Locked Down and Locked Out
The prospect of an annual or biannual vaccine injection enforced in perpetuity as a condition for admittance to civil society would have seemed unthinkable. It would have seemed completely alien to the average person just two short years ago. But here we are. The unthinkable of 2019 is now thoughtlessly accepted in 2021. However irrational or insane they appear upon inspection, there are no extremes of system intrusion that are not now relayed to us as banal.
For all the scientific mystique surrounding these measures, they are largely political decisions dictated by political pressures and political agendas. Locking down an economy is not science, it is politics. The adoption of vast technological infrastructure to track and control a population is by definition a political project. The idea that such measures can be neutral or objective, even if they tried to be, is ridiculous. The technology itself is not neutral or objective let alone the political minds that attempt to implement it.
At the beginning of the current crisis we were told to expect a “new normal.” Rarely in human history is a total break from the past advertised so casually in advance. Two years on we have indeed entered a new reality and it is being talked about as such. Politics and political polarisation are being talked about almost as though different factions of society were living in parallel universes. In fact we see different laws and standards applied to different categories of people on the basis of political allegiance. We see with what ease entire sections of the population can be locked out of society indefinitely. These are political actions and must be addressed as such.
That applies to how resistance to these coercive measures is enacted. As we have seen, arguing the “science” of these matters is largely futile. Scientism, being the ultimate appeal to authority, naturally favours the side which is in power. The arguments to be made now are political arguments. They require political action and political ideology which, at its core, focuses on one goal. Achieving power and implementing change.
Faced with what amounts to an epistemological break in mass-society, the resistance forces are bound to feel disjointed and alienated, out of time and out of place. That is no excuse however for letting down our guard. Be in no doubt, the country we live in, the country we love so much, is in enemy hands.
The Achilles’ Heel of Protest Movements
The protest movements against the lockdowns, and against the mandates, have continually faced a dilemma. The resistance against these measures has been branded, again and again, in the Irish media as “far-right”. There are other derisory terms (“anti-mask” and “anti-vax”, etc.) but the first is the most significant one. We have seen this of course with countless other protest movements over the years in one form or another. The response of the organisers is almost always the same. They internalise the criticism and apply it as policy. They moderate the message, they freeze out any groups or individuals who seem to fit the bill, i.e., nationalists. That is what is meant when media hacks scream “Nazi” and “far-right”. They mean ideological nationalists. People who espouse an Ireland Gaelic and Free and who do not apologise for it. It is the fear of being associated with ideological nationalists (or rather the circus of media gas-lighting) that leads protest groups to so-called moderation. They do so in the hopes of “broadening their base” and increasing the number of supporters. But in doing so the trap has been sprung.
We regularly hear calls for “non-political protests” or “people’s protests”, or what not, which is to say protests supposedly not associated with political organisations. The problem is of course that there is no such thing as a “non-political protest.” There is no such thing as a protest that does not advance a political position and which does not serve the ends of political actors. A protest in and of itself is nothing. If it is to achieve anything, then it is necessarily a launching pad for a political organism. That is to say, a core of committed, ideologically sound and well organised fanatics in the service of a long term plan towards power. Politics is about power. Protests are about power.
When you broaden your base at the expense of weakening your core, then the inevitable happens. In purging the ideological nationalists you leave a vacuum which can only be filled by another ideological force; that being the extreme left. It is transparently the case that a non-ideological movement will always be co-opted by an ideological one.
Big Tents
The most visible factions against lockdown have been a chaotic mix of nationalists, Catholic conservatives and New Agers of various stripes. That is generalising a bit but it gives a certain idea of the mix. Like all “big-tent” movements, there is a tendency to shun “extremism.” Catholic conservatives are by nature sensitive to social pressures, often valuing outward appearances and respectability. New Age types tend to be “anti-politics” to some extent or “above politics.” Being pigeonholed as “nationalists” or “far-right” is therefore anathema. In both cases, there is considerable room for ideological vacuum and this is easily filled by well placed opportunists. The reality of politics is that any appeal to centrism will inevitably favour the hegemonic force. Since our society is culturally left, then an appeal to centrism is in practice an appeal to the left. While the leaders worry themselves about being labeled “Nazis”, leftwing networks drift into control and take over.
If the left understand anything it is the value of long-term political aims. We only have to look at the protests against water charges, still held up as a “populist big tent victory”. Yes, the “people” won. Yes, the charges were reversed but that was not capitalised on. Who benefited politically? It was the left entryists. They were the ones who took control. They were the ones who took seats. They were the ones who advanced their political agenda. They were the ones who saw the political purpose of protest. It was not about water charges for them. It was about getting into power. And when in power they pursued their own agenda. Unsettling as it may seem, the long-term outcome of the water charge protests was gay marriage and abortion.
Why are the left getting involved in lockdown protests? It probably has less to do with direct political gain in this case than simply making sure nationalists do not gain. The political aim is to neutralise the real potential of the anti-lockdown movement. To make it safe. To make sure there are no productive long-term achievements. They don’t really care about winning or losing the fight since they are already in power, less so in Leinster House than in State institutions and NGOs. Those in power do not fear power.
The only reason they are able to do this is because they are let. Populists are so worried about freezing out nationalists that they allow their movements to be taken over by the extreme left. It is not helped by the fact that conservative media outlets increasingly see their role as to “deradicalise” their own base. The role of gatekeeper conservatives, particularly since the abortion referendum, has been to maneuver their base away from “dangerous” nationalism. This is their first priority.
Left Subversion
Look at it this way. How is the narrative framed and who benefits? We have anti-lockdown protesters marching on the streets with placards calling the government and media “Nazis.” Then we have politicians and journalists calling the protesters “Nazis.” What is a Nazi? Just another vacuous synonym for “far-right extremist”. And who gets called that? Nationalists. Who benefits? The people who don’t get branded by the media. The people who don’t get demonised. The protesters calling for “Nuremberg Trials II” should be more worried about the people who weren’t hanged at Nuremberg such as the Bolshevik mass-murderers. In other words, the people who want your children to be owned by the State and your six-year-old to take hormone blockers. The people who want your national identity dissolved and your religious beliefs stigmatised. The people who want hate speech laws. The people who want abortion on demand. The people who want you to own nothing and be happy. The people who want you dead or in prison for loving your country. Are these to be the new leaders of the anti-lockdown cause?
When the National Party leafleted Dublin West with an anti-lockdown message, the Bosheviks (Communist Youth Ireland or some such name) counter leafleted the same areas with a pro-lockdown message. Their leaflet complained that the lockdowns in actual fact weren’t tough enough. They wanted more restrictions on the model of China. Now, let’s be clear, if you were a communist revolutionary who seemed to regard Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as something akin to Pinochet on a bad day, why would you call for unlimited emergency powers to be given to the government? You would either have to be pretty stupid or pretty duplicitous. The truth is they don’t fear the system because they are part of the system. They want lockdowns. They want mandates. Just like they want every other globalist policy. They are the enemy. And whether they come dressed as eco-warriors or left-republicans, they are due no deference from us. It was the same types who walked shoulder to shoulder with plain-clothes Gardaí to unsuccessfully attack an anti-lockdown protest on Kildare Street in October 2020, shouting slogans from the Spanish Civil War and so high on drugs that they assaulted journalists and media present. Yet pictures of these violent extremists appear in newspapers with captions about “far-right violence.” These are the people that the anti-lockdown movement is in danger of being handed over to by complacent conservatives and non-alligned organisers.
Holding the Line
The National Party get a lot of abuse for taking the stands we take. One of the reasons for that is that we do not move with the wind. We do not tell people what they want to hear. We do not just project back onto an audience the opinions of that audience, even though it would be easier and even financially profitable to do so. That is not our role. Our role is to remain constant. Our role is to stand our ground. If we “followed the audience” we would have compromised all 9 principles within the first month of existence. We didn’t give ground. People moved to us.
The National Party is criticised for making perfectly reasonable statements about the lockdown in April 2020 by people who were peddling the most incoherent and deranged talking points imaginable. Not a day would go by without the National Party being bombarded by messages and emails demanding we platform a variety of theories and predictions, some of which were genuine but many of which turned out to be as bogus as the government’s own statistical forecasts.
The whole anti-lockdown movement continues to be hampered by the nonsense that was spouted in the early parts of 2020 by people who simply amplified the most recent post they read on WhatsApp. Many of the same types were “fear mongering” about Covid itself right through February and March before making a U-Turn once restrictions came into place. Had Ireland taken the “Swedish approach” most of them would have attacked the government for not implementing lockdowns since that would have been the natural contrarian position.
The movement continues to suffer both in input and output from what can reasonably be described as information-overload. Good talking points and bad talking points often receive equal amplification because the forest cannot be seen for the trees. The discourse around lockdowns, mandates and vaccines has become so Byzantine as to present an obstacle in and of itself. In politics as in art, less is often more. The simpler the message the better. That means sometimes making politically calculated statements. It means sometimes having to ignore the madding crowd.
Telling people what they want to hear is a good route to short-term popularity, but it is popularity gained at the expense of political substance. There are many, many people who will minimise and trivialise what the National Party has achieved. The building of a nationalist movement is often a slow, thankless job and it is easy to downplay the progress. But we can say this, there are many things that would be very different today if the National Party had never existed. Many things that would be different for the worse.
One of the criticisms (it may seem bizarre now) that was made from some corners when the Party launched was that we were, of all things, too “anti-British.” A criticism made in naivete by people who did not properly understand the realities of Irish political consciousness and thought only of short-cuts to “success,” thought only of foreign blueprints and foreign road-maps. We rejected this. If there is one outstanding achievement of the National Party then it is this. We kept the British out. The National Party and the National Party alone is responsible for the fact that the nationalist right in Ireland was not taken over by the British. We did this in the face of multiple attempts by multiple organisations (better funded than us in most cases) to pursue projects that one way or another amounted to British entryism into the Irish national scene. We held our ground. We occupied the space of Irish nationalism. We did not moderate. We did not allow ourselves to be co-opted. We did not allow ourselves to be outflanked. We took oceans of abuse from just about everyone. But we succeeded. And now nobody would propose something so stupid as an alliance with “British nationalism”. Because Irish nationalism stands alone.
That is our job as nationalists. To stand tied to a rock with the birds pecking at our corpse if need be. To the last. And as with the British as with the Bolsheviks, no quarter given and none taken. Just as the British connection must be severed, the Bolshevik connection must be severed too. In particular it must be severed from the discourse of Irish republicanism on which it has parasitically fed for far too long. The enemies of Ireland are clear to us. Either there is an anti-lockdown movement or there isn’t. If it is to be co-opted by leftwing extremists, then you’re better off giving up now. You’re better off giving into the mandates and accepting whatever comes. Either there is a long term coordinated political purpose that looks way beyond mandates or lockdowns or anything else, or there is folly. These are not one-off issues we are dealing with. These are full spectrum shifts in the nature of human society. They can only be countered as such.
The Left Always Betray
If the left wanted to end this madness they have the power to do it. Sinn Féin is in the perfect position to oppose the mandates but they do not. They do not because it would jeopardise their ascent to power. Anyway, they are so close to power that restrictions and mandates do not threaten them. They have made their bed. In government they will use the special criminal court to prosecute nationalists and they will use their emergency powers as freely as their predecessors. They will implement the globalist agenda with a necessary dash of left populism thrown in, smashing the parts of Irish society that are not yet fully smashed, until they too are tossed out and the real shenanigans begin.
The left will always betray you for the simple reason that they are internationalists at heart. Their interests are not your interests. Their interests are not rooted in a place or a people. The basis for resistance is nationalism or it is nothing. And there can be no losing heart over words and names. Let them call you what they will. In a shifting world, we either hold firm and make something here or we are lost. The hour is late. If being called “far-right” is enough to neutralise you as opposition, then you are no opposition. The fear of being called a “Nazi” for just loving Ireland is a poor excuse for throwing in your lot with people who hate you and Ireland both.
The moral of the story is do not compromise your core. Your core is what matters. Broad support is worth nothing if you lose control of your cause. And if your cause is not anchored in the ground of nationalism then you will lose it anyway. Hold firm. Do not be gaslit into purging your own allies and replacing them with snakes. There is no path to victory except through a hell of pejoratives and slanders, struggle and suffering. Accept that and stop running away every time you see the scary nationalists guarding your flank. There is no way out of this by apologising or moderating. People hold out hope for some celebrity figure to stand up and fight the system on their behalf but it is no good if that person caves before words like “racist” and “Nazi” and “far-right”. If you accept their terms of abuse, you accept their mandates.
The National Party will do as much as it can even as we are attacked, ignored, criticised and written off as we have always been. But here we stand like a stone wall, holding the ideological line until such time as others will stand with us instead of standing against us. We owe no allegiance or friendship to people who offer us nothing but violence. There is no unity with people who threaten and abuse. The way forward is clear. “Against the red flag of communism we raise the flag of an Irish nation.” So wrote Arthur Griffith, another one of those “far-right extremists”. The national movement continues to be built. It will take as long as it takes. It will take until people give up on short-cuts and delusions of respectability. To oppose mandates in and of itself is enough to make you a pariah. Being called “far-right” after that is no worse a fate except in your head.
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Ar Dheis Ar Aghaidh!