It will be cold in Antenora

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., center, accompanied by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., left, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, discusses the bipartisan illegal immigration sell-out during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 17, 2007.

“Today, the essential unity of the elites is obvious not only in such shadow-boxing as the national election just concluded (far calmer than any 18th century contest for a seat in the House of Commons) but also in the incestuous and self-serving structure of the elites in government, the economy, and the dominant culture. Each elite supports the others; their members share the same ideas, values, tastes and manners; and they all collaborate in smothering anyone or anything that makes an audible squeak against the ruling class and its interests.

Genuinely adversarial dissent is discouraged or actively condemned, while books espousing ideas that question the common world-view and ideology of the ruling class are banned, candidates who challenge the political monopoly are systematically smeared and excluded from the official debates, and political groups that dissent from or challenge the monopolization of power are branded as "extremist" in the ruling class media and subjected to political and legal harassment and persecution by the ruling class police apparatus. Meanwhile, the policies and ideologies that each "competing elite" follows or peddles reinforce and support each other, so that even the illusion of competition and balance begins to shrivel. What stands out today as noticeable about the elites of business, government, and the dominant culture is not any fiction about the "countervailing power" they represent but their increasing unification and cooperation in defense of their common identity and common interests.”

- Samuel Francis, “The Ruling Class.” Chronicles January, 1996.