THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

BUSY PEOPLE | 2005-09-16

Pope John Paul II was a very fine man, but he never had time to talk to me.

I never expected him to.

So my relation with the Pontiff was entirely impersonal.

What gets me is people who act like the Supreme Pontiff but who also expect me to have some sort of personal obligation to them.

To me, a "busy" person is, to the extent he is busy, a non-person to me in exactly the same way I am a non-person to him, as I am a non-person to the Pope.

I wish him well. He wishes me well. That's all very well. Isn't that, well, just very well?

Now that I am retired this is easy. If someone is preoccupied, that's just fine. But don't expect me to act like you are an emergency when you suddenly need Ole Bob.

I am out of the emergency business. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

RIGHT, DUDE! | 2007-06-09

The Dude says:

The one thing I get from Bob is that language is key. When citing facts, figures, history, ideas, etc., it is how you say things. That is the best way to attract people to the "cause" or any cause for that matter.

FINI | 2006-04-05

Antonio Fini is one of our commenters I remember meeting.

He thinks I'm great, and that never hurts.

But his birthday greeting got to me as no other did. He said:

"I have learned more from you than from any other person, male or female, living or dead."

Someone can praise me to the skies and agree with me till the cows comes home, and I will love every word of it.

But Antonio's words did not just make me feel good. They hit HOME.

I met Antonio.

He is one of those very calm types whose IQ and empathy is out of sight.

You know, the nice guy who doesn't take himself seriously but doesn't worry about it. He is smart and he knows it. He understands a lot that you will never understand and he knows it.

If you don't realize that, that's really not his problem.

When he met me, he didn't need me to impress him.

That is a major obstacle when you reach my status. The few people who appreciate you expect you to live up to something.

I could tell Antonio asked no such thing.

I gave him something, and he is, as I said, one of those calm guys who knows who he is. Damned few people can tell him something important, and I had already done that.

I didn't need to impress him.

That felt good.

Then came this note. I already knew that Antonio knew who he was.

This is, to say the least, not an effusive person.

He is the person who sends out exactly one note telling a person that he has taught them more than anyone else, male or female, living or dead.

If you don't understand that, that is your problem.

I understand it.

It goes long way toward making all the pain, all the thought, all the loyalty worth while.

DAVE TO SHARI | 2008-04-17

Shari,

Aldous Huxley used to say, "If you want to solve your problems, learn a new way seeing".

It is a heroic thing to attempt to throw off a governmentally established religion. Accordingly, BWs phrase, "Political Correctness is a Religion" is not a slogan.

There has never been a governmentally sponsored religion more widely and globally established than the religion of Political Correctness.

The fingers of PC's scope are panoramic, yet also concentrate right down to the microscopic, a flow tide of awesomely subtle influences, deliberately propagated, multi-faceted and robust, legally, ideologically, and spiritually. Political Correctness is as thoroughgoing an established religion as there ever was in all of history.

Popes, Pastors, and Imams should eat their hearts out, there is not an "official religion" recognized today that even remotely compares to the influence and scope of the world's premiere established religion of Political Correctness (established by almost every government in every country on earth).

Yet this religion is vulnerable, as enormous, pervasive, and well-supported as it is.

The knowledge of one man can take it down.

Words are first and foremost lies. Yet true words, properly arranged and chosen, coming from even one man, can change everything. This is the contradiction of Wordism.

The trick is to convey this unsettling knowledge, to convey its truth. That is the work of "poets" ("poets" in the broad sense of a persons skilled in the arts of influence).

The "poet's" job is to make accessible what otherwise would not be accessible. And important knowledge does get conveyed. It finds ways to make itself accessible. Its very importance drives it. Persons skilled in the arts of influence find it. Steadily but surely it makes its way into the culture.

That is what BUGS is really about, enlightenment for "poets", seeding the culture. That is why physical (racial) separation doesn't matter. Separation is a tactic that is beside the point.

The point is taking down the established religion of Political Correctness, a heroic undertaking.

In that we save our race.