Majorityrights News > Category: Hermeneutics

Peter Ling in Trafalgar Sq.

Bill Baillie, regarding democracy, European Outlook, #47:

“Serendipity” - The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

An old copy of Colin Jordan’s magazine Gothic Ripples caught my eye. It was from February 1988 and posted by www.jrbooksonline.com  

“Peter Ling, a life-long National Socialist, member of the British NSM, died 16/10/87.”

I knew Peter Ling in the old days. He is pictured selling Combat at a meeting of the old BNP in Trafalgar Square. He was an accomplished writer, speaker and street fighter. I guessed that he was dead but I never knew the details. His powerful essay, Authoritarianism v Democracy, originally published in Combat in 1959, was reprinted in European Outlook # 5, May 2014. Here is an extract:

“But the most telling and final indictment of democracy is that in time of great human stress and endeavour it rejects and abandons its philosophical basis. In time of war when the ruling interests are really threatened, democratic values go overboard and the erstwhile democracy gears itself immediately to an authoritarian form of government. Even in time of peace democracy does not attempt to organize its armed forces “democratically” or to sail its great ships across the oceans of the world without the strong hand of authority and responsibility at the helm.

What an indictment of democracy that it can only weld its subjects into a single great united whole for the purpose of destruction! That its fundamental wealth and assets, which only too often represent the ill-rewarded toil of generation of its loyal citizens can be squandered overnight in order to procure fantastic financial sums for expenditure upon war and death, but when it comes to building something great for its own people – as a whole that is – in time of peace, the will and the credit dry up, and “Freedom” reigns once more; freedom for the poor to get out of the slums if they can and freedom for the financier to squat in his banking house and receive the lickspittle homage of parliamentarians of all parties.”

With regard to capitalism, Bill Baillie writes in the same edition, European Outlook, #47:

Capitalism relies on unmoored physical movement, tenuous interpersonal connections, and sensual whim for its sustenance and has thus both facilitated the historical march of irony and provided a system of nostalgia to act as an opiate by which to provide temporary relief from the agony of meaninglessness. By disseminating palliative symbols and profiting on access to them, this system thrives and immobilizes white populations by reducing their understanding of history to false inevitabilities, superficialities, platitudes, and decontextualized assertions. Our histories, both personal and collective, become a collection of sounds, images, and texts to be bought, sold, and traded based on the emotional appeal of any particular example. There is no need for order, no need for context, and no need for contemplation. All that is required is a desire for temporary escape from the conditions maintained by capitalism.

Inherent in the practice of nostalgia is a search for meaning coupled with the unavoidable psychological tendency to mark the passage of time. These are neither unhealthy nor unnatural impulses on their own but under capitalism, as connections to “blood and soil” weaken, they take on a greater significance and work in concert to manufacture a toxic individual and collective mental state. Rather than producing minds that are energetically oriented towards the future, they produce minds mired in the past, emotionally dependent on the avoidance of reality, trapped by delusions of resurrection and romance. Whole populations of people are reduced to immobility and blind acceptance of whichever way the sociopolitical winds are blowing by dwelling on what are, somewhat paradoxically, calming images of defeat. The system of nostalgia preys on these vulnerabilities. Parasites will always take advantage of easily manipulated biological drives and psychological urges.

It is important, however, to make the distinction between historical memory and nostalgia. Historical memory — so crucial to all nationalisms — is an understanding of history as a part of a living, vital, forward-moving process. It is the integration of the essence of past collective experience into the present. It is the use of history to more deeply understand those forces which act upon groups in the present and which propel history forward. That is to say, it is a sense of history that enables the creation of history. Nostalgia, on the other hand, is a pathological obsession with turning back the clock, of venerating lost eras, of dreaming of racial or civilizational regeneration minus action. It is an inherently reactionary and therefore counterproductive orientation.

In a healthy society, the weakness of nostalgists is marginalized by the vitality of the society itself. After all, it is hard to utterly devote oneself to a romanticized past if that past is no more vital than the present. But under the capitalist order, in which the temporary has more value than the eternal, the trivial is prioritized over the meaningful, and every day brings some new example of social degradation, nostalgists — through little fault of their own, it must be said — blossom and are able to infect the masses with their weakness and indeed are rewarded for doing so. What would have been relatively simple and harmless reminiscences in a healthy society become a state of being in an unhealthy society. This leads ultimately to pessimism and political paralysis. If one’s worldview is based on a return to a romanticized past, one will be doomed to failure and misery. Time moves in only one direction.

Instead of an adventurous life, nostalgia begets a safe life. Instead of engagement, nostalgia rewards retreat. Instead of optimism, nostalgia promotes pessimism. Each of us has witnessed the many years of media corporations and socially acceptable public figures reminding whites that we will become minorities in our own lands and that we should warmly embrace this fate. This message is, of course, fairly direct. But working alongside this message is this highly profitable system of nostalgia which temporarily soothes any discomfort. “You, white man,” we are told, “are going to be a minority but please just watch this television show rerun, listen to this classic rock band, enjoy this old film and forget about it.” Not only does nostalgia offer an escape from reality but upon return — after the high has worn off — one’s sense of loss will be heightened. The chasm between the idealized past and unsatisfactory present seems to become increasingly insurmountable. We are conditioned on all sides to accept our demise, directly and indirectly. And we pay good money for this conditioning.

There is little under capitalism that cannot be bought and sold. The natural impulses of the human mind to memorialize its own existence and seek spiritual value provide the capitalist with opportunities to feed on our meaninglessness, on our discomfort in this world, on our desire for a better place, on our loss of hope and energy. Helpless, hopeless, and drugged by the omnipresent symbols of our planned fate, the capitalist is able to work freely with little resistance. The real engines of history become buried under layer upon layer of textual sludge. The system of nostalgia offers for sale an impossible dream which destines the buyer to political impotence and spiritual impoverishment.

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What could possibly go wrong?

Respect the flag that so many Americans died for -

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Whitaker Online, ” 6 June 2017:

Posted by Laura in About Bob, Bob, General on 06/06/2017

Bugsers,

It’s with great sadness that I report Coach passed away in his bed, Saturday afternoon June 3rd, 2017.

His passing is going to leave a hole in so many people’s life. But he has given the world the tools we need to expose this anti-White system and it’s program of white genocide. We will keep on using what he has taught us.

“He left a huge legacy of words and audio, an entire world view way more in line with reality than the official world view.

That legacy lives on. I know he had a lifetime of frustration with people refusing to use the talking points and political strategies he came up with, no matter how devastating they were to the leftist establishment, but he lived long enough to see his methods start to work. His stuff is EVERYWHERE.

I hope he took comfort in that.

He taught us what to do. It’s just a matter of doing it and teaching others. He’s the exception to his own rule that no hero ever made a difference in a war.

This prophecy WILL come true.

http://www.whitakeronline.org/blog/2013/12/02/the-corner-has-been-turned/

We all know what Bob would want us to do.”

Although there is reason to believe that the Bugsers are (((compromised))), and Bob’s mantra and related memes such as “anti-White” were being misused as such, Bob was clearly well meaning - even if a tad naive; nevertheless, it was not only that his heart was in the right place, he actually did have some incisive ideas - e.g., “the greatest generation’ having been beaten into passivity with their ‘you can’t fight city hall’ WWII army training;” and in recognition of the destruction of that passivity, Bob sought to make up for that generation’s passivity by becoming a trainer/memer of a new generation of activists instead - an activism that for his part, was radical enough for him see through the Trump facade after having gone for it initially - that Trump is not in control of his Presidency, but is in fact controlled - while so many “pro-Whites” remain snookered by Trumpism.

Diversity Macht Frei, 23 May 2017, Request complied-with by police to investigate Katie Hopkins for inciting racial hatred over tweet:

Hugh Muir thinks she is a peddler of hate and should be subject to laws against it -

Please advertise this book if you can - Jez

75 Proud Years:  Pioneers and Progress of Rhodesia

As someone with an interest in Rhodesia, we thought you might like to know that we now have a reprint of this 1965 Rhodesian Government publication :

With an introduction by Ian Smith , the book covers the history of Rhodesia from 1890 to 1965 in some detail and surveys the enormous progress made in agriculture, commerce, industry and social development of benefit to both white and black Rhodesians.

With 124 pages, this A4-size softcover book is a facsimile copy of the original with contemporary advertisements and would be an invaluable addition to any collection of Rhodesiana .

The book costs £12.50 and p&p is £2.90 (with a 10% discount to former customers) .

To order a copy please contact us at :

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Brescia

Council of Canadian Citizens, “Brescia, Italy: Suicide of the Lioness?”, 15 May 2017

Known as the Lioness of Italy for its resistance to the Austrian army in 1849 during the First War of Italian Independence, is the city of Brescia blindly building its own funeral pyre as it takes in thousands of African migrants on a daily basis? It has been argued by liberals and many Catholics that the city is a model of integration and that Italian “conviviality” can succeed where Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism and French assimilationism have failed.1 Indeed, Brescia supposedly offers a third way: “interculturality” involving face-to-face “dialogue” between different cultures.2 What this actually means in practice is difficult to decipher. In any case, such claims are dangerously optimistic and utopian, to say the least.

History

Before considering the current wave of (state aided) migration let us take a very brief look at the origins of the city and its experience during another period of large scale of migration: the Völkerwanderung. We will see that during and after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, Germanic tribes settled in and around Brescia, as they did in many other parts of Italy, but that these warriors and their families were ultimately assimilated into the Roman population. It could be said that Brescia conquered its conquerors. But what of the current migrants? As one former mayor put it, Brescia is in effect a “frontier city.” Can Africans and other non-Europeans arriving in such huge numbers also be assimilated? And, assuming for the sake of argument that they can be, how long will the process take and at what cost?

         

The Roman historian Livy wrote that Brescia, or Brixia as it was then called in Latin, had been the chief settlement of the Cenomanian Gauls who crossed the Alps and established themselves in Italy north of the River Po,3 which is thought to have been inhabited by the Ligurians, possibly a pre-Indo European population. In the period before and after the Second Punic War (218/201 BC), the Roman Republic defeated the Celtic tribes south of the River Po and founded colonies in the area. The Cenomanian Gauls north of the Po for their part were defeated in 197 BC and Romanisation gradually ensued. In 27 BC, Octavian Augustus granted Brixia, now a significant urban centre, the status of colonia civica augusta.

As the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century and in the centuries that followed, Brescia frequently found itself centre stage of the Völkerwanderung. In 402 AD the city was ravaged by the Ostrogoths under Alaric and in 451 it was besieged and sacked by Attila the Hun. In 496 Odoacer, the general who had deposed the last Roman Emperor in the West, Romulus August, was defeated and killed by the Ostrogoths under Theoderic who styled himself “King of the Goths and Romans.” The Ostrogoths finally succumbed to a resurgent Byzantine Empire and Brescia fell in 562. But Brescia remained in Byzantine hands for just six years when another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded Italy almost unopposed and established a Kingdom that lasted until the Frankish conquest of 774. As least as far as Brescia was concerned the barbarian incursions and migrations had now largely come to an end. What is striking about these arrivals is the ultimate assimilation of these conquering Germanic populations into the Roman population. The Lombards gradually abandoned their social customs and clothing and the use of their Germanic tongue was replaced by the neo-Latin vernacular of the local population.

African and Asian Invaders

National Geography and Academics call them the “New Italians”

It is estimated that less than 3% of those who cross the Mediterranean are actually fully-fledged refugees. In Brescia the situation is even worse with around 72% of the arrivals classified as illegals. And these figures refer to 2016 only. Few clandestini are ever deported and most drift into the black economy, try to reach northern Europe or end up in the criminal underworld. A truly monstrous situation has arisen which amounts to failure by the state to fulfill its fundamental duty of upholding the rule of law and defend its citizens. A whole industry has now grown up around migrants: lawyers, think tanks, hotel owners, landlords and liberal/catholic cooperatives providing accommodation for them. The costs are enormous. According to one report, in 2016 the system of “accoglienza” (welcoming) was costing the province of Brescia around 2 million Euro a month!

The phenomenon of migration from Africa began in the late 1980’s but, to be fair, the much-maligned Berlusconi actually managed to get the situation under a degree of control thanks to his relations with Libya. Then came the chaos caused by the overthrow of Gaddafi and the civil war, the ousting of Berlusconi and a series of “technocrat” and liberal governments appointed by President Napolitano, a former communist who in 1956 backed the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Key figures in government circles are known globalists with connections to refugee organisations. Laura Boldrini, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, is a former spokesperson for the UNHCR in Rome and was editor of its magazine Rifiugiati (Refugees).

Now, in addition to this onslaught from Africa, Brescia already has a non-European population that makes up around 13% of its roughly 200,000 inhabitants, the biggest groups being North Africans, West Africans and South Asians.5 This is the one of highest in percentage terms in Italy and the real figure is without doubt higher because of illegal immigration and the figures do not include foreigners naturalised as Italian citizens. The vast majority are unskilled workers and their dependents. Foreigners suffer a disproportionately high rate of unemployment and it goes without saying that they make up the bulk of the prison population. The member of the Lombard Regional Council in charge of Security, Civil Protection and Immigration called Brescia “the capital of foreign crime” in Northern Italy.6 Brescia too has had its fair share of terror plots, foreign fighters and Islamists.

Political Climate

Italian opinion now reflects the divisions we see over much of the Western World between the globalist metropolitan establishment on the one side and “provincials” and defenders of the nation state on the other. Much of the media, academia, big business, the professions, the church, the school system and polite society generally are politically correct and anti-populist. The courts too have taken controversial decisions. In a town near Brescia recently, a member of Lega Nord, the northern separatist party critical of mass immigration, was fined for writing that certain cooperatives “profit from the traffic in illegal immigrants.” The judge held that the statement was “discriminatory” as asylum seekers are given temporary leave to stay in the country and technically are not in Italy illegally!8 As public anger over the situation rises (see below) such cases are likely to mushroom in future. Comparisons have been drawn with medieval heresy trials as a nervous establishment seeks to criminalise beliefs contrary to prevailing liberal orthodoxy.

Africans demanding that Italians live up to the ideals of Freedom and Democracy first nurtured in Africa

However, when pressed on the issue one finds that even people within these milieus will privately express deep concern, especially about Islam. There may be self-censorship as well because opposition to mass immigration is considered provincial and low status. A survey of ten European countries conducted by Chatham House (hardly an evil populist hotbed) suggested that over half the population of those countries wanted a ban on Muslim immigration. The survey suggested that 69% of Italians have an unfavourable view of Muslims. Fortunately, two national newspapers Il Giornale and Libero Quotidiano and websites such as Tutti i Crimini degli Immigrati (All the Crimes of the Immigrants) do not hesitate to cover immigration related issues.

The liberal and liberal elements in the Catholic church in Italy have a curious belief they can succeed where so many others have failed. In autumn 2015 the liberal newspaper La Repubblica ran an article claiming that a school in downtown Brescia where the children are entirely foreign is an example of how Brescia is a “model” and that integration “works here.”

Yet the journalist goes on to say that one reason that the school population is almost entirely non-Italian, and indeed largely non-European, is that Italian parents no longer send their children there because of the concentration of foreigners. Indeed, at times the teachers have to “educate” not only the kids but also the parents who hold regressive social attitudes in relation to activities such as mixed swimming classes. Even the journalist admits that sometimes it is “they,” i.e. the foreigners, who create problems, citing a Nigerian parent who said that boys must be served by girls.

Liberals and immigrants protest against Italian “racists” in Brescia, 2010

We are told that time, patience and resources are required. But here we are speaking about relatively new arrivals. Other countries now face the failed integration of many adult second and third generation Muslims turning to traditionalism, fundamentalism and even terrorism. It is surely complacent to argue that such problems can be avoided by time, patience and resources. Is it not more realistic to admit a basic incompatibility of cultures? Italian progressives who pride themselves on their cosmopolitanism and openness actually seem to live in a national, or in the case of Brescia, provincial bubble, complacent in their belief that when it comes to integrating immigrants Italians do it better. They seem to have learned little or nothing from the experiences of other countries.

So far the Italian state so far has had no official policy of multiculturalism and does not engage in practices such as affirmative action. It is rare to find members of ethnic minorities working for the state as mass immigration is, compared to most other countries, a relatively recent phenomenon. Further, the country also enjoys relatively restrictive citizenship laws which also tends to exclude individuals of foreign origin from working for the state and voting in elections. The country has therefore also escaped the sort of scandals seen for example in UK where there have been cases of electoral fraud in South Asian communities in London10 and reports of a disproportionate number of misconduct proceedings against ethnic minority police officers.

That said, the Italian education system in particular suffers from liberal bias. History textbooks, for example, are heavily influenced by multiculturalist thinking, provide a vulgar Marxist interpretation of colonialism, push cultural relativism and fail to conduct any analysis of crimes committed by communist regimes. Classroom tasks and activities with a pro-immigration bias are commonplace.

But will Italy go down the same path as some other Western countries and loosen its nationality laws, introduce diversity quotas in the state and, in effect, discriminate against its indigenous population? Will its liberals also play the identity politics card and seek to buy support from enfranchised Africans and Asians? Or will Italy learn from mistakes of other countries now enjoying the bloody harvest of mass immigration that went too fast and too deep? Some of the things we see do not augur well as liberalism in Italy is slavishly enamoured with what it sees as more “advanced” multicultural societies.

There are, however, signs of resistance at a popular level. In August 2015 villagers in Collio near Brescia protested the arrival of migrants and in November 2016 200 residents of the town of Montichiari also near Brescia staged a week long protested outside a former barracks that was being transformed into a refuge centre for hundreds of asylum seekers. The rejection of the left’s referendum proposals and the downfall of Matteo Renzi in December 2016 was arguably in part due the government’s open door migrant policy.

One Sicilian Public Prosecutor has raised questions about possible connections between people traffickers and NGOs operating in the Mediterranean and even went so far as to say that some NGOs might have “interests in the manoeuvres of international speculation.” But without evidence and without the resources to conduct further enquiries the Prosecutor has said that the investigation has suffered a setback. It was reported in the Italian press that on 3 May 2017 Prime Minister Gentiloni held a meeting with wealthy liberal philanthropist George Soros, a man who reportedly funds NGOs operating off the Libyan coast, to discuss “investments in Italy.”

We shall see whether the prosecutor gets his resources. Until the next general election, expected to be held in 2018, and until perhaps we see a thorough going transformation of the political culture and collapse of liberal consensus, we can expect migrant numbers to swell still further as Brescia, like the West generally, continues to build its own funeral pyre.

Frank Meyer, father of (((Paleocons))), grandfather of “The Alternative Right.”

With the attack on Syria and the confirmation of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, The Trump administration’s (((paleocon agenda))) has come to explicit fruition - any pretenses to wear its new wardrobe lent by the Alternative Right in their disingenuous/naive trendy support has been thrown off - cucks: they’ve been used. The denial of having been used as paleocons takes the form of saying “Trump has gone neocon”, when in fact, he hasn’t changed - he has just come out in the open with the paleoconservatism that’s always been behind the Alternative Right.

This turn of events should serve to illustrate why the terms we have to defend and negotiate our way in ethnonationalism are crucial to navigate our proper course. The terms to organize and understand our defense are not jargon, they are not complicated but they are very important.

If they were not important, Jewish interests would not have been so intent upon getting White advocates to identify their enemy as “the left” and to divert them into “the Alternative Right” big tent, which is just (((paleoconservatism))), revised with trendy terms, memes and a few more provisional adjunct circles to ease the entryism of Jews and sufficiently didactic right wingers (Captainchaos, take note) - largely a millennial generation internet bubble circle jerk; wherein they tell themselves that they are “rebelling” against boomer generation (((neoconservatism))), so that they can blame that instead of taking responsibility for having been hoodwinked in the garbed up (((paleoconservatism))) which had them as millennial fogies, getting behind Trump: “The Alternative Right” has aided, abetted, deepened entanglement and embrace of Whites with Jewish/Zionist interests.

While not naming the neocons explicitly, (((John K. Press)))‘s “culturalism” - published at Alternative Right - is definitively paleoconservative by contrast to neoconservatism.

With Trump’s coming out into the open in his paleocon agenda, Alt Righters are quickly encouraged to divert blame to the “neocons.”

(((Edmund Oslan))), who identifies as Alt Right and contributes to Alternative Right.org as well, cites Trump as having gone “Neocon” - Savage Hippie Episode 41 – Did Trump Go Neocon, or Is He a Crackhead?

Matt Heimbach and Sven Longshanks follow suit, blaming boomer generation neoconservatism for Trump’s actions in Syria.

MacDonald with Red Ice blames Trump for succumbing to neocon influence: Neocons to Remove Assad, Trump Buys the MSM Lie.

It goes without saying that the flagship of the AlternativeRight - viz Alt Right - would toe the Alternative Right/Paleocon line: Neocon Puppet Donald Trump Announces His Unilateral Attack On Syria.

Counter-Currents depicts their rightist contrast to Trump’s Syrian venture “neoconservatism” as well, not seeing the culpability which its rightism shares with all of the above for playing a part in support of Trump, not having extricated themselves from paleoconservatism.

All the while, the paleocon jargon that entangles would-be White advocacy with Jewish interests under the rubric of the alternative right is protected and defended against clarification and correction.

Concerns for balkanization of the US are in order but not mutually exclusive to other ethnonationalist concerns - they occur in hermeneutic process, attended to as relevant - for those in The US, perhaps a predominantly regular concern.

*Important editorial note: Though in this review Alexander Baron refers to Leo Frank as “white” in a few places, Majorityrights does not categorize Jews as “white.”

The Lynching Of A Guilty Man reviewed by Alexander Baron

The Leo Frank Case subtitled The Lynching Of A Guilty Man is the third volume in a massive study The Secret Relationship Between Blacks And Jews. The first volume was published in 1991, so this is no rush job. It is also clearly a book written with an agenda, but even vested interest can speak the truth. And the obvious vested interest of the Nation Of Islam comes as a welcome counterpoint to the concealed vested interest of the rest of the American media which unthinkingly points the finger at a black suspect in spite of the conviction of a white* one.

For those not au fait with this notorious case, it began when the body of Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the Atlanta Pencil Factory on April 26, 1913. The young worker had been murdered quite brutally for no apparent reason. The Negro security man who found the body quickly became a suspect - something that is more or less taken for granted nowadays unless the person who finds a body clearly has no connection with the victim, eg a hiker happening upon a skeleton.

Newt Lee aside, there was no shortage of more promising suspects, and two soon emerged: the factory manager/part owner Leo Frank, and his gofer Jim Conley. Although Conley was linked to the killing by forensic evidence, in particular two ludicrous notes written from the perspective of the victim, the authorities went with the prosecution of the white* man while Conley testified as an accessory after the fact. Frank was convicted and sentenced to death, but after extensive failed appeals his sentence was commuted. This led to outraged prominent citizens kidnapping him from the State Penitentiary, driving him back to Atlanta, and stringing him from a tree by his neck.

A century and more on there remain two competing narratives; the official and accepted narrative is that Leo Frank was innocent and Jim Conley the villain of the piece. Some might find that surprising as Conley was never indicted for the crime and Frank was never cleared officially in spite of enormous posthumous lobbying by especially the misnamed Anti-Defamation League. This book adheres to the second narrative, that ridiculous as Conley’s tale may have been, he was in fact totally innocent, an accessory only after the fact, having found himself in a truly invidious position, a man of humble estate - in effect a third class citizen - who was told he must follow the orders of his boss or else.

In the past quarter to half century, quite a few authors have come out in support of this narrative, but none more impressively than the dedicated Leo Frank website and now this minutely documented book.

If anyone believes the fact that the forensic evidence pointing to Conley should have indicted him and him alone, here are two cases from the 1980s that show how wrong this kind of reasoning can be. In March 1984, the black American Sylvester Smith was accused of violating two young girls, cousins. As all the parties involved in this case were black, there was no racial angle. The girls had clearly been interfered with sexually, and unsurprisingly, Smith was convicted. Twenty years later he was cleared on appeal, the shocking truth was that the real perpetrator was a 9 year old boy (who went on as an adult to commit a murder). The girls had been coached by their grandmother to point the finger at Smith to protect him. After her death, they recanted.

An equally shocking case that made international headlines was that of Lindy Chamberlain. In 1980 while camping at Ayers Rock, Australia, her baby daughter Azaria was snatched by a dingo. She was convicted of the murder based largely on forensic evidence, but nearly six years later, more reliable forensic evidence was found - the girl’s matinee jacket near a dingo lair.

In the Mary Phagan case, the forensic evidence against Jim Conley (the notes) was outweighed by the forensic and other evidence against his boss, in particular there was evidence that the girl has been murdered upstairs. Almost all the other evidence pointed to Frank, everything from his demeanour to his willingness to point the finger at everyone else including at first Newt Lee. Conley on the other hand remained cool as a cucumber, so either he was a psychopath and a potential future Oscar winner, or he really was telling the truth, however outrageous or crazy his story may have sounded. But when the facts are all in, it wasn’t that outrageous, it wasn’t that crazy, and justice was done in the Deep South, both for Mary Phagan and for a black man whose word many of Frank’s supporters believed should carry no weight at all.

A few criticisms are in order:

In the Preface, the claim is made that an “unknown posse” lynched Frank, and that he was and remains the only Jew ever lynched in America. The posse was hardly unknown, its members did not bother to hide their faces, and indeed appeared proud of their work. Later in the book it is made clear that their identities were in no way secret. The doubtful honour of being the first Jew lynched in America appears to belong to Samuel Bierfield in 1868, but neither he nor Frank were lynched because they were Jews.

Frank was hardly the most important Jew in the Deep South as claimed; he was certainly far from the wealthiest, and was the New York Times the world’s most important newspaper? The most important in America maybe, but not more important than the London Times. And was World War One raging in 1913?

The reason the crime was committed and how it was committed are both laid out in impressive detail, as are the attempts by Leo Frank to point the finger of suspicion initially at Newt Lee, and then at anyone else without mentioning the fact that Conley was at the pencil factory at the material time. Why would he not do that? The only logical reason is that he didn’t want Conley to open his mouth, and once Conley did, he too had to be accused. The book raises too the interesting speculation that Frank was considering murdering Conley – the only direct witness – as well.

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