The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

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Autodidact / Fleming

13 Feb, 2018

Euripides’ Orestes

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For more on this subject, see The Autodidact’s Reading List on the Ancient Greeks: https://fleming.foundation/2015/09/the-autodidacts-reading-list-i-the-ancient-greeks/ The Orestes, performed in 408, is one of Euripides’ last surviving plays–the poet died only two years later.  It was very popular in the Hellenistic and Byzantine eras, much cited and taught in schools.   It is a vivid melodrama (in the modern not the ancient sense), but it is also a profound and difficult meditation on the meaning of friendship. One caveat before I make a few remarks on the play.  Though Euripides was, in the following centuries, the most popular writer of tragedies,...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

7 Feb, 2018

Even the Financial Press Attacks Trump

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You might think the financial press would be a little bit more modest than the regular press. They write about money, and if they just do straight reporting, that’s one thing. But if they have opinions, the old question arises: If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich? Yet financial writers after the February 5 market crash immediately trashed Trump. Here are two from the popular Yahoo News. The first: “The Dow has given up all its gains since the day the Trump tax cuts became law,” by Isabella Steger, that evening. The second: “The Trump tax cuts are looking...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Feature / Wednesday's Child

7 Feb, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: American Nightmare

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A Russian painter friend of mine, who had followed our family into exile in the United States yet never went back on his contention that English articles are a petit bourgeois nuisance, used to joke that the American Dream is “finding Rembrandt in garbage can.”  Although the major actors in the nightmare I record here are about as American as Confucius, and the dream object in question a Da Vinci rather than a Rembrandt, in the past few days my friend’s quip ran through my mind more than once. Let me begin from afar.  It is a rule of life...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

3 Feb, 2018

Welcome to the World of Stephen King

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Stephen King, on learning of a train crash in which Republican members of Congress were shaken up and the driver of a garbage truck was killed, tweeted: “A trainload of Republicans on their way to a pricey retreat hit a garbage truck,” King noted Thursday. “My friend Russ calls that karma.” King was immediately attacked and he later apologized for his indiscretion. If we wish to be kind, we might recall that King was a suicidal alcoholic who drank mouthwash, when he could not get real booze, and ink when he could not get mouthwash. If we probed deeper, we...

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Uncategorized

1 Feb, 2018

How the Right Can Win, Conclusion

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Trump’s presidency is a rare opportunity for the Right, and it would be madness not to take full advantage of it. This is a once in a lifetime chance to implement Rightist policies. No matter what criticisms you may have of Trump, Hillary would have been far worse. We dodged a bullet with her. She would have passed amnesty, and appointed liberal Supreme Court justices who would tear the Constitution to shreds, and the first and second amendments would become meaningless. This was a fluke election, and we were very lucky Trump ran for president. If he hadn’t, Ted Cruz...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

1 Feb, 2018

Divided America

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Once upon a time, Americans occasionally united. Here are some election percentages of presidential victors: FDR 1932, 57.4%; FDR 1936, 60.8%; IKE 1952, 55.2%; IKE 1956, 57.4%; LBJ 1964, 61.1%, the most of any candidate not named George Washington; Nixon 1972, 60.7%; Reagan 1984, 58.8%. Average: 58.8% Moreover, if you look at the issues in 1960, JFK and RN held substantially the same views, differing only in nuance, style and ability to rig state elections (detailed by Roger Stone in “Nixon’s Secrets” and Robert Caro, with all the facts on how LBJ ripped off Texas for himself and JFK, in...

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Andrei Navrozov / On the House / Wednesday's Child

31 Jan, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: Porky’s Revenge

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To my readers it would probably come as something of a disappointment to learn that I had actually watched the film entitled The Death of Stalin before I formed an opinion of it.  Indeed, a trailer of 2 minutes and 27 seconds’ duration was more than sufficient to confirm me in that endangered species of prejudice which is born of experience. The film is advertised as a comedy, with the 1:1 proportion of swear words to cheap shots typical of the genre in its contemporary interpretation, namely, absurd slapstick made by people without a sense of humor for people without...

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On the House

29 Jan, 2018

How the Right Can Win Again, Part II: Exploiting Divisions

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We on the right should sow discord by exploiting our enemies’ divisions. The Democratic coalition is too mixed to survive. What do a Black nationalist from Atlanta, a feminist from Minneapolis, a Mexican illegal alien from Los Angeles, and a stoner from Portland have in common, except for their hatred of the White man and love of big government? If you put two in a room together, within five minutes they will be arguing over which one has been more oppressed and who needs the most government assistance. We might not need to divide and conquer the Left, as they...

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Uncategorized

26 Jan, 2018

“How the Right Can Win Again,” Part I: The Problem

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Looking inwards from the outside, one might assume the American Right is winning nowadays.  On the face of it, things seem to be going our way.  The Republican Party controls the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and most state governorships and legislatures.  Any new Supreme Court justices are likely to be conservatives, meaning that even if the Left regains control of the rest of government, the Supreme Court will remain right-wing for many decades.  The Republican Party is in its best position since the 1920s.  In contrast, the Democratic Party is in disarray.  Since November 9, the American Left has...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Feature / Wednesday's Child

23 Jan, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: The Rotten Thread

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For the better part of the last ten years, in the California town of Perris – which is probably how you pronounce “Paris” if you’re a child molester, though this conjecture is, I admit, of little relevance to the larger argument here – a couple enslaved and abused thirteen persons of various ages, allegedly their own biological offspring, keeping them in chains and starving them in ways that would make Mr. Bumble take pity on poor Oliver Twist. This is all happening in America, in 2018, yet the only reaction to the madness, apart from the grinding of the wheels...