Guess who Richard Spencer says is behind Mel Gibson’s melt-down?

(Note: below, Richard Spencer replies.)

Last week Richard Hoste of Richard Spencer’s Alternative Right web magazine charged that the Jews brought about the self-destruction of the “vulnerable Nordic beauty” Lindsay Lohan. I said this proved beyond a doubt that Hoste is the most primitive and mindless type of anti-Semite, the kind who literally blames everything bad in the world on the Jews, or at least everything bad that happens to white gentiles.

There’s been another spectacular Hollywood self-immolation going on for the last couple of weeks, that of Mel Gibson, whose secretly recorded telephone rant to his then-mistress reveals a frighteningly disturbed and brutal man.

So, who does Richard Spencer think has caused Mel Gibson’s self destruction?

I’ll give you one guess.

Spencer writes:

The truth is that the scandal reveals less about Mel than it does about the taboos and preoccupations of the elite media. As James Edwards describes it, America’s journalism and film establishment, with its preponderance of Jews in positions of power, was never inclined to take kindly to a man who independently financed a heroic epic about Jesus Christ. After Mel connected the Jewish-dominated neoconservative movement with the war in Iraq in a drunken outburst, the establishment deemed it necessary to destroy the man. (Before this latest scandal, Mel had made a comeback of sorts, and even had a decent thriller under his belt (Edge of Darkness (2010)); his tormentors in the media were, no doubt, just waiting for the right moment to pounce.)

So the Jews did it. According to Spencer, the Jews “deemed it necessary to destroy the man,” and then they proceeded to “pounce.” How does Spencer know that the Jews decided to destroy Gibson? And what, according to Spencer, were the means by which they did destroy him? Is he suggesting that Gibson’s mistress was an agent of the Jews? Is he saying that they hired her to get Gibson angry and then surreptitiously record his insane outpouring to her and release it to the media? Or is he perhaps saying that the Jews got direct control over Gibson’s mind and made him erupt in a series of demented and repulsive comments to his girlfriend, ruining what was left of his reputation, just as the half-Nibelung (i.e. half-Jew) Hagan in Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungen used a magical potion to get control of the innocent Nordic hero Siegfried’s mind and make him destroy himself?

For Spencer to say that the Hollywood Jews and the neocon Jews (who of course are on opposite sides politically) were behind Gibson’s self-auto-da-fe, is as connected with reality as Hillary Clinton’s accusation that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” was behind the Monica Lewinsky scandal. As I said at the time, what did this vast right wing conspiracy actually do? Did it hire the liberal Democrat and Clinton-worshipper Monica Lewinsky to seduce Clinton into a series of sexual acts with her in the Oval Office?

Spencer, who seems like a reasonable and nice person when you speak with him one on one, has thus revealed, not for the first time, that his mind is as bent as that of his contributor Richard Hoste.

Also, Spencer says that Gibson’s tirade was not different from what any normal person might say in a private quarrel. Sorry, Mr. Spencer, but normal people even when angry do not say the kinds of pathological and violent things that Gibson said to his girlfriend. Nor do they punch their girlfriend and the mother of their child in the mouth breaking her front teeth, which Gibson clearly implies that he did. Why does Spencer portray Gibson as essentially innocent? Because Gibson is for him a hero of white Christian man (of course Spencer is himself non-Christian and posts the work of anti-Christians, but let’s leave that aside), and therefore Gibson must be defended at all costs. If he’s behaved vilely, his behavior must be relativized and normalized, so that he won’t be judged. This is the amoral tribalism that dominates the thinking of the paleocon/HBD faction, and renders them incapable of offering anything of useful in the political and cultural sphere, because people who reduce all human values to the genetic and the tribal cannot build or defend a civilized social order. As I have been saying for the last twenty years, the neocons reduce truth to abstract universalist ideas; the paleocons/HBD’ers reduce truth to tribes and genes; both visions are false.

(Note: Spencer wrote me a civil e-mail yesterday criticizing my most recent entry about him, and I told him I would post it and reply. My discovery of his article about Gibson came after that exchange.)

- end of initial entry -

David M. writes:

The two Richards, Mel Gibson, and others blame everything on Jews, from financial issues to the heartbreak of psoriasis. They remind me of sniveling, whining blacks who blame all of their own shortcomings and lack of self-control on the big bad nasty white man.

I will grant that Jews have a miserable roster of real cads in recent history, including but not limited to people like George Soros. But enough already. I’m tired of hearing it. Ultimately, it has been non-Jewish presidents who have signed the laws and approved the budgets that have all but destroyed this country. For every Barney Frank there is a Robert Byrd. For every Barbara Boxer there is a Cold Cash William Jefferson. For every Dianne Feinstein there is a Maxine Waters.

For the record, I am Jewish.

Richard Spencer writes:

Here is what I believe:

1) Jews are dramatically overrepresented in the production, direction, writing, and promotion of Hollywood films.

This might be one of the most irrefutable statements I’ve ever written.

I’d add that this preponderance cannot be explained by a higher-than-average Jewish IQ, and, indeed, it seems unrelated to, say, Jewish achievement in theoretical physics. Ethnic nepotism and activism must surely be involved.

[LA replies: So you’re saying that when the great Hollywood studios were created, largely by Jews, that was due primarily to ethnic nepotism and ethnic activism? What a weird and off-base statement. Can ethnic nepotism explain something as magnificent as the Hollywood Golden age? Can tribalism and nepotism explain creativity? Obviously there was a “fit” between the qualities, talents, and creative urges of the great Jewish movie producers, and the qualities, talents, and creative urges involved in making movies. Many non-Jews were involved in creating Hollywood too. Obviously their talents and drives overlapped with those of the Hollywood Jews.

In the late 1930s, Louis B. Mayer, the studio head of M-G-M and the highest paid man in Hollywood, became interested in making movies with English themes, leading to such magnificent films as Goodbye Mr. Chips and Mrs. Miniver, movies in which the atmosphere and environment are so English the viewer assumes they were made in England. In fact they were made in Hollywood. Such was the vision and talent of Mayer and his associates. What does that have to do with ethnic nepotism?

Your comment is thus horrifyingly reductionist. You actually seem to believe, just as I said about the paleocons/HBD’ers, that genes and tribes are the source of all human values. What an intellectual and spiritual dead end.]

Unfortunately, American Jews have brought many of their political and social inclinations with them to Hollywood; these include anti-Christianity. (I, of course, mean this in a leftist, subversive sense, not in a Nietzschean one.) This is a large topic, which I don’t have time to explore fully here. If others are interested, Michael Medved’s Hollywood vs. America is a good place to start. [LA replies: You need to consider the difference between the Jews of Hollywood in the 1930s, and the Hollywood Jews of the post-1960s. The latter are indeed largely anti-American, anti-Christian leftists. But the entire left of the post-1960s period is anti-American and anti-Christian. Looking at the problem solely in terms of Jewishness is insufficient and results in a woefully distorted picture of reality. I am not denying the specific Jewish animus against white gentiles of many current Jewish leftists. That is a legitimate topic and something those Jews deserve to be challenged on. But to repeat what I said, it is distortive of reality to reduce the problem to only or primarily Jewish animus. ]

2) As I suggested in my essay, Mel Gibson was promoted as a hard-boiled action hero and a dashing and mischievous leading man; his passionate devotion to traditional Catholicism and the West was certainly not an asset in the advancement of his career; and he might not have had a career at all if from the start, he’d declared his interest in making a heroic epic about Jesus Christ. [LA replies: that’s pure speculation, and a way of blaming the Jews for something they never did—stop Gibson’s career.]

3) I don’t think Oksana Grigorieva is a tool of Hollywood Jewish interests. I simply think she’s trying to extort money. She’s offered Gibson’s enemies an excuse for getting rid of him. [LA replies: Another statement by you out of nowhere. Gibson’s rantings were reported in the media the way any other scandalous event is reported in the media. Where is the evidence that “Gibson’s enemies” (the Jews again according to you) have done anything to “get rid of him”? This is anti-Jewish speculation parading as a statement of fact. Yes, Jews and liberals widely attacked The Passion as an anti-Semitic movie. And some Jews, such as Charles Krauthammer, made viciously anti-Christian statements in doing so, and I hit them very hard for that. But all that died down and Gibson’s career went on. I’m not aware of any campaign to destroy him. Further, even after his drunken anti-Semitic diatribe when he was arrested a few years ago, saying that all wars were caused by Jews, his career went on. So where is the Jewish campaign to destroy him? In fact, in each instance in which he has been attacked, it has been because of people’s reactions (justified or not) to his works and actions, not because of some campaign to destroy him. Yes, he has become increasingly radioactive, but if he had not done the behavior for which he has been attacked, the radioactivity would not exist.] I also acknowledge that this kind of scandal, in which a man screams hateful words at a younger woman, would be damaging to anyone. I was interested in pointing out that while Roman Polanski’s career in Hollywood survived pedophilia, Mel’s career appears kaput after he uttered the N-word. [LA replies: So, after admitting reality for one moment and saying that the Jews are not behind all of Gibson’s troubles, you turn around and suggest that Hollywood has tolerated Polanski in large part because he’s a Jew, as though you somehow know that an esteemed non-Jewish movie director would have been dumped instead of protected if he had done the behavior Polanski did. On another point, Polanski has had no career in Hollywood for 30 years, or haven’t you noticed? Also, Gibson is not an Australian native, but was born and raised for the first 12 years of his life in the U.S.] This has much to do with our culture’s quasi-deification of blacks—and its transforming of white racism into a cardinal sin. (I actually quoted one Lawrence Auster in making this point.) This double standard also has much to do with the fact that Polanski is a Jewish leftist, and Mel is not. [More anti-Jewish paranoia presenting itself as fact. If Polanski had screamed at a girlfriend, “With the way you dress you’ve going to be gang-raped by a pack of niggers!”, he would have been in trouble with the Hollywood left too. It is well known that under the liberal regime sexual sins are given a pass, while “racism” is worse than murder. That has nothing to do with Jewishness. Former President Clinton is not a Jew, but the feminists who sought to lynch a black Republican because of an accusation of sexual harassment and who sought to destroy a white Republican U.S. senator for inappropriately kissing and pawing a few women gave Clinton a pass for vastly worse and true offenses against women. There are a variety of reasons why the left demonizes some people and not others—it’s not just about whether the accused is Jewish. You yourself sneak in that recognition when you say Polanski was excused because he is a “Jewish leftist.” So maybe he was excused because he is a leftist, not because he is a Jew. But by throwing in “Jewish,” you want your readers to believe it was his Jewishness for which he was excused, while you retain your deniability if you are accused of saying something anti-Jewish.].

[By the way, the amount of anti-Semitism raised by the Polanski affair was astonishing. For example, because I happened to know very little about the Polanski affair at the time of his arrest last year, and because I initially expressed misgivings about arresting a man in a foreign country for a 30 year old offense (though I changed my position within a couple of hours after I read more about Polanski’s offenses), a host of anti-Semites leaped on me and said that I was siding with Polanski—because of Jewish solidarity! What better could show the combination of malice, stupidity, and crude bigotry that drives these people? When I said that Lewis Libby should have been pardoned, an anti-Semitic moron at Randall Parker’s site said that I took this position because Libby and I are both Jewish. It didn’t occur to him that I took the position because I thought the case against Libby was an outrage. No, the only reason a person of Jewish descent does anything is to defend the Jews. How would his theory explain the fact that I also said that the case against Martha Steward was an outrage and should be dropped? Thus these anti-Semitic reductionists make themselves into morons. And frankly the kind of thinking you are displaying, while not as bad as theirs, is not different in kind.]

4) I admire many of Mel’s films, and I hope he makes his Viking picture, but I don’t think of him as some ultimate conservative god, or rather martyr, who must be defended at all costs. [LA replies: Then why did you excuse his horrible behavior and say, as the Clinton supporters did re Clinton, that “everyone does it”? You wrote: “though Mel’s s rants are painful to listen to, they simply prove that he’s human.” Clearly you wanted to remove all serious negative judgment from Gibson, and clearly your reason for doing so is that you see Gibson as a representative and champion of your tribe, i.e., Nordic and generically Christian Man. For you, Nordic-Christian tribalism trumps morality. Thus you openly commit the sin with regard to Gibson that you falsely accuse Jews of doing with regard to Polanski.] In many ways, my plea was a more general call for the alternative Right (writ large) to give up on trying to work with the establishment media and start creating alternative media of its own. [LA replies: This is a masterpiece of indirection. The obvious thrust of the paragraph I quoted was that the Jews had decided to destroy Gibson, and that this was the main reason for his troubles. And throughout the article you keep suggesting that Hollywood has always had it in for Gibson because he’s a right-wing Christian (or would have always had it in for him, had they always known what a right-wing Christian he was). Now you turn around and innocently claim that you had some completely different intention in your article. It’s a neat tactic. You include lots of anti-Jewish ideas and suggestions in your article, and you also present some other ideas; and when accused of anti-Jewishness, you point to those other ideas and say, “See? My article had nothing to do with Jews!” Thus your larger strategic purpose is to legitimize anti-Semitism, through a variation on the good-cop / bad-cop routine. The “good cop” makes the Alternative Right seem morally and socially acceptable, and under that cover the “bad cop” advances the anti-Jewish agenda. And perhaps, as some readers have told me, by writing about you, and now by posting your comment and engaging in dialog with you, I am unintentionally helping you with that agenda.] Mel’s Viking movie could be the start of a whole new non-Hollywood film industry! The evangelicals have been on the vanguard and the traditionalist right-wing should follow.

5) I continue to enjoy Auster’s creative references to Hagen, Siegfried, and the Nibelungen. Keep it up!

It in many ways pains me that I just spent time writing this explanation, for most every reasonable person would have understood my essay as I describe it above.

LA replies:

I do not claim to understand your inner thoughts and motivations; as a human being, you are a mystery to me. I do, however, see your modus operandi. And part of it is this: with one hand you advance an anti-Jewish agenda, both in the articles you publish at Alt-Right and now in your own writings; and with the other hand you present yourself as a nice guy who is not anti-Jewish at all and is not even particularly interested in the Jewish question. Whom do you think you’re kidding?

Thanks for enjoying my Wagner parallels.

July 23

Irv P. writes:

Reading your last post about Richard Spencer’s Mel Gibson “take”, is similar to watching a young ball player in minor league rookie ball going up against Nolan Ryan in his prime.

Richard, it’s the big leagues. You need more seasoning. You’re bright, energetic and charismatic…but you’re too sure of yourself with your limited experience.

LA replies:

Thanks. I agree that Spencer gives the impression that he hasn’t earned his intellectual positions through his own thought, knowledge, experience, and efforts, but rather that he’s just picked them up and copied them from his paleo-HBD environment, his friends, and his reading. So not only does he not have a thought-out basis for his views, he doesn’t know how to defend them when they are criticized.

But his lack of formation may also be a positive. It suggests that perhaps he is not hardened and convinced in the anti-Semitism he regularly publishes at his site, and can be persuaded out of it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 22, 2010 12:56 PM | Send