Tag Archives: Music

In Remembrance of the October Revolution

Oct Rev

The Communist monster, Vladimir Lenin

This October marks the centennial anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the establishment of Soviet-style Communism which tragically, for the Russian people, would last for some seventy interminable years. Not only did the Soviet regime liquidate and imprison millions, but its idiotic system of central planning impoverished the country, turning it into an economic basket case, the effects of which continue to this day.

Just as bad, the Bolsheviks murdered the last Czar, Nicholas II and his family, brutally ending nearly five hundred years of monarchial rule of Russia. Within a year of the demise of the Russian aristocracy, two other of Europe’s venerable royal houses – Germany and Austria – met the same fate, all three casualties of their insane decision to participate in World War I. The end of the German Court and especially that of Austria came at the vengeful insistence of then President Woodrow Wilson, who brought the US into the conflict on the pledge to make the “world safe for democracy.”

The triumph of the Bolsheviks and the downfall of the German and Austrian monarchies ushered in the Age of Democracy as other Western constitutional republics at the time and in each passing year began to resemble and adopt features of their supposed Communist foe. As the 20^th century wore on, each Western nation state became more “democratic,” increasing their welfare/warfare state apparatus, imposing more and more radical egalitarian social and economic measures, and adopting greater amounts of economic planning mostly through central banking. Not only did economic activity become increasingly effected by monetary policy, but the central banks were instrumental in the eradication of the gold standard throughout the Western world.

Not only did Communism prove to be a disaster economically in Russia and everywhere else tried, but socialism had other debilitating effects. The quality of the population declined along with the numbers of ethnic Russians, a trend that ominously continues to this day. While ingenuity was stifled by the Soviet command economy, its culture, although never as advanced as Western Europe, became sterile and overshadowed by the heavy hand of the commissar. The only memorable literature produced during the period were accounts of the gulag and the repression of dissent. Music and the arts were similar cultural wastelands.

The West, too, as its nation states became more socialistic and egalitarian, witnessed retrogression in every aspect of society. The catastrophic drop off in the size of the native populations can largely be attributed to crazed feminism, where women were encouraged and given privileges to pursue careers and become “working moms,” which led to the phenomenon of the “dysfunctional family” and declines in the number of child births. Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains this effect in the American context:

In the U.S., . . . less than a century of full-blown

democracy has resulted in steadily increasing

moral degeneration, family and social disintegration,

and cultural decay in the form of continually rising

rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime.

As a result of an ever-expanding list of non-

discrimination – ‘affirmative action’ – laws and

nondiscriminatory, multicultural, egalitarian

immigration policies, every nook and cranny of

American society is affected by government

management and forced integration.*

Hoppe Demo 3

Hoppe’s seminal demolition of Democracy

A primary reason why the quality of Western life has crumbled so markedly has been the replacement of its “natural elites” with “political elites” via the democratic process. Every society is led by its leading individuals who through talent, hard work, brains, foresight, moral fortitude, fairness, and bravery come to the top and are looked to for guidance. Under democratic conditions, however, the natural elites have, in a sense, been “voted out” by the political class who, instead of out competing their rivals, secure their status by politics mostly through demagogy.

In Soviet Russia, the natural elites were ruthlessly purged by Lenin’s forces and over time any sort of advancement or achievement had to come via the Communist Party.

Despite the overwhelming failure of socialism, Western nation states continue to practice many of its features, a most notorious recent example being that of the passage of Obamacare, the first step on the road to universal health care in the US. America, itself, resembles more of a police state than ever before with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of draconian legislation such as the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The October Revolution should be remembered for what it was: the inauguration of mankind’s first total state. It, and the social system which it spawned, should be condemned by all those who seek prosperity and an advanced civilization.

*Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order. New Brunswick (U.S.A.): Transaction Publishers, 2001, p. xiii.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Bitcoin in an Illusionary Age

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Bitcoin III

It is altogether fitting that crypto currencies, in particular Bitcoin, have witnessed a meteoric rise in this illusionary age. Not only has their monetary value gone to dizzying heights, but they are now being touted as the destroyer of the current, crumbling monetary order and the next paradigm upon which a new money and banking system will emerge.

In an era where sacrifice, hard work, loyalty, ingenuity, tradition, and independent thought are considered anathemas, while affirmative action, sloth, effeminacy, office seeking, and something-for-nothing schemes are endemic in every walk of life, it is not surprising that non-tangible, computer-generated currencies would become a “natural” feature of such a world.

While it has always been a haven for charlatans, traitors, cheats, thieves, liars, and serial adulterers, contemporary political life has become even more of a sham. The most glaring example of politics’ utter corruption can be seen in the recent departed chief executive officer of the US. Unless one abandons all critical thinking, Obummer was unqualified to be president because of the obvious fact that he was not born on American soil. Not only did this disqualify him, but his educational and professional backgrounds have not been verified. Neither his collegiate records nor his supposed teaching career at the University of Chicago Law School have ever been exposed to public scrutiny. From the few utterances he has made about his supposed specialty – constitutional law – it appears that he has only a rudimentary knowledge of the subject.

Cultural life has descended to the basest of levels and has abandoned nearly all of Western Civilization’s glorious achievements. Consider music. The dominant form of what passes as music today is not the works of the great maestros of the past – Bach, Mozart, Beethoven – but instead, noise in the form of rock, hip hop, rap, grunge, or whatever the latest degenerate trend is in vogue.

Modern democracy is also a fallacy. Being sold to the masses as a system where the people rule and personal liberties are guaranteed, democratic governance is anything but, and has instead been craftily used by the elites to amass state power to an unprecedented extent not witnessed in human history. The much maligned monarchial age even during its “absolutist phase” could not come close to the scope and intrusiveness that democratic governments possess today.

Religion, too, is not immune from its share of hypocrisy. Not only is the supposed head of the Catholic Church a manifest heretic who almost daily blasphemies the Divine Majesty, but he is not qualified to occupy the august chair in which he sits. Jorge Bergoglio was neither ordained as a priest nor consecrated as a bishop in the traditional, Apostolic rite of Holy Orders. He is, therefore, an imposter not a priest, nor the bishop of Rome, and scandalously not a true pope.

Now enter crypto currencies. Not only will they never become money – a general medium of exchange – as gold and silver once were and will become once again, but cryptos lack the necessary requirements to be money. Yet, their “development” is systematic of the times. Cryptos are another variant of fiat currencies which digitally can be created by a stroke of a computer key or in cryptos’ case, a code.

Gold and silver – real money – must be mined from the ground, minted and “marketed” before they can be used to facilitate exchange. This is an arduous, capital-intensive process which takes resources, labor, and time to accomplish. Something as important as money should require an elaborate procedure not be created out of thin air as are all fiat currencies as well as cryptos.

Money must originate as a tangible, sought-after commodity – the great Misesian insight that crypto enthusiasts do not know or do not understand – then, over time, be recognized as having a “second feature” as a good sought after for “exchange value.” Once a good is demanded for its use primarily to facilitate exchange, it then becomes a “money.”

In a fundamental sense, crypto currency cultists are rebelling against the natural order of things. The precious metals were created in their quantity and quality by Divine Wisdom for a purpose – to act as money. While governments have habitually corrupted the monetary order through coin clipping, fractional-reserve banking, and other nefarious schemes, it does not undo this primordial fact. It is for the intellectually honest opponents of monetary chicanery to point this out and decry all governments and banksters’ attempts to eradicate gold and silver as money, not attempt to create another unnatural and false monetary order that mirrors the current fiat system.

Money, like all other institutions of society, will reflect its belief system. Decaying cultures will most likely have debased monetary units. A turnabout in the status of money will only happen when Western Civilization returns to what money is – gold and silver – and abstains from trying to create illusions of it through computer software schemes.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Can Germany Be Made Great Again?

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Holy-Roman-Empire-1789-1024x704

When Germany Was Great!

Ever since the start of the deliberately conceived “migrant crisis,” orchestrated by NWO elites, the news out of Germany has been, to say the least, horrific. Right before the eyes of the world, a country is being demographically destroyed through a coercive plan of mass migration. The intended consequences of this – financial strain, widespread crime and property destruction, the breakdown of German culture – will continue to worsen if things are not turned around.

Opposition to the societal destruction within Germany have been harassed and persecuted by the authorities and labeled by the mass media with the usual epithets: “far right,” neo-Nazi, “haters,” and heaven forbid, “separatists.” Because of this and other factors, there has been no mass movement, as of yet, that has coalesce to challenge the German political establishment.

A possible reversal of German fortunes, however, has come from a recent poll of Bavarians.*

A survey conducted by YouGov, a market research company, found that 32% of Bavarians agreed with the statement that Bavaria “should be independent from Germany.” This percentage has increased from 25% of secession-minded Bavarians when polled in 2011.

Of the some 2000 surveyed between June 24 and July 5, most supporters of independence come from the southern portions of the country.

Whether Bavarians or their fellow German separatists realize it or not, the only “political” solution to the migrant crisis is secession. This is not only true for Germany, but for all Western nation states swamped with unwanted migrants. Once free from the domination of the national government (and just as important the EU), each jurisdiction could make its own immigration policy and would be better able to control population influx at the local level.

Historically, Germany’s past has much more in common with a decentralized political landscape than with a unitary state. From the disintegration of the Roman Empire until Napoleon wantonly abolished the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Germany was an amalgam of different political units – kingdoms, duchies, confederacies, free cities, etc. With no grand central state, there was considerable freedom and economic growth as each sovereign entity was largely able to conduct its affairs on its own terms.

Decentralized political power is also conducive for the advancement of culture. Music, the highest art form, found some of its greatest expression from the German peoples. And, the monumental figures of Western music were financed in large measure by German princes, kings, and emperors. Johann Sebastian Bach’s sublime Brandenburg concertos were underwritten, so to speak, by Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg while Beethoven received support from Archduke Rudolph. Mozart was funded no less by the Austrian emperor himself, Joseph II.

Political decentralization provides an important mechanism as a check on state power. A multitude of governments prevents individual state aggrandizement as oppressed populations can “vote with their feet” and move to safer and less repressive regimes. A unitary state, or just a few, throughout the world would negate such an advantage.

Naturally, if nation states are a constant threat to the liberties and economic well being of their citizens, global organizations and states are that much more of a danger and should always and everywhere be opposed. The European Union, largely based on the principles of the US Constitution, has pressured nations under their sway, such as Germany, to accept the migrants and has threatened members such as Hungary and Poland with penalties if they do not do their fair share.

The empirical evidence is overwhelming in regard to political decentralization and economic growth. Since the level of taxation and government regulation are crucial factors in an economy’s ability to produce, the limitation on taxation and government oversight tend to be significantly lower if there are numerous states since there would be amble opportunities for producers to go to more conducive areas to set up shop. This can be seen in the US as thousands of oppressed businesses and firms have left California to lower tax and restrictive climes such as Texas and Nevada.

If Germany is ever to get a handle on the migration crisis before the country is completely demographically dismembered, its only hope is to return to its decentralized political roots. Let Bavaria lead the way!

*https://www.rt.com/news/396600-bavaria-independence-germany-poll/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

Brahms & Democracy

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kyril-kondrashin-brahms-symphony-1-2012

In November of 1876, one hundred and forty years ago, Johannes Brahms’ monumental First Symphony was first heard, performed in Karlsruhe, Germany. The much anticipated work – which took Brahms over 20 years to complete – has become part of the canon of Western music. Ironically, the premiere of The Ring by Brahms’ supposed rival and fellow musical genius, Richard Wagner, was performed for the first time in the same year.

While one critic initially called Brahms’ First Symphony “Beethoven’s Tenth,” it has surpassed that unjust description and now stands on its own merit as a distinct masterpiece. The First Symphony, the three that followed, and the rest of Brahms’ works makes him more than Beethoven’s successor, a unique musical figure in his own right.

In one of his best newspaper articles, H.L. Mencken wrote the following about a Brahms’ performance:

My excuse for writing of the above gentleman is simply

that I can think of nothing else. A week or so ago, . . . I

heard his sextet for strings, opus 18, and ever since then it

has been sliding and pirouetting through my head. I have

gone to bed with it and I have got up with it. Not, of course,

with the whole sextet, nor even with any principal tune of it,

but with the modest and fragile little episode at the end of

the first section of the first movement – a lowly thing of eight

measures, thrown off like a perfume, so to speak, from the

second subject.*

The Sage of Baltimore continued on what made Brahms so special:

In music, as in all the other arts, the dignity of the work is simply

a reflection of the dignity of the man. The notion that shallow

and trivial men can write great masterpieces is one of the follies

that flow out of the common human taste for scandalous

anecdote. . . . More than any other art, perhaps, music demands

brains. It is full of technical complexities. It calls for a capacity to

do a dozen things at once. But most of all it is revelatory of what

is called character. When a trashy man writes it, it is trashy music.

Here is where the immense superiority of such a man as

Brahms becomes manifest. There is less trashiness in his music

than there is in the music of any other man ever heard of, with

the sole exception, perhaps of Johann Sebastian Bach. . . .

Hearing Brahms, one never gets any sense of being entertained

by a clever mountebank. One is facing a superior man, and the

fact is evident from the first note.

While Brahms was born in Hamburg, he eventually found his way to the musical capital of the world, Vienna, which, at the time, was part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire. Vienna was more than the musical center of Europe, but a cultural one as well which was rivaled by few in Brahms’ time.

Although mostly forgotten under an avalanche of pro-democracy historiography, the Vienna where Brahms spent most of his adult life was “ruled” by a monarch. The rich cultural life which flourished in that political atmosphere was admitted even by those who were, no doubt, hostile and envious of it as the philosopher and economist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, describes in his seminal book, Democracy: The God That Failed:

Even democratic intellectuals and artists from any field of

intellectual and cultural endeavor could not ignore the

enormous level of productivity of Austro-Hungarian and in

particular Viennese culture. Indeed, the list of great names

associated with late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Vienna is seemingly endless.**

As Professor Hoppe insightfully shows, the incredible accomplishments of the likes of Brahms came in the pre-democratic era which tragically ended with WWI.

. . . rarely has this enormous intellectual and cultural

productivity been brought in a systematic connection with

the pre-democratic tradition of the Habsburg monarchy.

Instead, if it has not been considered a mere coincidence, the

productivity of Austrian-Viennese culture has been presented

‘politically correctly’ as proof of the positive synergistic effects

of a multiethnic society and of multiculturalism.

Whether the accomplishments were in the arts, music, scientific breakthrough, invention, or entrepreneurial wealth creation, all were the result of individual initiative, skill, tenacity, foresight and intelligence within a society that recognized, praised, and promoted such achievements. There was no affirmative action or policies that promoted artists based on their skin color or gender. When Brahms came to Vienna, he did not receive an Austro-Hungarian version of a National Endowment of Arts subsidy!

Just as important, and what is ignored by the Left and many race-denying realists on the respectable Right, is that all of these civilization-enhancing accomplishments in Vienna were made, for the most part, by white men. No other culture or people have ever produced music comparable to Brahms and his fellow Western musical masters.

The democratic age which followed has been praised by scholars as an advancement of the human condition on all fronts. In his book and in other places, however, Professor Hoppe has shown that just the opposite has occurred under democratic conditions with a trend toward de-civilization. Taking the US as an example, he writes:

. . . less than a century of full-blown democracy has resulted in

steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social

disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising

rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime. As a result

of an ever-expanding list of nondiscrimination –

‘affirmative action’ – laws and nondiscriminatory, multicultural ,

egalitarian immigration policies, every nook and cranny of American

society is affected by government management and forced integration;

accordingly, social strife and racial, ethnic, and moral –cultural

tension and hostility have increased dramatically.

As Professor Hoppe notes, the latest phase in the democratic era has been immigration policies which have been deliberately planned to destroy the various Western cultures with Germany being the most devastated. Yet, as Mencken wrote of him, Brahms was a product of Germanic blood not that of multiculturalism. The German people who continue to support and allow those to wantonly destroy the culture that produced a Brahms should consult Mencken:

I give you his Deutsches Requiem as an example. . . . The thing is

irresistibly moving. It is moving because a man of the highest

intellectual dignity, a man of exalted feelings, a man of brains,

put into it his love and pride in his country. That country is

lucky which produces such men.

While Brahms’ music will always be listened to and played for its brilliance, it should always be remembered in what culture his genius was allowed to flourish. How fortunate for mankind that Brahms lived in the pre-democratic era and what a loss it would have been if the First Symphony would have never been composed.

*Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, ed. The Impossible H.L. Mencken: A Selection of His Best Newspaper Stories. With a Foreword by Gore Vidal. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1991, pp. 465-468.

**Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order. New Brunswick (U.S.A.): Transaction Publishers, 2001, pp. xii-xiii.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Rock ‘N’ Roll Has Got to GO!

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R n R

Has Got to GO!

Those who believe that the Western world can solely be turned around by the enactment of sound economic policies are sadly mistaken. Until the Left is not only defeated, but annihilate in the culture war, the decline of the West both economically and socially will continue as recently witnessed by the “controversy” over the use of public bathrooms by perverts.

To accomplish such a necessary task, those on the Right must identify the means and mechanism by which liberalism has so adroitly used to accomplish the cultural transformation.

No finer example of the Left’s use of a medium for its depraved ends can be seen in that of rock “music.” It is safe to say that rock ‘n’ roll has done more to undermine public morality than all of the judicial activism and welfare legislation enacted throughout the past half century or so. And, without a conducive social atmosphere created by such music, it is doubtful that the sexual revolution and its perverse byproducts such as militant homosexuality and feminism would have ever flourished.

While initially rock was relatively innocuous, it, nevertheless, was subversive to traditional morality. Most rock songs are couched in cleverly worded lyrics which promote promiscuity, vices such as drug use, and frequently mocks Christianity, all of which has led to the corruption and eventual ruination of countless lives.

Yet, despite these well established sociological “facts” of rock ‘n’ roll’s corrupting influence, those among the Right have long ago accepted this insidious form of music. In fact, many actually promote it. Rock is used as lead-in and background music to conservative television and radio programs while publications carry reviews of rock albums and concerts with writers often boasting about attending such events with their wives and children in tow.

After the recent passing of the degenerate and truly odd character who went by the name of “Prince,” a number of conservative outlets praised his “music” while one popular radio and television personality attempted to make the case that Prince was an opponent of the New World Order!

At one time, the culture war was an integral part of the political discourse, however, the debate over the issues of that war have been abandoned. The acceptance of rock music by the Right is another demonstration of how it has succumbed to nearly all of liberalism’s premises.

The Left has understood (and still does) that through mediums such as television, motion pictures, and music, they could accomplish their agenda despite setbacks in the political arena. While unsuccessful for a time in politics, they were, nevertheless, winning the important cultural battles and it was through rock music that society was gradually transformed.

There is, thus, no need for those who seek a return to traditional society to celebrate and embrace rock music, instead it should be treated with scorn. But, it must first be recognized for the evil that it is.

While rock music must be understood for what it represents and debunked for its part in the triumph of the counterculture, an alternative should also be offered. Happily, one can be readily found in the sublime and societal enhancing music of such masters as Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Tchaikovsky.

Better still, St. Augustine reportedly remarked, “Qui cantat, bis orat” (“A person who sings prays twice”). When Western man’s Creator is once again prayed to through the music of such greats as Palestrina, Victoria, and Byrd throughout all the lands will the cultural war be won and society revitalized while rock music will be a distant and regrettable memory of a troubled time.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/