Offsite Post: ‘The Long Martyrdom of the South’

April 9^th, a day adorned with many martyrs –

Abbot Hedda of Peterborough,

Abbot Theodore of Crowland,

And dozens of other English monks

Cut asunder by the Viking Danes;

Bishop Desan of Persia with companions

In the hundreds, sentenced by Sapor;

Massylitan Martyrs of northwest Africa,

Honored by saints, Augustine and Bede;

New Martyrs of Lesbos, monks Raphael

And Nicholas, cruelly tortured

By the Turks, the first sawn through the jaw,

The second died at the gruesome sight,

The children Eleni and Irene,

Mistreated and murdered, too:

Eleni beaten fiercely,

Irene lost an arm

And suffocated in a cask

With a fire blazing underneath –

Several more died with them.

On April 9^th hosts of martyrs

Finished their trials and received their crowns

From the Victor over Death, Christ our God.

On April 9^th the Southern people

Began their martyrdom at Appomattox,

A contest not quick like those of others,

But slow and subtle, full of cunning,

As Yankee apostates, devils, demons,

And other swindlers attempt to draw

Dixie’s folk away from the Soul-mender,

The Flesh-healer, her Savior Jesus Christ.

The weight of years presses upon us,

Many have fallen into the traps of temptation,

 . . .

The rest is at https://identitydixie.com/2024/04/18/the-long-martyrdom-of-the-south/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Industrial Ag Alternatives to Meta’s AI Data Center’

 

It is one thing to offer negative criticism, which we did regarding Meta’s proposed AI data center in Richland Parish.  It is also necessary to offer positive alternatives to the thing being critiqued.  We offered a few ideas but nothing substantive in the previous essay.  We wish to correct that here.

Richland Parish, as the name implies, is a place where farming predominates (lsuagcenter.com).  Rather than deny the history and culture of the parish by imposing a destructive AI data center, the people there should let the past inspire the future.

There are two promising possibilities in this regard:  creating industrial products from river cane and/or from hemp.  Both have long histories in Southern life.

River cane has been around for millennia:

‘Once a dominant feature of the southeastern United States, canebrakes dominated hundreds of thousands of acres along floodplains and stream bottoms. Large expanses of canebrakes were often described by early explorers in the Southeast. In the 1770's, William Bartram explored much of the southeast United States and describes canebrakes often in his description of floodplains and creek bottoms. From these descriptions, it appears that canebrakes were both ubiquitous and expansive’ (rivercane.msstate.edu).

It is extremely fast growing, up to 1.5 inches/day in the springtime (Ibid.).  The Native Americans in Louisiana relied on it to make various items:

‘In central Louisiana, the U.S. Forest Service is spearheading efforts to restore river cane, a bamboo-like plant that played a vital role in Native American culture for thousands of years. This significant piece of tribal heritage has become increasingly rare, prompting an effort to bring it back.

‘Rose Fisher, an elder of the Jena Choctaw Tribe, takes me to a roadside patch of river cane in the town of Jena, Louisiana.  . . .  Holding up a nearly 200-year-old basket made by one of her ancestors, Fisher highlights its importance. The basket was likely used to store or dry food, she explains. Additionally, river cane has been crafted into various tools and instruments, including whistles and blowguns’ (‘River Cane’, heartoflouisiana.com).

In addition to these traditional uses, bamboo grasses like river cane can be used to make a wide array of products:

‘Bamboo is a category of fast-growing and widely distributed perennials having unique physical and mechanical properties. The mechanical properties of bamboo are often higher (typically by two to three times) than those of conventional timbers, and it has become a very important raw material for the household/ building industries. Bamboo has been commercially used for the production of indoor and outdoor floors, furniture, and structural timber for building. Some performance defects/ drawbacks of bamboo have been effectively remedied, due to the new technologies, such as bamboo scrimber, which facilitates the market penetration/ acceptance of bamboo-based household and building products’ (Qiu, H., Xu, J., He, Z., Long, L., and Yue, X., ‘Bamboo as an emerging source of raw material for household and building products’, bioresources.cnr.ncsu.edu).

The market for bamboo products is expanding rapidly:

‘There are about 100 bamboo species that are economically important. In the 1980s the total revenue of bamboo and its products reached 4.5 billion US dollars. In 2005 the global bamboo product market was about 7 billion US dollars. By 2015 the number had grown to an astonishing 60 billion US dollars.

‘China is rich in bamboo resources and has a global leading level in the research and utilization of bamboo. In 2017 its industrial output value of bamboo was 35 billion US dollars, ranking first in the world, and it increased 11.2% compared with that in 2016 (Dai et al. 2017). More and more attention has been paid to the economic benefits and social value of bamboo, and the development prospects of bamboo products are expected.

‘ . . . Bamboo fibers have been used in many industries, for example the garment/ textile, automotive, pulp and paper industries. Due to its excellent durability, fire safety, environmental impact, user safety, energy efficiency, and so on, bamboo is one of the ideal raw materials for the production of sustainable household/ building products. In fact, the household/ construction sector accounts for 30 to 40% of the annual bamboo consumption in the world’ (Ibid.).

Combining a manufacturing facility at the Franklin Farm megasite in Richland Parish with surrounding farms dedicated to growing river cane is one possibility.  Pairing a factory with farms dedicated to growing industrial hemp is another.

Hemp is also embedded deep within Southern history:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/11/garlington-industrial-ag-alternatives-to-metas-ai-data-center/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘What Can We Learn from Mike Johnson’s Troubles?’

 

Conservatives are equal parts incensed and mystified by the changes in Rep. Mike Johnson’s policy positions since he became Speaker of the US House.  There are some plausible explanations out there, like this one from Revolver:

 

Speaker Johnson might as well go by “Flip Flop,” given his recent track record. He’s been switching his positions on major issues, directly going against what his base stands for. First, it was the funding for Ukraine; now, he’s in the thick of the FISA 702 battle and taking the wrong side yet again. What gives? Johnson’s speakership is becoming a series of flip-flops that’s leaving everyone wondering if he’s been bribed, blackmailed, or both.

 

 . . . Edward Snowden thinks he’s figured out what’s really going on with Speaker Johnson. It’s a “textbook case” of “Congressional capture.”

 

 . . . So, what exactly is “Congressional capture” that Snowden speaks of, and how does it work? Well, it’s simple in theory but can be quite complex in practice, shaping itself around each politician.

 

In short, “Congressional capture” is when lawmakers or legislative bodies fall under the heavy influence of outside interests, like big corporations, special interest groups, or US intel. These influences ensure that their agendas take precedence over the public’s needs. In simple terms, this means certain policies or laws that favor these groups are advanced, while criticism or resistance is quietly suppressed. Suddenly, their most ferocious critics become their biggest cheerleaders [To see some of the frightening consequences of the Speaker’s sellout on FISA, read this—W.G.].

Because of the continual failure of conservatives in DC to break the power of the Deep State (from the Reagan Revolution to the Gingrich Revolution; from the Tea Party to Trump), conservatives/revivalists need to make a deeper examination of the US political system to see why this has come about, and to figure out how the oppressive oligarchs can be dislodged from their perches of power.

Theological Aspects

Since theology is at the heart of any issue that man may consider, it is best to begin our examination here.  The Spanish arch-conservative, Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-53), is a helpful friend in this, he who fought so heroically to save Spain from her disastrous fall away from Christianity into Revolution.  He observes that political systems correspond to people’s religious beliefs:  democracy/socialism to atheism, republics to pantheism, and monarchy with monotheism (‘Discourse on the General Situation of Europe,’ in Donoso Cortes: Readings in Political Theory, Herrera, editor, McNamara & Schwartz, translators, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Fl., 2007, pgs. 74-5).

That is something quite profound to dwell upon, and St. Seraphim Rose (+1982) helps us to do so by taking us deeper into the ocean of theology.  He quotes Donoso Cortes in his Orthodox Survival Course (‘Lecture 8: Meaning of Revolution’), showing us how classical liberalism (i.e., the system we currently live under, in which rulers are chosen by elections, a sort of middle ground between democracy and monarchy) does not rest on firm, stable ground:

 

“The liberal school,” he said, “...is placed between two seas, whose constantly advancing waves will finally overwhelm it, between socialism and Catholicism.... It cannot admit the constituent sovereignty of the people without becoming democratic, socialistic, and atheistic, nor admit the actual sovereignty of God without becoming monarchical and Catholic....”xxxix

 

“This school is only dominant when society is threatened with dissolution, and the moment of its authority is that transitory and fugitive one, in which the world stands doubting between Barabbas and Jesus, and hesitates between a dogmatical affirmation and a supreme negation. At such a time society willingly allows itself to be governed by a school which never affirms nor denies, [italics in original] but is always making distinctions.... xl“Such periods of agonizing doubt can never last any great length of time. Man was born to act, and will resolutely declare either for Barabbas or Jesus and overturn all that the sophists have attempted to establish....”

Republics, warns Cortes, will either fall into atheism and democratic socialism (i.e., communism) or they will rise to Christian belief and monarchy.

There are a bevy of verses in the Bible that confirm what Donoso Cortes and St. Seraphim have said above, as well as many statements by writers and saints of the Church.  Here are a couple from a long list compiled by a Christian who has lived in the chief swamp city itself:

 

St Gregory the Theologian [+4^th century] says in his Third Theological Oration:

 

“The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Monarchia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of Many is factious, and thus anarchical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is that which we hold in honour.”

 

“A priest who is not a monarchist is not worthy to stand at the altar table. The priest who is a republican is always a man of poor faith. God himself anoints the monarch to be head of the kingdom, while the president is elected by the pride of the people. The king stays in power by implementing God’s commandments, while the president does so by pleasing those who rule. The king brings his faithful subjects to God, while the president takes them away from God.” –Metropolitan and New-Martyr St. Vladimir of Kiev (+1918)

In summary, the weak, wandering religious faith and the clashing wills of the multitudes of republics and democracies make such people much less likely to organize and overcome the machinations of a focused, powerful oligarchy.  A country united in the Christian Faith, and united even further under the leadership of a Christian monarch, stand a much greater chance of thwarting a Deep State like the one in the US.

Mundane Aspects

We are now ready to take a closer look at how the ‘American experiment’ has unfolded in history.  Rugged individualism has been a central tenet of life in the US.  In one sense, it is a virtue, as every person needs a certain amount of toughness to survive and flourish in a fallen world.  On the other hand, this principle has also been key to the ascent of the Deep State oligarchy over the plain folk of the States.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/04/garlington-what-can-we-learn-from-mike-johnsons-troubles/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Louisiana’s THX 1138 Moment’

 

THX 1138 was one of George Lucas’s early films.  It takes place in an underground dystopia, where genderless people live out their days toiling for unseen technocrats in pharmaceutical-fueled apathy.  Their work consists of manufacturing the robots who serve as the enforcers of their slavery.

That last part is especially relevant for Louisiana at this moment in time, as news of a gigantic new AI data center to be built by Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) in Richland Parish is being reported by various media outlets.

Of course, the usual hoopla about jobs, revenue, etc., is being thrown around like a barrel-full of Mardi Gras trinkets:

‘According to a term sheet between Laidley and the Northwest Louisiana Finance Authority, capital investment into the data center campus could be between $5 billion and over $10 billion. The term sheet estimates the project could create between 300 and 500 jobs’ (Katie Fehrenbacher, ‘Meta planning big data center in Louisiana’, axios.com).

But Louisianans shouldn’t let ourselves be blinded by such surface-level considerations.  There are real concerns with AI and the data centers that feed it:

1.  AI data centers are water hogs:  ‘The AI boom is fueling the demand for data centers and, in turn, driving up water consumption. (Water is used to cool the computing equipment inside data centers.) According to FT, in Virginia — home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers — water usage jumped by almost two-thirds between 2019 and 2023, from 1.13 billion gallons to 1.85 billion gallons.

‘Many say the trend, playing out worldwide, is unsustainable. Microsoft, a major data center operator, says 42% of the water it consumed in 2023 came from “areas with water stress.” Google, which has among the largest data center footprints, said this year that 15% of its freshwater withdrawals came from areas with “high water scarcity”’ (Kyle Wiggers, ‘Demand for AI is driving data center water consumption sky high’, techcrunch.com).

This is a major concern for Northeast Louisiana, where the Sparta aquifer has seen dramatic depletion over the last several decades.  Here are just a few of the details:

‘In 1960, USGS, in cooperation with Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, began reporting water withdrawals and usage data every five years (14), allowing analysis of trends. Declining potentiometric levels within the Sparta due to pumping have been plotted on maps for more than 35 years. (Ref. 12 and Sec. 7.a.1. of this paper) By 1965, withdrawals had formed cones of depression at Minden, Jonesboro-Hodge, Monroe, Bastrop, and Farmerville.(15) Since 1980, the deepening and expanding cones of depression in Monroe, Bastrop, and Farmerville have coalesced, forming a trough between El Dorado and Monroe regions.(6) Figure 17 shows average water level declines from one to four feet per year, increasing eastward.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/11/garlington-louisianas-thx-1138-moment/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!