WORKING HARD AND WORKING SMART ON SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE (2014)
Some people think that Southern independence can be had on the cheap. All we need is to find that one “get rich quick” scheme that will solve all our problems. But in my opinion, this is a recipe for certain failure.
There is no substitute for grinding, sometimes even boring, day-in-and-day-out plain old hard work. It is neither glamorous nor sexy. It is often tiring and burdensome. Putting aside those fundamental tasks—recruiting, building organic communities, and helping our people prepare for independence—and moving prematurely to the larger, more exciting endeavors will leave us with a weak, unstable foundation.
The League of the South has been around for twenty years. The South has been held in thrall by the American Empire now for about a century and a half. Considering how the proverbial deck is stacked against us, it is little short of remarkable that a Southern nationalist movement exists at all. If Providence granted us our independence tomorrow, I suspect that we would make a big mess of it simply because of the degraded nature of our people and institutions.
We have lost our ability to take the long view. We have succumbed to the “everything, all the time” mentality of the modern world. Moreover, we have bought into the idea that we are autonomous individuals beholden to nothing more than our own interests and opinions. We wish to snatch the mantle of authority by force before we are ready to wear it responsibly.
What we lack is true patience and an ability to take the long, historic view of things. For instance, how many of us can truthfully say that we have given serious thought to what the South will look like a century from now? Have we considered that our actions in the present day likely will have consequences, for good or for ill, on our homeland’s future? When we think along these lines, it ought to humble us to the point that we carefully consider every move we make. Bad ideas and subsequent bad actions will lead to bad consequences for both the short- and long-term future of Dixie.
A false definition of patience has crept into our minds and informs us that patience is no virtue, especially when we are convinced that time is short. This false definition whispers that patience amounts to nothing more than sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for something to happen. Thus, when we don’t see spectacular things happening around us, we are tempted either to despair or to commit rash acts in the name of “doing something, anything.” This, in turns, leads people off into a thousand different directions chasing the phantoms of Southern independence. It is easy and painless to sit in front of a computer screen generating one grandiose plan after another. When we do this on the spur of the moment, though with the best of intentions, we send people off to expend precious time, energy, and resources with little or no chance of success. We may as well join Don Quixote and tilt at windmills.
True patience is getting up everyday, working steadily to accomplish well-conceived, foundational goals and then repeating the process ad infinitum until the goals have been met. For instance, take the area of recruitment. No organization such as ours can succeed without sufficient numbers. At present, we simply do not have those numbers. Why, then, do we try and put the proverbial cart before the horse? Until we can successfully recruit and retain much larger numbers, it is foolish to think we can be a major political, social, cultural, and economic force. While it is true that we have, with limited numbers and resources, accomplished some good things over the past two decades, there remain many things we cannot do unless and until we grow much larger and stronger.
It is tempting to think that all we have to do is reach the Southern people with our true and right message by the “wholesale route”—radio, TV, newspapers, etc. But, as useful as these media are, at present they are simply too expensive for us to pursue. Also, I am not convinced that going the wholesale route would work. There is already too much informational “clutter” out there competing for everyone’s attention. Chances are that our message, as right as it is, would not stick. I am not suggesting that we abandon these media completely; only that we do not become overly dependent on them. In light of this, perhaps the best way to recruit is by the slow but sure “retail” process of one-on-one, eye-to-eye, face-to-face contact. Currently, The League is in the midst of staging street level demonstrations all across the South against our demographic displacement. I understand that this personal method is a much slower, time-intensive way to recruit. But it is more likely that our message will stick. Alas, however, it is too slow and old fashioned to some of our people.
I have over and over encouraged our League members to have a steely-eyed determination to stay the course until the end, to build a solid foundation for our organization, and to be willing to persevere with a dogged tenacity that will allow us to outlast our opponents. Whether Southern independence comes in five years, ten, or a hundred, we must be determined to tough it out and leave something lasting for our progeny to build upon.
Years ago, I heard it said that getting hard-headed Southerners to cooperate was like “herding cats.” I have learned over time just how right that can be sometimes! The Southern nationalist movement is (and always has been) plagued by a lack of discipline. Many times everyone simply goes their own way and does their own thing. Most political and cultural movements have perished from this disease, especially on the right of the political spectrum. Let us be careful that we do not repeat those mistakes.
Michael Hill
Killen, Alabama
