bloggie

Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O'Keefe at a 2006 conference on "Race and Conservatism" that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30 on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People's Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O'Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O'Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.

By O’Keefe’s own account, his racial troubles became acute when he entered the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers University’s dormitory system. In an online diary that has since been scrubbed from the Web (but not before being captured on Daily Kos), he wrote that he was forced to live on an all-black dormitory floor after refusing to live with the gay roommate he was initially assigned. O’Keefe claimed his next roommate was “an Indian midget ... who smelled like shit.” The roommate left, however, and was replaced by “a greek kid.” The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “niggers,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm.

Meanwhile, O’Keefe lost his job at the Leadership Institute in 2008 for a prank call he made to an Ohio-based Planned Parenthood clinic. During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I'm just trying to do my part.”

You left out the best part :-)

“I was lead out of the room crying and screaming at him and my situation, no friends, no one one [sic] to talk to, forced to go in front of a black man, Dean Tolbert, to defend myself and help explain that I did not call anyone any names.”

I haven't been keeping up with this story and I just read this: One theory to be put to rest in Landrieu wiretap case: This was no Justice Department plot to frame anyone

Did Breitbart really suggest it was a Justice Department plot to frame O'Keefe as revenge for ACORN? He's out of his mind.

Perhaps there is some innocent explanation for their behavior, and their arrest is the result of a “huge misunderstanding,” as O’Keefe says. One theory that can be dismissed immediately, however, is Breitbart’s suggestion of a conspiracy by the Justice Department to “frame” or “smear” his employee O’Keefe, with the complicity of the media. When U.S. Attorney James Letten recused himself from the case, Breitbart immediately piped up to claim that this proved Letten was involved in a scheme to ruin O’Keefe, supposedly as revenge for the ACORN videos.

Ha!! He's been Quayled! [As if I give a crap]

His right-wing ACORN admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short Al Sharpton's long but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts and bullshit shot through with racial resentment.

Oh, wait....ah, din't git that right, did I, Tawana, honey?

[ I have this vision of Nodrog dancing about like Snoppy dog just now :-)) ]

And he shall be known from now on as James O'Sharpton.

...the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers...??

How is something all black with a honkey in the midst?

Me again.

Something do stinketh herein.

Just me?

#9 Aridog: Those were his own words, apparently there were too many black people there for his taste. And note that his roommates had been an Indian and a Greek. Still makes it an "all-black dormitory" I guess.

#11 Aridog: Right, of course. Queers, blacks, Indians, Greeks, what's a rich white kid to do? He's surrounded.

[It is rather culturally insensitive to not put rich white kids with other rich white kids after all....what'd they think they are, a Big-10 campus or sumpin? ]

Interesting world. Now who the heck is Marcus Epstein and why?

#14 packen: Marcus Yung-Gyu Epstein is an American writer-journalist and paleoconservative political activist.

Epstein is half-Korean and half-Jewish. In his brief biography on his personal website Epstein sums up his political beliefs as follows: "My political sympathies support traditional American values, a restrictive immigration policy, the free market, States' rights and decentralism, and a non-interventionist foreign policy."

I had no idea who he was either, half-Korean and half-Jewish? Only in America.

In 2007, Epstein allegedly encountered an African American woman on the street, after a night of drinking, struck her on the head, and uttered the word "nigger" before fleeing.[8][9] Epstein was charged with simple assault with a related bias of hate crime, entering an Alford plea on July 1, 2008.[10] When the incident came to light in 2009, Epstein was still performing staffing duties for Tancredo and he remained as executive director of Team America PAC, though he was scheduled to resign later in 2009.[9] An investigator at the Southern Poverty Law Center said that Epstein had a history of involvement in "racist circles".[9] However, the President of Team America PAC, former U.S. Treasurer Bay Buchanan, described the incident as "out of character" for Epstein, stating he had received treatment for severe depression.[11] After Marcus had spent several months in jail, the prosecutors dropped the charges and Marcus was freed on condition that he attend mental health therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

#7 Aridog: FYI, distaste for Mr. O'Keefe and distaste for the Reverend Sharpton are not mutually exclusive distastes.

"A black, a woman, two dips, and cripple!"

#18 packen: What I've never been able to understand is why would a Jewish person push antisemitism. Any ideas? And I'm not talking about Jewish people hating Israel, I'm talking about stuff like this:

After graduating from the Leadership Institute, Epstein held jobs as executive director of both former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo’s Team America PAC and Pat Buchanan’s American Cause. He also started a group called Youth for Western Civilization that dedicated itself to “defending the West on campus.” An essay featured on the group’s Web site complaining that “largely Jewish intellectual elites have utterly transformed American social and political discourse” suggested that Epstein’s outfit was only his latest attempt to push white nationalism and anti-Semitism into the conservative mainstream.

#20 Thousand Sons: That reminded me of the ultra-nationalist, far-right Greek party LAOS that brags about having a member who's gypsy and another member who's gay.

It's a reference to former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt who said in 1983 about his staff:

"I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent."

He resigned a couple weeks later. :P

Rebuttal?

#24 jau jau : The fake photo is the least of his problems, are his diaries fake too?

The organizer who is being called a “White Supremacist” is half Jewish and half Korean.

He attended the event with many of his Leadership Institute co-workers since it was right across the street from their building in Arlington, Va., and it was organized by other LI associates.

One of the panelist was an African-American named Kevin Martin.

Pretty stupid to use a fake photo but it doesn't alter the overall picture of O'Keefe.

As I said, he's been "Quayled." Maybe he derserves it. Maybe not.

One thing is certain, we are not going to know either way.

I didn't make a statement, just posted what the other side had to say. James is a creepy kind of guy, something in the gut tells me that, but this is a boring story to me. I just don't care at all about it. Maybe he should slink back into the mire of obscurity whence he came.

I know you didn't, I wasn't really directing my comment to you, sorry. I was pointing out three things in the rebuttal that striked me.

#30 Aridog: Sharpton's crimes, in retrospect, are far worse than O'Keefe's.

Book suggestion: Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities.

But O'Keefe is still a punk.

Odd thing is, Sharpton seems to know he's a bit of a shyster....asserts, if obliquely, it was necessary to right other wrongs.

Identity politics sucks no matter what shade.

I wore out my keyboard yesterday responding to posters on a local newpaper blog refuting the idea that the pseudo-Imam shot here by the FBI was an Arab Muslim (the usual go back where you came from, sand monekys, etc etc)....or that he had any support from other than the usual 3 or 4 attention whores out of the 30,000+ who live around me. The protest in front of the federal courthouse totalled 14 people, few, if any, Arab...more media was on hand than that. Still, they write 108 articles, inside of 30 days, on the subject of needing a furhter "probe" yada yada. Meanwhile some mother of two kids gets whacked in a home invasion, it gets page 18, lower left 2 inches.

We live in a fucked up world. Seems that way anyway.

It seems to me the story here isn't so much O'Keefe, as it is Andrew Breitbart, whose blog Big Journalism is not only defending O'Keefe, but conveniently defending him, while not addressing the more egregious charges against him.

In this piece, Larry O'Conner of Big Journalism only addresses the photograph and O'Keefe's purported attendance at a Robert Taft Club Event:

http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/02/03/james-okeefe-vs-max-blumenthal-how-the-left-distorts-invents-and-lies/#more-17474

Though he acknowleges the existence of the Salon piece in his article, he does not attempt to rebut the charge that O'Keefe made multiple racist statments on his Online Diary during his time at Rutgers.

Bretibart, to my knowledge, has been no more forthcoming.

Breitbart allowed O'Connor's defense, and has allowed numerous defenses of O'Keefe to be posted at his sites in the day or two since.

Breitbart may not think O'Keefe's, apparent, history of racist statements is a big deal.

That's the story. And, if it is true that O'Keefe is a racist, and Breitbart is ok with it, then that is a big story about Big Journalism.

I would be very disappointed.

In a way, it shouldn't surprise me, as Breitbart also has Frank Gaffney write for his site. Frank Gaffney employs the notorious Christine Brim, whose defenses of the Vlaams Belang, and whose suggestion that the Center for Vigilant Freedom ought to seek to form alliances with LePen's party and the BNP show her to be far too tolerant of racists herself.

People who are that tolerant of racists are, very likely, racists themselves.

Neither do other right-wing bloggers, apparently. They'd rather focus on a photoshopped image or who was manning a booth, as if that's the issue.

OK, but now we're talking about C who works for B who writes for A, and this is supposed to tarnish A as a racist? At what point does it stop? It's bad enough that Breitbart is a trashy opportunist who traffics in sensationalism and who's funding this O'Keefe moron, there's no point in resorting to six-degrees-from-racism to tar him. He's doing a fine job of that all by himself.

Another example of tunnel vision regarding O'Keefe is provided by Gregory of Yardale who is either illiterate, has learning disabilities, or is an idiot. I'm leaning towards all three.

#37 zorkmidden:

the Blog That Hates My Guts

#38 packen: LOL, no kidding.

#37 zorkmidden: A legend in his own mind, a lazy, dishonest hack in reality. He's still vainly preening about how we're "the blog that hates him" to stifled yawns from his apathetic audience, I see.

That whole post was just a summary of what other people wrote with nothing original added. Good job summarizing other people's work, dude. I guess he has nothing else to say for himself, what else is he going to write about? He might as well write about "the blog that hates me".

And even that is not original, he copied it from Charles Johnson, the guy who sees haters under his bed.

Evariste,
You wrote: OK, but now we're talking about C who works for B who writes for A, and this is supposed to tarnish A as a racist? At what point does it stop? It's bad enough that Breitbart is a trashy opportunist who traffics in sensationalism and who's funding this O'Keefe moron, there's no point in resorting to six-degrees-from-racism to tar him. He's doing a fine job of that all by himself.

I say: Christine Brim coordinated the Brussels Counter-Jihad Conference with Baron Bodissey. That is the thing she is most well-known for.

I do not believe Frank Gaffney was not aware of that fact.

Additionally, she defended the Vlaams Belang to the hilt, and criticized BabbaZee and Charles Johnson for making an effort to expose the VB's history.

Additionally, as I mentioned, she suggested HER ORGANIZATION, the Center for Vigilant Freedom, ought to work to forge alliances with LePen's party, and even the BNP, if only they would come to God on Israel. No other issue mattered to her. Not racism. Not Fascism. Not the rights of European immigrants, only Israel.

Frank Gaffney is a staunch anti-Jihadist. I have a very hard time believing he was out of the loop on that whole story.

After the CVF crapped out, Frank Gaffney hired Christine Brim to work for his think tank.

So, it's not a, b, c. It's Christine (A) and Frank (B). That's it. Straight line, not a complex equation.

[]

;-)

They're using support for Israel as a tool for self-beautification. "How can we be Nazis, we support Israel!"

They only support Israel because they hate Muslims more. Right now.

Well, Christine is, from what I know, married to a pro-Zionist, Jewish man, so I think her concern for the Jewish state is real. However, her willingness to align with LePen and the BNP iss more than objectionable.

I agree that the VB, and the BNP, only support Israel, largely, because they hate Muslims more.

However, another reason they support Israel is because they see being Jewish as being a member of an ethnic group. Thus, they see Israel as an Ethnic Nationalist state, such as the ones they want to establish in Belgium, France, and England.

There is an ethnic component to being Jewish, but it is not nearly the predominant aspect of Judaism. One can "become a Jew", just as one can become an American.

I see Israel as a nation of Ideas, rather than an Ethnic Nationalist state.

It is my opinion that Jews who fall into the Vlaams Belangs sphere of influence are falling into a trap, and do a disservice to Israel. Because VB wants to piggyback on their perceived Ethnic Nationalist Israel.

If Israel becomes labeled as an Ethnic Nationalist state, that opens it up to claims of Apartheid, which while patently absurd, would be justified were most Jews to agree that the ethnic component was the predominant factor in being a Jew.

Sorry if I'm being too wordy.

I don't know who Christine Brim or Frank Gaffney are, I was referring to the far-right European political parties. Sorry, I should have been more clear.

Jew-free, I presume.

And Israel is not an Ethnic Nationalist state, it has a very sizable Arab population and two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic.

I guess you'd have to figure I'd turn up on this thread sooner or later.

Having a minority that does not belong to the group with which the state is identified doesn't change that. Israeli Arabs are citizens but they do not partake in the identity that the state is founded upon. Israel has a policy preferentially favouring immigration of Jews, and its politicians openly discuss how to maintain a Jewish demographic majority. So, what's the difference between that and a hypothetical BNP-led Britain where Britain was declared to be the ethnic homeland of the indigenous English, Scottish and Welsh?

(*) = up for debate, admittedly.

#51 Queequeg: When Dewinter advocates forced repatriation of all immigrants up to the third generation, what is one to presume?

And what is to be done with the thousands of immigrants who have been born in Britain but are not indigenous English, Scottish, or Welsh?

In my #52, I realize that you're talking about England and I'm talking about Belgium, but since Dewinter was our most recent example, I stuck with him.

If they can stay, how is it different than it is at present? Immigration policy can still be amended without having to make any changes in the population or nationalist/ethnic declarations.

I guess it's all academic though really, neither the BNP or VB are going to get into power.

Lieberman has also said that Israeli Arabs in the Knesset should be shot as collaborators for holding talks with Hamas. I see such talk coming from Israeli politicians (apart from demagoguery) as a symptom of the wars that Israel has been involved in with Arab nations and Palestinians for the last 40 years, a time during which Israelis lived in and out of bomb shelters, risked their lives riding a bus, fought in Lebanon, or Gaza, or the West Bank. What's the excuse for the natives at Belgium or Britain?

Perhaps then that should be the rallying cry and not bribing or forcing British and Belgian citizens to leave the country of their birth.

Also he's a tool for writing lame slam poetry and spelling Ani DiFranco as "Annie".

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Tolerate This

By James O’Keefe

Note: This is an authentic "slam" poem written in the Winter of 2003 in my passionate, reactionary response to Annie DiFranco.

It is to be performed in the spoken-word/hip-hop format.

Very few people at Rutgers are about to agree with what I have to say
But because you believe in acceptance and diversity
I’m ‘bout to say it anyway
You think you’re all Peace?
You think I’m all war?
You don’t know what it is we’re fighting for
It’s kill or be killed and we’ve been killed before
You don’t seem to understand the fundamentals of war
Like anxious butterflies behind closed doors
You imply utopia, logic you ignore
You disagree with dieing hard likes its
Some choice to make
You defy society like it’s some claim to stake
Hurry up and bitch because tolerance won’t wait
But we can’t let impatient hippies determine our fate
You blame this nation
For what madmen have done
On the Eleventh of September, 2001

Like anxious butterflies behind closed doors

You disagree with dieing hard

If the Israeli system is anything like the Greek system, the deputy PM gets appointed by the new PM, he's not on the ticket. Lieberman has been a member of Netanyahu's political circle for almost twenty years. I also think that his appointment as FM was a nod to the settler population that they have the government's support.

Lieberman may be an ethno-nationalist but for very different reasons than a Briton or Belgian is. Lieberman speaks from the perspective of a nation that had to evict thousands of its own citizens from their homes, homes that that same nation encouraged them to build.

#66 zorkmidden: Lieberman is a leader of a party whose Knesset votes were necessary for Bibi to form a government.

#68 Memphis Bill: Ah, I'm sure you know Israeli politics better than I do.

If I had to summarize my comments in one sentence, it would be 'I understand extremism being born out of extreme conditions but I don't understand extremism being born out of resentment.'

'I understand extremism being born out of extreme conditions but I don't understand extremism being born out of resentment.'

Perhaps its not extremism at all. It might have been called common sense only 40 years ago. The world has changed tremendously, and not for the better. Yet out of this turmoil will come a profound change in the order of things.

Shabbat Shalom!

is that your actual name or in memory of yoni?

come on talk about lame poetry....

lame....

What's the back story here?

Queequeg says, Israel is an Ethno-Nationalist state.

I ask: Can one become Mexican? Can one become a Filipino? Can one become Japanese?

No, but one can become a Jew or an American.

Judaism is a religion. There is a "Ethnic" component, but even the ethnic component is, primarily, divided into two predominant ethnicities; Sephardic and Ashkenazi.

Additionally, there are Jews of other ethnicities.

Judaism, as a relgion, is an ideology. One can become an American, because to be an American is to buy into the ideology of America. One can also become a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Sikh.

But, one can not change ethnicities.

Firstly, the conversion rate into Judaism is very low. Secondly, everyone who attains American citizenship is an American. It is a nation of its citizens plain and simple. By contrast, not every Israeli is Jewish. It's not enough to simply accept Zionism to be Jewish. Thirdly converting to Judaism is a lot harder than becoming an American (or a civic Briton) through immigration. It implies accepting a whole suite of religious beliefs and assimilating a community's values in a way that a Pakistani Muslim (for example) immigrating to England does not.

Fourthly the European ethnicities that Jewishness are being contrasted with are not as fixed as is implied (although the admit new members a lot more slowly than liberal democracies admit immigrants). Even the Nazis famously accepted "honourary Aryans", the definition of "French" given by LePen is historical/cultural and not racial (but he is clearly an ethno-nationalist) and even the BNP supported giving visas to Gurkha veterans while Labour ironically wanted to expell them (on account of their services to Britain).

Lastly it seems pretty obvious that the reluctance to acknowledge that Israel is an ethno-state (or at least has strong similarities with one despite the unique status of Jewishness as no quite a simply a race or a religion or an ethnicity) is because Israel supporters know that it is bad PR to be associated with the likes of VB or the BNP, regardless of whether they have any abstract similarities in their views. It's really nothing more than that.

Queequeg,
You wrote: Firstly, the conversion rate into Judaism is very low. Secondly, everyone who attains American citizenship is an American. It is a nation of its citizens plain and simple. By contrast, not every Israeli is Jewish. It's not enough to simply accept Zionism to be Jewish. Thirdly converting to Judaism is a lot harder than becoming an American (or a civic Briton) through immigration. It implies accepting a whole suite of religious beliefs and assimilating a community's values in a way that a Pakistani Muslim (for example) immigrating to England does not.

1) The conversion rate is low? Do you think it would be so low were Israel bigger and if there was no America for the poor, huddled masses to escape to?

2) Everyone who becomes a Jew can become an Israeli.

3) Becoming an American citizen ought to be a lot harder than it is.

That being said, my wife is a first-generation immigrant. In order for her to have become a citizen, she had to go to Civics classes, learn about the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Founding of the U.S. She had to pass a test, and she had to take an Oath of Loyalty.

Obviously, we have gone off track with the way we treat potential citizens from South America vs. the way we treat potential citizens from a place like the Philippines. And, that is a failure on our part. But, perhaps that's a subject for another day.

As to your fourth point, sorry for the language, but "honorary Aryans" were simply "house n*****s". Nazis will always get around to expelling or killing them sooner or later.

And, that is the problem with Israel aligning itself with Ethnic Nationalist parties who feign support for Israel.

As to your fourth point, sorry for the language, but "honorary Aryans" were simply "house n*****s". Nazis will always get around to expelling or killing them sooner or later.

And, that is the problem with Israel aligning itself with Ethnic Nationalist parties who feign support for Israel.

I think it would be more constructive to simply acknowledge that there are some ethnicities for which nationalism is more problematic than others due to their national or ethnic or cultural character, as opposed to maintaining this fiction that ethnic nationalism is universally bad and Nazi-like, then trying unconvincingly to wriggle out of the ethnonationalist label in cases where we are personally sympathetic.

Like Judaism, Sikhism is basically the religion of what is more or less an ethnic group. Conversion into Sikhism is extremely low, the more traditional sects discourage intermarriage and so on. However, unlike Jewishness, there isn't really any doubt that Sikhs are an ethnic (or at least tribal) group. Sikh nationalism/separatism (which has resulted in some pretty serious terrorist incidents) is straightforwardly and correctly regarded as a form of ethno-nationalism.

It's a pretty well-established formula. Prior to Christianity taking over Europe and much of the rest of the world via colonialism, almost every ethnic group had its own set of (pagan) beliefs. Sikhism and Judaism are just the holdouts.

Perhaps I should not have used Sikhs as an example. I do not know much about the history. I have met Americans who have converted to Sikhism. They were white Americans. I figured, based upon my experience, that Sikhism was like Hinduism and Buddhism, in that it is a religion to which Americans and other peoples would convert and be welcome. If you know that that is not necessarily true, then fine. I don't know enough about it to argue the point.

You are right to say that not all Ethnic Nationalists are murderous racists like the Nazis. But, that is not quite what I said. I was responding to your comment that even Nazis allowed for "honorary Aryans."

My question to you would be, if you reject the idea that Ethnic Nationalism is racism, then what is Ethnic Nationalism to you? Can you define it?

XIII. Celts and Celtophiles

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word "kleptomania" is a vulgar example of what I mean. It is on a par with that strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy or prominent person is in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich than for the poor. Of course, the very reverse is the truth. Exposure is more of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be a tramp. The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in the Cannibal Islands. But the poorer a man is the more likely it is that he will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed for the night. Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, but it is an example of the general proposition I offer--the proposition that an enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.

When a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent fact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer nation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, and then begins to talk about Celts and Teutons. As far as I can understand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are Teutons. Of course, the Irish are not Celts any more than the English are Teutons. I have not followed the ethnological discussion with much energy, but the last scientific conclusion which I read inclined on the whole to the summary that the English were mainly Celtic and the Irish mainly Teutonic. But no man alive, with even the glimmering of a real scientific sense, would ever dream of applying the terms "Celtic" or "Teutonic" to either of them in any positive or useful sense.

That sort of thing must be left to people who talk about the Anglo-Saxon race, and extend the expression to America. How much of the blood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) there remains in our mixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, and Picard stock is a matter only interesting to wild antiquaries. And how much of that diluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of America into which a cataract of Swedes, Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italians is perpetually pouring, is a matter only interesting to lunatics. It would have been wiser for the English governing class to have called upon some other god. All other gods, however weak and warring, at least boast of being constant. But science boasts of being in a flux for ever; boasts of being unstable as water.

And England and the English governing class never did call on this absurd deity of race until it seemed, for an instant, that they had no other god to call on. All the most genuine Englishmen in history would have yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk about Anglo-Saxons. If you had attempted to substitute the ideal of race for the ideal of nationality, I really do not like to think what they would have said. I certainly should not like to have been the officer of Nelson who suddenly discovered his French blood on the eve of Trafalgar. I should not like to have been the Norfolk or Suffolk gentleman who had to expound to Admiral Blake by what demonstrable ties of genealogy he was irrevocably bound to the Dutch. The truth of the whole matter is very simple. Nationality exists, and has nothing in the world to do with race. Nationality is a thing like a church or a secret society; it is a product of the human soul and will; it is a spiritual product. And there are men in the modern world who would think anything and do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual product.

A nation, however, as it confronts the modern world, is a purely spiritual product. Sometimes it has been born in independence, like Scotland. Sometimes it has been born in dependence, in subjugation, like Ireland. Sometimes it is a large thing cohering out of many smaller things, like Italy. Sometimes it is a small thing breaking away from larger things, like Poland. But in each and every case its quality is purely spiritual, or, if you will, purely psychological. It is a moment when five men become a sixth man. Every one knows it who has ever founded a club. It is a moment when five places become one place. Every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion. Mr. Timothy Healy, the most serious intellect in the present House of Commons, summed up nationality to perfection when he simply called it something for which people will die, As he excellently said in reply to Lord Hugh Cecil, "No one, not even the noble lord, would die for the meridian of Greenwich." And that is the great tribute to its purely psychological character. It is idle to ask why Greenwich should not cohere in this spiritual manner while Athens or Sparta did. It is like asking why a man falls in love with one woman and not with another.

Now, of this great spiritual coherence, independent of external circumstances, or of race, or of any obvious physical thing, Ireland is the most remarkable example. Rome conquered nations, but Ireland has conquered races. The Norman has gone there and become Irish, the Scotchman has gone there and become Irish, the Spaniard has gone there and become Irish, even the bitter soldier of Cromwell has gone there and become Irish. Ireland, which did not exist even politically, has been stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. The purest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest blood of the passionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive as a nation without a flag. Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, has easily absorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. She has easily disposed of physical science, as such superstitions are easily disposed of. Nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology in its strength. Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have been defeated by a defeated nationality.

This being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape, the general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of that argument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange and separate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed in dim legends and fruitless dreams. Its tendency is to exhibit the Irish as odd, because they see the fairies. Its trend is to make the Irish seem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strange dances. But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of the truth. It is the English who are odd because they do not see the fairies. It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wild because they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. In all this the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, are not in the least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. In all this the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, living the life of any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been either sodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders, or otherwise corrupted with wealth and science. There is nothing Celtic about having legends. It is merely human. The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, have hundreds of legends, wherever it happens that the Germans are human. There is nothing Celtic about loving poetry; the English loved poetry more, perhaps, than any other people before they came under the shadow of the chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat. It is not Ireland which is mad and mystic; it is Manchester which is mad and mystic, which is incredible, which is a wild exception among human things. Ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science of races; Ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionaries apart. In the matter of visions, Ireland is more than a nation, it is a model nation.

One problem with nationalism is that it's very hard to define exactly what a nation is, which lends itself to trivial reductionism, either to race, geography or acceptance of a set of ideas. A nation is a kind of organic community. It's more than just a bunch of people with the same passports, living together inside the same set of borders out of mutual economic convenience.