve as court intellectuals and thereby influence the practice of statecraft, as in America. Hence, the development of neoconservative ideology by the students and admirers of Strauss.[111]
Of course, the neoconservatives could have never achieved their present level of power without accomplices, primarily the traditional right wing of the US ruling class—oil barons, armaments manufacturers, elite banking interests, etc.—and the Christian Zionist dullards who serve as their ground forces and shock troops. It might be said that the neocons play the role of the NSDAP with Halliburton, Boeing, et al., filling the position of Krupp and I. G. Farben. Perhaps the Christian Zionists are playing the role of the SA.[112] Just as the world united for the defeat of Fascism and National Socialism sixty years ago, so must the world unite for the defeat of the neocons and the New World Order of whom they are the most militant proponents. Outside the Anglosphere, the most successful opponents of the New World Order thus far have been adherents of what Kenneth J. Schmidt refers to as “populist nationalism”:
In Europe, these days particularly, nationalism has replaced communism as the threat which unites the center-right and the center-left. In recent days all one needs to do is pick up a newspaper and the names jump out at you: Le Pen, Fortuyn, Haider, Kajarrlstad.
What are the reasons for the rise of a populist-tinged nationalism? In the so-called western world, a great rift has developed between the ordinary people and the elites that rule over them.
The fact that the elites and the common people have always had different worldviews is a given. I contend, however, that never in the history of European civilization has there been such a large gap in the way our elites see the world and how the common folk see the world. The historian and social thinker Christopher Lasch had a term for this, he called it a “Revolt of the Elites.” The people that rule over us—the big business managerial elite, the media barons, the Zionists and the Manhattan intelligentsia—adhere to values that are strongly at variance with those of working and middle-class whites.[113]
Schmidt notes that populist-nationalist parties in Europe have primarily eclipsed the radical left rather than the center-right. The center-right and center-left parties have essentially identical positions: neo-liberal economics and left-egalitarian cultural values. It is for this reason that, despite the relative vibrant nature of the anti-globalization movement, the far left will fail as a revolutionary force against the international ruling class. On cultural matters, the Far Left differs from the left wing of capital only with regards to the question of degree. The Libertarians are in a similar position, differing from the neo-liberal economics of the Establishment only on questions of degree rather than principle. Some have even gone so far as to endorse flagrantly mercantilist arrangements such as NAFTA. It should also be noted that most rank-and-file supporters of “populist nationalism” throw their allegiance behind those whom they perceive as representing their own interests, rather than some grand principle. While “populist nationalism” may have its roots in the Far Right, its ability to attract sympathy from mainstream working people, crossover leftists, and even some libertarians, such as those of the paleo variety, establishes it as a force with considerable potential.
I am not a nationalist and I regard the principal flaws in nationalism to be its tendency towards chauvinism and its usually inadequate critique of the state.[114] Leaders like Le Pen, Fortuyn, Haider, and Buchanan may have laid an important foundation but much, much more work needs to be done. I have argued in this article that philosophical anarchism represents a potential alternative paradigm to the contemporary paradigm of state-capitalist liberal democracy. Elsewhere, I have argued that populism is likely to be the proper means to anarchism.[115] Hence, what I am proposing is a new strategic paradigm and, to a certain extent, a new school of anarchist thought that I call “anarcho-populism.” This new brand of anarchism would draw on the other schools in various ways. The classical anarchism originally developed by Proudhon would be its foundation. Like anarcho-socialism, anarcho-populism would be anti-capitalist and pro-class struggle. Like anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-populism would endorse property, markets, and the independent sector as an antidote to statism, corporatism, and welfarism. Along with leftist-anarchists, this new anarchist tendency would support political freedom and cultural self-determination for racial minorities, women, gays, and the like, but it would not seek to mindlessly glorify or privilege these groups or demonize white males. Along with primitivists and eco-anarchists, anarcho-populism would seek to preserve the natural environment, but without the misanthropy and anti-tech hysteria of much of modern environmentalism. Like national-anarchists, anarcho-populism would endorse the right of traditional racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural groups to self-preservation and political sovereignty and cross-cultural, cross-ideological alliances against the NWO, but would seek to branch out into “mainstream” society rather than seek out reclusive isolation from the modern world. The objective is revolution rather than withdrawal. On cultural matters, anarcho-populism would endorse social organicism, evolved and historic traditions, and natural evolution in opposition to either “cultural conservatism” (which implies stasis or chauvinism) or “progressivism”(with its incipient universalism or utopianism). Our icons would be Aristotle, Burke, Jefferson, Stirner, Proudhon, Nietzsche, Mencken, Dennis, Hayek, Nisbet, and Kirk, rather than Rousseau, Marx, and Adorno, or William F. Buckley, Margaret Thatcher, and Rush Limbaugh.[116]
Resisting the Empire
It has been mentioned that leadership in building a consensus and alliance against the New World Order and American imperialism would necessarily have to come from outside the Anglosphere. While admirably opposing imperial aggression against the Islamic nations, the nations of continental Western Europe are too influenced by American cultural values, political correctness being largely an American export, and their elite classes are too intertwined with American capitalism to initiate consistent leadership against these things. These nations are in a process of social and economic decay and are militarily weak. Also, their lengthy history of formal alliances with the US regime will be altered only with considerable struggle and difficulty. The Arab nations are too poor to lead such a resistance and the Asian nations are more interested in buying American consumer goods than resisting American imperialism. Ideally, leadership in the development of an anti-NWO, anti-Anglo-Zionist bloc would come from Russia. First, Russia is second only to the United States in military strength. Second, Russia has a long history of serving as a counterbalance to Western, particularly American, imperialisms, even if it was done under the decaying, backward regimes of the tsars or the political deformation of
communism.
Archonis, a national-anarchist commentator, observes:
The Russian people and politicians must forge ahead in the “Red-Brown” alliance of Left and Right populism and decentralization, and return Russia to a nation of small institutions, but with adequate defenses and an agrarian economy. The civil institutions must be made small . . . along the lines of farming and guild socialism. The military defenses including nuclear weapons must be built up.
Russia should forge alliances with China and the Middle East, along with Europe, and be the center of power in a domain that embraces both the East and West . . . guard the resources of its former satellites . . . and . . . maintain control of the oil and mineral reserves . . . [T]he economic survival of Eurasia as a whole is predicated on the interdependence on all of the countries of Europe as well as China and India.
. . . Without Europe unifying with Russia and Asia, along with the Middle East, . . . [these nations] will end up being a “Client-State-Network,” dominated by U.S. hegemony.
A united Eurasia could pressure [the Anglo-American-Zionist axis] with trade sanctions and disinvestment, . . . form an intra-net and cut off these countries from their portion of the Internet. The only recourse imperialist nations could turn to would be war, but as long as Eurasia has weapons of mass destruction this will not happen. U.S. imperialists . . . are greedy, decadent cowards who only care about keeping their wealth and nothing else. They cannot comprehend the honor-concept of war. They only understand war as a tool of “gunboat” diplomacy. . . .
Even in conventional warfare, Russia and the large Eurasian landmass has an advantage over the balkanized sea-surrounded lands. Movement is quicker and there are more options for strategic deployment. There are hosts of areas with strange peoples and terrains in the former Soviet Asia, and Chechens and the Turkic peoples . . . have training in unconventional warfare. In the event of war against Eurasia by the imperialists, Russia and China and the peoples of the former Soviet Asia could provide the fighting forces, whereas the European flank can levy diplomatic and economic sanctions . . .[117]
While the downfall and disintegration of the USSR was, for the most part, a positive occurrence, one of its negative side effects has been the creation of power vacuum that American imperialism has been all too eager to fill, thereby generating an even greater concentration of power on a global scale. The sort of revitalized Russia that Archonis hopes for, a Russia rooted in its own traditional culture, a culture that produced Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Bakunin and Kropotkin, and minus the crackpot ideology of Soviet communism and its accompanying bureaucratic monolith, might indeed be the force needed to successfully challenge the hegemony of the Anglo-American-Zionist triumvirate, the genuine “Axis of Evil.” Such an effort within the Russian nation would require visionary leadership founded on recognition of the necessity of looking beyond conventional ideological, cultural, or national boundaries towards the creation of an anti-imperialist bloc. The Russian philosopher and political figure Alexander Dugin postulates the concept of “Eurasianism” as the means to such ends. Dugin explains:
To whom are we addressing the call to enter and to back our movement? To each Russian, educated or not, influential and the last of the dispossessed, to the worker and to the manager, to the needy and the well-off, to the Russian and the Tatar, to the Orthodox and the Jew, to the conservative and the modernist, to the student and the defender of the law, to the soldier and the weaver, to the governor and the rock musician. . . . The movement “Eurasian” is founded on the principles of the radical centre. We are neither leftists nor rightists, we are neither slavishly compliant to the authorities, nor oppositionists barking with a reason and without at any costs . . .
Russia will seriously be faced with the purpose of rescuing itself and the rest of the world from the terrible threat which creeps from the West . . .
In the religious sphere it means constructive and solid dialogue between the traditional creeds of Russia: Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism . . . In the sphere of foreign policy, Eurasianism implies a wide process of strategic integration . . . spread to wider areas—to the countries of the Moscow-Teheran-Delhi-Beijing axis . . . priority relations with the European countries . . . active cooperation with the countries of the Pacific region . . . active and universal opposition to globalization . . .
Eurasianism defends the blossoming complexity of peoples, religions and nations . . . a combination of strategic unity and ethno-cultural (in definite cases, economic) autonomies. Different ways of life at the local level . . . Eurasianism is primarily addressed to the youth, to the people whose consciousness has not yet been spoiled by random leaps from one inadequate ideological pattern to another, even less adequate . . .[118]
Dugin mentions a number of ideological tendencies that are involved in the struggle against New World Order imperialism. These include Orthodoxy, Islam, Traditionalism, the Conservative Revolution, National Bolshevism, Third Positionism, Russian nationalism, Socialism, Islamic socialism, Eurasianism, Nationalism (in general), Anarchism (in its various manifestations), the New Left, the New Right, and a good number of others.[119] While it is true that there is a vast array of tendencies struggling against the common imperial enemy, and that tactical alliances between these forces are necessary and legitimate, there remains the practical matter of how such differences within the revolutionary ranks can be accommodated. Fortunately, the “national-anarchist” theories of Troy Southgate and David Michael provide some clues as to how to proceed.[120] Whatever one’s views on the state, the ideal formation of the state, and the proper role of the state in human political or civil society, it is abundantly clear that, as a matter of expediency, statist centralization is simply incompatible with the formulation of solid tactical alliances against the common imperial enemy. The establishment of strong states in ostensible opposition to the NWO, but where the state is ordered on the basis of bitter factionalism with an ongoing danger of internal cannibalization, will inevitably have a corrupting effect on the resistance forces whereby one or another contending faction can be induced to stab the others in the back by means of bribery and offers of greater power on the part of the enemy. One need only look at the ruling classes of the so-called “moderate” Arab nations to see a graphic illustration of this point.
The conventional nation-state system has been rendered obsolete by the consolidation of the NWO global superstate. Therefore, old-style nationalisms are irrelevant. The proper form of social organization to be offered in opposition to the global superstate is the organic local, regional, cultural, or ideological community. Within all traditional nations, many tendencies stand in opposition to the NWO, from the Far Left to the Far Right to the Radical Center, to libertarians, anarchists, religious communities, Greens, “Beyond Left and Right,” and others. Single-issue unity on the part of these forces for the purpose of pulling their respective nations out of the imperial system seems to be the way to go. Points of contention can be dealt with more effectively through decentralization. For example, in the nation of France, opponents of American imperialism and the NWO include the Communists and Greens from the left, nationalists on the right along with Muslims and Catholic traditionalists. Yet there is considerable disagreement among these divergent forces on many issues, particularly immigration. Conversion to a decentralized political infrastructure, such as the Swiss canton system or the federalism of Old America, might allow different factions autonomy and self-determination within their own enclaves. There could be towns and cities governed by the National Front, the Greens, Islamists, Communists, or whomever. In many nations, forces such as these constitute a majority against the center-left/center-right, pro-NWO ruling classes.[121]
What about the fate of those countries currently enduring the greatest assault at the hands of the imperialists? The resistance forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan are notoriously divided and on the verge of civil war. Collaborators and traitors exist within their ranks. How much different would the f
ate of Iraq be, if the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds each agreed to sovereignty within their own historic regions, with internal sovereignty for individual tribes and clans, additional enclaves for minorities like the Assyrian Christians, and common unity and resistance to the imperial conqueror? If the contending tribes, religious, and ethnic factions of Afghanistan adopted a polycentric order of the Somali variety, Afghanistan’s current status as a colony of Western oilmen might be drastically altered. Likewise, the relegation of the Palestinian people to the “One Big Concentration Camp” that the West Bank has become might be reversed if Anglo-Zionist imperial power had a decentralized but confederated Eurasian bloc, organized on the basis of a defensive, diplomatic, and economic tactical alliance, to contend with.
What about the struggle within the “belly of the beast” itself, the nations of the Anglosphere? If, as Kenneth J. Schmidt argues, the ideology of the ruling class is “libertarian in its economic views and left-wing multiculturalist in its social policies,”[122] then it stands to reason that the natural opposition would be the reverse: libertarian in social matters but “left-wing” (radical and revolutionary) in economics, i.e., “libertarian socialism.” By “libertarian,” I am not referring to utopian universalism of either the left-progressive or liberal-consumerist variety. Rather, I am referring to an authentic cultural diversity rooted in such anarchistic principles as individual autonomy, voluntary association, mutual aid, and decentralism. By “socialism,” I do not mean statism of either a Marxist or nationalist variety but something more consistent with the original meaning of socialism—an economy of the producers, by the producers and for the producers. “Producerism,” as the reactionary leftist Chip Berlet might call it.[123] The established schools of anarchism each have something to offer, as I pointed out earlier. However, there remains the question of how anarchism is to break out of its various ideological ghettos and into mainstream society. From classical anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, we derive the class struggle. From libertarian-individualist anarchism, we champion the individual against the state. From eco-anarchism, we approach material and technological development with a watchful eye. With neo-anarchism, we champion the downtrodden and marginalized. With national-anarchism, we seek the preservation of indigenous cultures and ideological diversity. But the point remains that most people care little, if anything, about any of this.
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