What’s Important

by Dr. William L. Pierce

A COUPLE OF WEEKS ago we talked about the case of a young German musician, Hendrik Möbus, who was arrested by the Clinton government’s secret police while he was my guest in West Virginia. I told you that the reason for the arrest was an extradition request from the German government. The “crimes” cited in that extradition request all were what George Orwell would call “speech crimes” and what the Jews, feminists, and liberals in America call “hate speech”: he made some statements to the press in Germany which the German government didn’t like, and he was seen giving the Roman salute at a music concert. Of course, those aren’t crimes in America; in fact, they are activities which are specifically protected by the Constitution. Nevertheless, Hendrik was arrested by the Clinton government’s thugs with such force that his arm was broken: for making a Politically Incorrect statement to the press in Germany.

Well, Janet Reno and the rest of them thought about the implications of that for a few days and decided that they’d rather not have extradition hearings in which I and others surely would raise the “speech crime” issue. That might alert some members of the American public to the fact that the Clinton government is helping the German government lock people up for having Politically Incorrect opinions; that might raise some opposition to the plan to enact similar “hate speech” legislation here. So they dropped their extradition claim against Hendrik and turned him over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to be deported back to Germany for overstaying his tourist visa. We helped him file a petition for political asylum in the United States, on the grounds that he would be persecuted for his political beliefs in Germany. In fact, we cited in the petition for asylum the charges for which the German government wanted to send him to prison, as listed in the extradition request, as proof that he would be persecuted for his beliefs and denied freedom of speech and freedom of association.

The situation in Germany today really is quite grim; it’s about what we can expect in the United States in five to ten years if the liberals and the Jews have their way. There were police raids all over Germany just a few days ago against Germans who were suspected of listening to the wrong kind of music. The police kicked in people’s doors before dawn and seized their collections of Politically Incorrect CDs. The police regularly raid concerts and arrest everyone in attendance if the government doesn’t like the lyrics of the songs being played. Any political party the government doesn’t like can be banned, and anyone who is a member can be sent to prison. Hundreds of Germans are in prison today because they belonged to Politically Incorrect organizations, were overheard making Politically Incorrect statements, or were caught with Politically Incorrect books or CDs. All of this repressive activity by the German government is done to “protect democracy.” The Germans in prison have been charged with “anti-democratic speech” or “anti-democratic associations.” It’s really like something right out of Orwell’s 1984, and it’s becoming worse by the month over there — and our government is helping the German government in this repressive activity and is moving in the same direction itself.

Well, I’ll certainly do what I can to publicize this state of affairs during the fight to keep Hendrik from being deported, but I’ll tell you what’s a bigger obstacle in this fight than either the German government or the Clinton government: that’s the lack of understanding on the part of so many of our own people about what’s really important in the world around them and in their lives and what isn’t important.

I’ll give you an example: We need to obtain the services of the most competent and aggressive immigration attorney we can find. We have our own staff attorney here at the National Alliance, but immigration law — like most other branches of law — is very specialized, and to have any chance at all of beating the government one needs a specialist, who knows all of the tricks the government is likely to use. The typical reaction we get when we talk with these high-priced specialists about Hendrik’s case is: “Hey, so the guy’s going to be deported; so what? He’s just one guy. People get deported all the time. I’ll work on it if you want me to, but I’ll need ten grand up front. I’ve got an $1,800 BMW payment due next Friday, and I haven’t paid my bar bill at the country club yet this month.”

I’m exaggerating, of course, but only slightly. We’ll find a competent and aggressive attorney, but it’s a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. Most lawyers are far more interested in making their BMW payments and having an open account at the country club than they are in the sort of fundamental issues that are involved in Hendrik’s case. Which is to say, most lawyers are not really interested in things like freedom of speech and freedom of association. When you begin explaining to them that the German police regularly raid concerts which play the sort of music Hendrik is involved with and lock all of the concert-goers up; that the political organizations Hendrik belonged to in Germany have been banned by the government, and that Hendrik is subject to arrest just for meeting peacefully with other members of a banned organization, the lawyers don’t care; you can see them begin to get fidgety and their eyes begin to wander. They really don’t care. What’s important to them is that Germany still makes good cars and good beer and that they themselves make enough money to buy these good things.

And you know, it’s not just lawyers. Look at the popularity polls in the current presidential campaign in America. They’re sickeningly reminiscent of Clinton’s popularity polls during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. People didn’t care: at least, not about the important things, such as the dignity of their government and the integrity of their elected officials. What they cared about was that the economy was keeping them comfortable, and their buddy Bill still had a nice, friendly smile for them.

You know, I’m certainly not a fan of George Bush. The man is obviously a crook. But at least he doesn’t hang around with Bill Clinton. He doesn’t have quite as many Jews in his campaign — or in his family — as Al Gore does. But at the moment Gore is making the voters feel a little warmer and fuzzier, and so he’s ahead in the polls — at least with the women and the Blacks. God, what a mistake this country made in 1920!

I always catch hell from my female listeners when I say something like that, so let me assure you now that I love and respect and admire and appreciate them — as women — but collectively they are a disaster when they become involved in politics. Which is not to say that there aren’t a lot of very foolish men who also vote for whoever gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling. But it is the female vote which gives the edge to filth such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

The problem of not caring about the important things, however, is a problem I see in both sexes. Most of the lawyers who are far more interested in making their BMW payments than in whether or not the government in Washington respects our Bill of Rights are men. And I spoke last week about how a couple of clever shysters from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Morris Dees and Richard Cohen, stole Richard Butler’s church in Idaho from him. I mentioned that the mainstream Christians and the media people and the politicians in Idaho are beside themselves with joy about the verdict.

Why is that? It’s because they were embarrassed by Butler’s brand of Christianity. More accurately, they were embarrassed about having Idaho described by Dees and Cohen and the media Jews as a “haven for hate” because Butler’s church was there. Now they can feel good about themselves again. What the Butler verdict means for the First Amendment is of far less importance to them than being able to feel good. I mean, really, the mainstream Christian preachers were saying about Butler’s loss of his church, “Good riddance.” It seems to me that’s a bit shortsighted. My thought is that being embarrassed because your neighbor believes something that is ridiculed and criticized by the media is not half as important as the right of your neighbor to be as ridiculous as he wants — because that’s your right too. Well, I guess Christian preachers these days are as worried about their standing in the country club as lawyers are.

I am reminded of what another preacher once said. He said, “What does it profit a man if he gain[s] the whole world and lose his immortal soul?” I believe that preacher had a better understanding of what is important and what is not than the mainstream Christian preachers of Idaho.

Well, I’m not one to talk much about immortal souls, and so I’d say it a little differently myself. I’d say, keeping your freedom is more important than having the Jewish media say nice things about the state you live in. I’d say that helping our fellow Europeans in Germany regain their freedom of speech and association is more important than making your BMW payment. I’d say that restoring dignity and integrity to our government is more important than any sort of scheme to lower the cost of prescription drugs or keep the Social Security system solvent a while longer. I’d say that ensuring that our grandchildren are able to grow up in a White world, where they will be in the majority and their values will prevail, rather than growing up in the sort of multicultural jungle America is becoming now, is more important than feeling good about yourself.

The future of our race, the survival and advancement of our race, the quality and the security of our race — these things are far, far more important than our individual or collective comfort today.

We used to understand that sort of thing. How did we forget? How did so many of us lose our understanding?

I believe that I see part of the answer to that question when I look at the way schooling has changed in America since the Second World War. In the past the schools not only provided a more structured and disciplined learning environment, they also provided moral guidance. I’m not talking about school prayer. I’m not an advocate of school prayer. But we used to learn about our history and our traditions in school. We used to have White role models we could identify with. We learned to a large extent what is important just by learning about the behavior and attitudes and accomplishments of our ancestors. Anyway, we got a lot more in useful moral guidance than the kids get in the glitzy, multi-culti, hip-hop, consumption-oriented schools today, where it’s tantamount to a “hate crime” to teach White kids about White history or White traditions or White values.

A bigger part of the answer is the excessively soft life-style most Americans have today. When we lived on the land and had to deal with life-or-death problems on a frequent basis, we were more aware of fundamentals than we are today. Nature gave us less leeway for mistakes, and so we really had to know what was important in order to survive. Behaving badly could have very serious consequences, and it was essential for a man to have a good set of rules to live by. A sense of personal honor was not a luxury: the man without one was considered a scoundrel and shunned, whereas today the man with one is likely to be considered a fool and shunned.

Today having too many luxuries and comforts tends to cloud our vision and distract us from the basics. Being shielded from the consequences of our bad judgment and our bad behavior makes us careless.

Personally, I believe that success and prosperity need not ruin our values or make us less fit — provided we compensate for the absence of Nature’s discipline with an artificially imposed but no less rigorous discipline. Lacking such a discipline, however, we must expect decay. And certainly, no democratic system is capable of imposing such a discipline upon itself. It will be imposed either naturally, by a drastic change of circumstances, or artificially, by a non-democratic government motivated by a concern for the long-term quality of the race.

A collapse of the American economy to the point where urban populations are starving, rioting, and hunting each other on the streets for food would be a blessing, in that it would teach us forcefully that there are more important things than making the next BMW payment. And perhaps it would make us fit enough to overcome the long-term threats to our race: perhaps it would make us fit while there’s still enough of the right stuff left in us to become fit. Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to cause a collapse of the American economy. About all I can do at this time is talk with you about the important things that we ought to be thinking about: the important things that we ought to be guided by instead of the unimportant things that so many of us are preoccupied with today.

Here’s a guideline: the things that are important are the things that endure, the things that last, the things that are immortal. A thousand years ago our ancestors in Europe didn’t have quite the same notion of the immortal soul that the mainstream Christians do today, but they believed in immortality nevertheless. One of their most often quoted religious sayings, which expresses very concisely their idea of immortality, comes from that part of the Elder Edda known as Havamal. The saying is: “Cattle die, and kinsmen die, and so must one die oneself, but there is one thing I know which never dies, and that is the fame of a dead man’s deeds.”

Well, that’s a little poetic, but it expresses clearly the notion that more lasting, and therefore more important, than our possessions and our friends and our pleasures in life — even than life itself — is the reputation that we make for ourselves and our lasting accomplishments. Many things are implied by this single idea: for example, the conviction that it is better to live an honorable life, to live nobly, than it is to be rich. Or the conviction that it is better to live a useful and purposeful life than merely a comfortable life, and that one’s purpose in life — the purpose or cause to which one consecrates his life — ought to be something which lasts beyond the life of the individual.

One can consecrate his life to the service of an idea — an ideology — and many have done that in the past. But it is better, I think, to serve the race in which an idea is incarnate, the race which gives life to the idea, the immortal race of which the individual is only a mortal part. Much more important than paying our bar bill at the country club is having some influence on the type of world our people will live in a thousand years from now, making some contribution now to that world. That’s what gives our lives lasting value. That’s what gives us immortality.

What am I saying? This is the Clinton era. Notions like that are entirely out of place in this era of democracy and equality and multiculturalism and feminism. This is the era of Morris Dees and Richard Cohen and the fast buck; the era of the hip-hop culture and Political Correctness. Can you imagine anyone who would vote for Al Gore — or for George Bush — having even the faintest understanding of what I’ve been talking about? This country already was sunk when Bill Clinton was elected President, and no riots or political assassinations resulted. The approval ratings Clinton has had prove that most Americans have no clue as to what’s important and what isn’t. The idea of consecrating one’s life to something which is immortal is wholly alien to them. The average American in the Clinton era believes that if you can’t eat it, spend it, or have sex with it, it isn’t important. Perhaps he wouldn’t state it quite so starkly, but deep inside that’s what he really believes. He neither understands nor values anything else.

I don’t want to overstate this point. I know that there are many non-average Americans who do understand what I’m talking about, who do value the important things. I receive letters from them every day. These non-average Americans may make up as much as two per cent of the White population. But I also receive letters from some of the other 98 per cent — from some of those who think of themselves as Democrats or as Republicans. I have had some of these average Americans tell me that I am wrong to be against “diversity” and multiculturalism. Some of them tell me that multiculturalism is a good thing because it adds spice and variety to their lives; they appreciate multiculturalism because it gives them a choice of Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Thai, and various Middle Eastern cuisines all within a block or so of the office where they work. Life would be so dull if all they could choose from were American and European cuisines. Others tell me that “diversity” is good for America because it strengthens our economy. Having all of those Mexicans and Salvadorans and other mestizos here to do our farm labor and our dishwashing and all of those Pakistanis and Indians and Chinese here to do the high-tech jobs in Silicon Valley keeps our economy strong and our shopping malls full.

And really, I am sure that these Gore and Bush supporters really believe the things they tell me in their letters. To them it really is more important to be able to titillate their palates with all sorts of exotic cuisines than it is to have a healthy, homogeneous White population, a healthy European culture in America. And keeping the stock market up and the shopping malls full now is more important to them than maintaining White autonomy: more important than being dependent only on our own people in every phase of our economic activity.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that nearly all of our lawyers are far more interested in their standing at the country club than they are in things such as freedom. We shouldn’t be surprised that the Christian ministers of Idaho are glad to be rid of Richard Butler.

It’s a very sad situation for America — but we still do have that two per cent out there. And let me tell you, whenever I have any sort of interaction with the other 98 per cent, I really appreciate the two per cent who do have some understanding of what’s really important. If our race is to survive, it will be because of you. And by the way, if any of the two percent listening now happens to be a lawyer, I’d especially like to hear from you right away. I have something important for you.

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Source: American Dissident Voices broadcast, September 23rd 2000