Maybe the Most Interesting Bond Essay I've Read

This is very long piece and will likely take at least two sittings to read, but IMO, is well worth it. The author makes a few modest mistakes, and I don't agree with everything he says, but all the same, there's much food for thought.

https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/11/the-importance-of-james-bond/

In a cursory websearch, Counter-currents is variously described as fascist, white supremacist, holocaust-denying and anti-Semitic. Is that the case, Khan?

I would say to characterize it as such is a simplistic and self-serving ploy to scare potential readers away from its authors. Are there elements of those features in some of their authors? Yes. But instead of obloquy one should engage with a writer's arguments. And toward that end, I suggest reading the linked article rather than shunning it because various and sundry Leftist harridans and hysterics have condemned the site from which it springs.

The article is fine (apart from a few inaccuracies that we all will recognize and the author's opinion of Silva and Eve Moneypenny's racial limitations) - it's the subsequent comments that reveal a "fascist, white supremacist, holocaust-denying and anti-Semitic" readership.

The comments have a cheeky bouquet. The article tries to do too much but is not uninteresting, albeit there's not much joy there.

Well, I read the thing. Surrounded as it is by ads for books on white power and Leni Riefenstahl. And the 10 best biographies of Hitler. The feature itself is inoffensive despite its references to ‘Pakis’ and such like. As with most articles of this kind, it’s a pot-boiler picking and choosing the parts that serve the author’s agenda. However, a few points strike me as plain wrong;

• The author refers to Fleming as a traditionalist when Fleming was libertarian in many areas. For instance, he wanted brothels and casinos legalised in the UK and wrote a number of articles campaigning for this.
  
  The article ponders whether Fleming was anti-gay. Possibly, but Noel Coward was his great friend.
  
  The author suggests Fleming was antisemitic. Well, his longstanding mistress was Jewish.
  
  It’s suggested that Fleming was anti-German. He was partly educated in Austria and Germany, and was fluent in the language.
  

While all of that might be dismissed along the lines of ‘some of my best friends are…’, I would argue that Fleming was a complex and educated man. Hacks like to simplify things but Fleming is hard to pin down. The article is most interesting to me in its commentary on women. I agree the women in the novels are hardly doormats; this bullshit notion has been fostered by a horde of cheap journalists and self-styled academics who seem to have never read the books. Or as I said earlier, to pick and choose to suit their political agendas (the author's thoughts on Fleming's attitudes to deformity and ugliness - and idealism - are also interesting, but I have to go and do some work).

To sum up, not the terrible National Socialist diatribeI I feared, though I haven’t read any of the author’s other work. Indeed, apart from the terrible website hosting it, I’d argue the article’s greatest sin is to confuse disinterested with uninterested. I think I’m fighting a losing battle on that one, though …

Quote :

And Pierce Brosnan bedding down with Halle Berry didn’t trouble me at all (from Octopussy to Octoroon, I suppose one might say). Afterall, Bond has been bedding non-white women since Dr. No. I don’t think he plans to have children with any of them.

Is he not merciful?

Anyway, I'll say that there are plenty of decent observations in this piece. The pagan vs Christian ethos is a fresh take on Bond if nothing else. I also don't think the writer is necessarily misrepresenting Fleming's penned observations on race or his penchant for making villains ethnic "mutts" (though the writer fails to mention Bond is not a pure Englishman by descent). Could've done without the Fascist literature running down the side of the page though.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Well, I read the thing. Surrounded as it is by ads for books on white power and Leni Riefenstahl. And the 10 best biographies of Hitler.

So what you are saying is that the article is probably not safe for work.

Quote :

And Pierce Brosnan bedding down with Halle Berry didn’t trouble me at all (from Octopussy to Octoroon, I suppose one might say). Afterall, Bond has been bedding non-white women since Dr. No. I don’t think he plans to have children with any of them.

Planned or not, Bond does impregnate Kissy Suzuki - that hardly fits in with the pure race bullshit. Maybe the author forgot about that one. Or hasn't read any dna theory.

Salomé wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

Well, I read the thing. Surrounded as it is by ads for books on white power and Leni Riefenstahl. And the 10 best biographies of Hitler.

So what you are saying is that the article is probably not safe for work.

That probably depends on your work - it's fine if you're a German policeman. Seriously, this Costello has written around a hundred pieces for Counter-currents and is obviously a major contributor there. I don't know what views might be found in some of the others but it's interesting that he doesn't use his real name; 'Jef Costello' is taken from Le Samouraï.

AMC Hornet wrote:

The article is fine (apart from a few inaccuracies that we all will recognize and the author's opinion of Silva and Eve Moneypenny's racial limitations) - it's the subsequent comments that reveal a "fascist, white supremacist, holocaust-denying and anti-Semitic" readership.

In today's hyper-sensitive climate, I suppose they could come across as such. But otherwise, I thought they were fairly mild.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Well, I read the thing. Surrounded as it is by ads for books on white power and Leni Riefenstahl. And the 10 best biographies of Hitler. The feature itself is inoffensive despite its references to ‘Pakis’ and such like. As with most articles of this kind, it’s a pot-boiler picking and choosing the parts that serve the author’s agenda. However, a few points strike me as plain wrong;

• The author refers to Fleming as a traditionalist when Fleming was libertarian in many areas. For instance, he wanted brothels and casinos legalised in the UK and wrote a number of articles campaigning for this.
  
  The article ponders whether Fleming was anti-gay. Possibly, but Noel Coward was his great friend.
  
  The author suggests Fleming was antisemitic. Well, his longstanding mistress was Jewish.
  
  It’s suggested that Fleming was anti-German. He was partly educated in Austria and Germany, and was fluent in the language.
  

While all of that might be dismissed along the lines of ‘some of my best friends are…’, I would argue that Fleming was a complex and educated man. Hacks like to simplify things but Fleming is hard to pin down. The article is most interesting to me in its commentary on women. I agree the women in the novels are hardly doormats; this bullshit notion has been fostered by a horde of cheap journalists and self-styled academics who seem to have never read the books. Or as I said earlier, to pick and choose to suit their political agendas (the author's thoughts on Fleming's attitudes to deformity and ugliness - and idealism - are also interesting, but I have to go and do some work).

To sum up, not the terrible National Socialist diatribeI I feared, though I haven’t read any of the author’s other work. Indeed, apart from the terrible website hosting it, I’d argue the article’s greatest sin is to confuse disinterested with uninterested. I think I’m fighting a losing battle on that one, though …

*Unless libertarianism entails open borders and the sacrifice of one's own culture--and for some honest libertarians, it does--I don't see a conflict between it and traditionalism. But a traditionalist, libertarian tendencies notwithstanding, Fleming certainly was. Listen to him wax rhapsodic about British cuisine, for instance. See where his prose positively luxuriates in the more-British-than-thou ambiance and customs of Blades. Note his reverence for British naval tradition reflected through M. And those just off the top of my head.

*Was Fleming antisemitic and homophobic? From what I know of him, it is difficult to say. The toss could go either way.

*Was Fleming anti-German? Indubitably. As were, I'm sure, most Limeys who dealt with the hell the Krauts unleashed during WWII.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Quote :

And Pierce Brosnan bedding down with Halle Berry didn’t trouble me at all (from Octopussy to Octoroon, I suppose one might say). Afterall, Bond has been bedding non-white women since Dr. No. I don’t think he plans to have children with any of them.

Planned or not, Bond does impregnate Kissy Suzuki - that hardly fits in with the pure race bullshit. Maybe the author forgot about that one. Or hasn't read any dna theory.

Salomé wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

Well, I read the thing. Surrounded as it is by ads for books on white power and Leni Riefenstahl. And the 10 best biographies of Hitler.

So what you are saying is that the article is probably not safe for work.

That probably depends on your work - it's fine if you're a German policeman. Seriously, this Costello has written around a hundred pieces for Counter-currents and is obviously a major contributor there. I don't know what views might be found in some of the others but it's interesting that he doesn't use his real name; 'Jef Costello' is taken from Le Samouraï.

Given the climate, I'd imagine the vast majority of Countercurrents authors--white supremacists, neo-Nazis or not--use pen names. Ordinary, decent people have their lives destroyed these days for far less gratuitous offenses. But all's fair in social justice, dontchaknow...

I'm sure there are many "fine people on both sides".