Thread by @CEBKCEBKCEBK

Let me tell you about why this “naughty” book is necessary. It aptly describes what’s happened to the national mall: our country’s triumphal monuments are now foregrounded by the most lowly forms of ankle-biting bitterness (pic related). And it prescribes an answer. Brief thread:

That new monument—to gay black musicians who died of AIDS before they could produce great music—is part of “Beyond Granite”: a new program by the National Park Service to “create a more inclusive, equitable, and representative commemorative landscape” in the center of our capital

The program’s first project is “Pulling Together”; six artists were asked: “What stories remain untold on the national mall?” The results include that AIDS thing, an apology to Asian migrants above the Vietnam war memorial, a land acknowledgment at the independence monument, etc.

There’s a playground that’s half black-&-white & half colored—with a wall between those halves—to remind us of segregation. There’s a liberty bell that you can “ring” for freedom (it doesn’t actually ring… it just plays recordings, officially, but it doesn’t even work: silence).

This project was inspired by a concert that Marian Anderson gave in front of the Lincoln Memorial (see pic). The official story is that racists barred her from performing indoors, & so she had to sing outside, & so we must now recognize this untold sob story with ugly public art.

The real story of that concert is about how communists infiltrated our government & established a headless gerontocracy: how they cravenly try to flatten & tame away all natural distinctions, through superstitious offerings to those natural forces which they refuse to understand.

Isnt it strange that our elite fears knowledge of natural difference? That it so desperately focuses on the clear consequences of these realities, but only as if giving supplications to primeval gods? That it bitterly puts up monuments to failure beside old celebrations of power?

& what’s with all the brazen lies? Marian Anderson’s “oppression” story was made up from the start by FDR’s cabinet, & was then commemorated on the mall by our government several times already… But now it’s again an “untold” story, about how “bad” the supposed “ruling class” is?

Marian was an ordinary black child who was recruited by Emma Hackley—a white singing teacher & civil rights activist, who pretended to be black—to be used as a prop in campaigns against segregated venues. Her break came when a music critic called a performance by her a “letdown.”

This got the attention of the Rosenwald Fund—which gave out hundreds of grants to communist black activists, from Ralph Ellison to Langston Hughes. & so they put her on a big tour (her first). Then in 1939 her people applied to perform in the DC DAR concert hall: a private venue.

By law the venue couldn’t host mixed-race shows, because it didn’t have segregated bathrooms. & her people demanded that the theater desegregate all seating areas. This would flatly violate local ordinances, & so the DAR denied her application to sing in their private event space

The very next day, Charles Edward Russell organized the “Marian Anderson Citizens Committee”: its members included the National Negro Congress (a CPUSA front), the AFL, the CIO, etc. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote columns in support of them, & whipped the press into condemning the DAR…

Russell was probably the second most prominent member of the Socialist Party, & the most famous muckraking journalist of his era. He also helped lead the NAACP, & in 1917 went to Russia to help the new government defend its revolution. & he got Walter White involved in the MACC…

Walter White was the blond-haired / blue-eyed leader of the NAACP. He infiltrated Klan meetings for them, & wrote the executive order which desegregated the military for the government. Oh & he always claimed to be black, because of some African great-great-great-grandparentage…

This isn’t new for the NAACP: it was founded by three white socialists, who then recruited a black communist frontman (WEB Du Bois). In college, William Walling inherited immense wealth from his family slave plantation; he became a lifelong socialist, & recruited Henry Moskowitz.

Moskowitz & Walling traveled to Russia to support its 1905 revolution, & then propagandized for its revolutionaries across the US. They then met socialist Mary Ovington, & all three of them (all whites) joined the brand new black “Niagara Movement” in 1906 (founded by Du Bois)…

The NM was founded in Canada in 1905 to protest the 1901 World’s Fair for straightforwardly portraying blacks in the North, South, & Africa, instead of just playing up northern black accomplishments. Also our govt paid Du Bois $15,000 to run the 1900 World’s Fair “negro exhibit.”

But he didn’t win big federal grants in 1901, so four years later he put a conference together about how to fight this racism. It went nowhere. But in 1908, two black men in Illinois were arrested for a heinous violent crime spree against young white girls, & a race riot erupted.

The riot—about whether the perps “dindu nuffin,” in which violence came from both sides—killed 9 blacks & 7 whites. Walling wrote a one-sided manifesto about it called “The Race War in the North.” He used this article as a rallying cry to form the NAACP with Moskowitz & Ovington.

Anyway: the NAACP & Eleanor Roosevelt got Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to promptly arrange a concert for Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial. 75,000 people showed up, & the govt made sure to broadcast it out for an audience of millions more. What an “untold story”!

Ickes had been president of the Chicago NAACP, & then got bizarrely recruited into FDR’s cabinet, & served there for 13 years (the 2nd longest cabinet tenure in US history). Truman then forced him out, & so Ickes involved himself in communist causes & networks (eg the ICCASP).

This “rebellious” concert—in which a “marginalized” voice was forced to perform for “only” 75,000 people, in a govt-backed propaganda rally against a few random “racists”—was apparently the “unheard” cry of a righteous “victim.” So it’s been repeatedly re-enacted ever since then!

In 1940, the “Marian Anderson Fund Committee” paid for the Department of the Interior to commission a mural in its main building, which would commemorate this “brave” 1939 performance. They hired Marian to perform again at its dedication ceremony. It’s still in their headquarters

In 1943, the DAR invited Marian to perform in their now-integrated concert hall. Surely this means “mission accomplished,” right? Well, after the performance, Marian said: “I felt no different than I had in other halls. There was no sense of triumph.” So the venue never mattered!

In 2001, the Library of Congress selected the film of her 1939 performance on the mall for special preservation. Two of the homes that she lived in have been turned into govt-funded museums. A church that she attended is now for that reason protected for “historical preservation”

In 2021, PBS made a documentary about her 1939 concert. In 1999, the Kennedy Center produced a musical called “The Marian Anderson Story.” In 2016, the Treasury announced plans to put her on the back of the five dollar bill, with MLK & Eleanor Roosevelt. She’s on a postage stamp.

She has an autobiography, at least three biographies, a radio play about her life, & more. She was the first black to perform in the Met: she sang in only one opera, but was named a permanent member of their company. Reviews emphasized her nerves, age, & lack of acting experience

The City of Philadelphia established an annual “Marian Anderson Award.” The Treasury embossed a gold medal with her likeness. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the National Medal of Arts, the UN Peace Prize, 24 honorary doctorates, etc.

She was a “goodwill ambassador” for the US, a delegate to the UN HRC, & a delegate to the UN. Eleanor Roosevelt gave her the NAACP Spingarn Medal, & NYC gave her the Eleanor Roosevelt Award & the Handel Medallion. She got a “Lifetime Grammy.” There’s a London pub named after her.

She performed at the inaugurations of Eisenhower & JFK, & at the 1963 March on Washington. She performed for millions repeatedly on television. She released an album called Snoopycat: The Adventures of Marian Anderson’s Cat Snoopy. She christened the USS George Washington Carver.

I could keep going! She’s been given more status-mongering awards than you’ve heard of—all of them to recognize how unrecognized she is. & she’s unremarkable enough that you still don’t recognize her—& so the gambit works! “Everyone high-status agrees that she’s an unheard voice”

This is how our elite works: they traffic in prestige, not profit or power or proof; they just give each other middling awards. They spend their lives anxiously rotating between colleges, foundations, think tanks, govt agencies, & news orgs—& baselessly calling each other “elite”

Have you ever seen shriveled, misbegotten dogs yap & snarl at the beautiful & well-turned-out? Those rat-like pests pretend to give chase, even as they hide behind the heels of housebroken human masters. This is what domestication wrought. But what if one day the leash slips off?

Our elites likewise hiss & screech at all the values that can stand on their own, without headpats from teacher. They rabidly hound out any interest in & passion for the world beyond their classroom & playpen: “you’re not serious, you’re too serious, you’re too good, you’re bad.”

A singer with uncompromising standards would be condemned: “we don’t understand you & you don’t understand this game.” But if an elite—a manager of other people’s money, or of other people’s attention—says that *this is the girl*, then she’ll get spoils just for hitting the notes

Our elite makers—of grants, of takes, of platforms, of protests—know that they only rule by Gresham’s Law: that they can only enforce equality by forcing us to accept their counterfeits of quality; that’s why they view your passionate value judgments as both criminal & tyrannical

Costin Alamariu writes well about how this regime-type stubbornly establishes itself, & how it could be dislodged. You may not agree with his diagnosis or solution, but his honesty & passion are quite rare today, & those noble traits are precisely what his critics condemn him for

This just underscores that we’re stuck in a resentful & pathetic regime, which only worships homogeneity. An oligarchy where the people don’t know the names of the oligarchs; where mass opinion is their most valuable asset, & mass action their most worrying liability: "democracy”

The book argues that this totalitarianism can only be overcome by elites who explicitly select for some value which does not depend on public opinion: a regime based on truth, beauty, or strength. & that when this elite falls into decline, it can radicalize & abstract this value.

He focuses on ancient Greece, in which a pastoral elite which practiced selective animal breeding imposed itself on farming peoples; aristocrats then viewed the state as a gym in which they disciplined themselves in cunning & courage, & selected for these traits among themselves.

It’s no wonder that the first Olympics are considered the start of the Greek Agonic Age: its elite culture valued such competitions far more than elections or wealth, & consciously bred this in themselves; & they despised mere social status, within the conventions of village life

As they then lost social status, groups of young aristocratic wild men formed what look like war-bands or monasteries, & sought power based on an idealized form of their moldering elite customs, but now in a manner unbound from any appeals to tradition. Thus tyranny & philosophy.

I won’t rehash the book’s claims about Greek virtues, customs, events, etc. You can read it for that, & only cargo-cultists would try to copy these from Greece. But I think its argument broadly applies in useful ways to various other civilizations: Romans, Normans, Americans, etc

There are of course other arguments in the book: it contrasts tyranny & philosophy, & picks a side between them. & I’m not sure how much of it I accept: I like metaphysics, & I prefer many aspects of Anglo-American civilization to the particular kind of eugenics that he describes

For example: the most successful Anglo elite arose by sending its young men to seek their glory in foreign colonies, & it freely engaged in highly assortative mating, & rapidly outbred its underclass; thus imo their best aristocracy was tending toward an island without caste rule

But this book is clearly speaking uniquely well to the country’s intelligent & curious & passionate young men—the class on whom all regimes rise & fall; it’s an old dissertation which reached the top 30 overall on Amazon books, with zero promotion & much institutional resistance.

The irony is that any “good liberals” who “denounce” this book have utterly failed to learn from it. It’s all about the weakness & ugliness of regimes which outsource their value judgments to such denunciation rituals & back-patting networks, & that’s why it seduces valuable men!

We’re already tearing down all our markers of greatness. Our elites already prefer to live like an underclass: groveling for meager benefits from feminized single-party bureaucracies while self-destructively play-acting at rebellion. Their cries of envy are cries for new masters.