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French version here [2]
They say no man is a prophet in his own land.
Emmanuel Ratier was unknown in the English-speaking world. The English version of Wikipedia has no page about him. In France, the country he was born in and always had at heart, Ratier was barely known in the mainstream. Only recently had he started to become well-known, thanks to a biography he wrote about the current Prime Minister, Manuel Valls.
Densely packed with information, Le vrai visage de Manuel Valls [3] (The true face of Manuel Valls) shows how, as an eighteen-year-old, the future politician concluded an alliance with two other ambitious young men (who hold today positions of responsibility). It also unveils, with clear evidence, how the career-oriented Valls abandoned a two-decade long support to the Palestinian cause in favor of Zionism, a mandatory move for climbing the social ladder. Ratier’s biography has been a best-seller on Amazon France. Indeed, it sold more than Valls’ own autobiography, even before any official media was allowed to cover the book.
Ratier was no prophet. As far as I know, he barely went in for predicting the future. However, he was what may be called an initiated man. Over the years, he became very well informed and managed to become a top investigative reporter.
In such a situation, Ratier could have been a Machiavellian. He could have betrayed his youthful nationalist engagement, from back in the 1970s, in order to take a comfortable place inside the conservative Right. Former nationalists had already done so. But instead, Emmanuel Ratier devoted himself to the truth. He did not fall for a career inside the system, money, or social status – he chose the truth.
Though the general public was not acquainted with him until recently, his work had been noticed in the initiated environments well beyond the Right. In 1996, he launched Faits et documents [4] (Facts and documents), a twelve-page newsletter published every two weeks. Aiming at a confidential audience, Faits et documents featured profiles of important personalities, some of them famous and some more discreet, as well as copious information on what was happening inside freemasonry and other power networks.
Faits et documents was remarkable for the high density of information its few pages encapsulated. I have never seen so many valuable items in any official media outlet. The letter was presented as “confidential,” yet it could be accessed by anyone: if you wanted to have a look, you just had to know about the existence of F&D – and be able to digest the sheer information given inside – to receive it twice monthly.
Thorough research, detailed information clearly presented, and lasting significance: such were the marks of Ratier’s work. He claimed that the Ministry of the Interior had one subscription to his newsletter but photocopied it so more than a dozen top officials could read it.
In addition to his newsletter, Ratier wrote remarkable books in the same vein: a two-volume Encyclopédie politique française (Encylcopedia of French politics) (Paris: Faits & Documents, 1992, 2005); a two-volume Encyclopédie des pseudonymes (Encylcopedia of pseudonyms) (Paris: Faits & Documents, 1993, 1994) along with another two-volume Encyclopédie des changements de noms (Encyclopedia of name changes) (Paris: Faits & Documents, 1995, 1998); Ras l’front: anatomie d’un mouvement antifasciste, la nébuleuse trotskyste (Paris: Facta, 1998) a book about an “antifascist” Trotskyist group linked with power networks; Au coeur du pouvoir (In the heart of power) (Paris: Faits & Documents, 1996), a book about the globalist Le Siècle group, and numerous other works of truly remarkable quality.
Though Ratier was read and watched by powerful people, he almost never retracted anything he said or wrote. Officials who despised nationalism and the “far Right” in general still considered him a highly reliable source.
Even if Ratier was himself well-connected, he always kept Faits et documents under his exclusive control. Perhaps this decision led him to spend too much time alone. During his last 20 years, he took no long term vacation. He often worked seven day weeks, and his work days stretched into the evening. Some years ago, a stroke sent him to the hospital. Fortunately, he bounced back and was able to walk again quite soon. A month later, Emmanuel Ratier was at his desk, writing his letter and updating his book on Le Siècle with undiminished energy. His work demonstrated both intact abilities and renewed motivation, something impressive for a man in his 50s.
But nobody can maintain such intensity indefinitely. At the end of 2014, he reported new health problems. On August 19, 2015, another stroke hit him, and this time his heart stopped for real. Another prolific French writer, the famous Honoré de Balzac, who habitually consumed dozens of cups of coffee each day, had a similar end.
Emmanuel Ratier was a soldier for truth. He gave the same attention to the beautiful and the ugly, faithfully reporting the minutest details, constructing accurate profiles for personalities that would prefer to sweep the truth under the carpet. He was a soldier that no one called but who always answered “present.” His talent and dedication led even objective enemies of our cause to read his work, something he was well aware of, but which did not prevent him from serving the cause of truth again and again.
He will be missed.
Rest in peace, monsieur Emmanuel Ratier. We will remember you and everything you gave to us. May ten detectives rise to pursue your legacy.
Souvent publié, souvent relayé, souvent lu, souvent interrogé, nous n’avons jamais vu l’Homme mais c’est sa voix que nous connaissions tous. Très discret, peu dans le grand public connaissaient son visage.
C’est par ces mots que Renaud Camus prononçait, le 31 mai 2013, l’éloge funèbre de Dominique Venner, dénonçant le « Grand Remplacement, le changement de peuple et le changement de civilisation qu’il implique nécessairement, comme la raison principale de son geste, à la fois, et comme la plus grave, de très loin, des menaces qui pèsent sur nous et sur notre histoire ».
Conservative thinking, Karl Mannheim notes, is essentially historical thinking—in that it orients to the concrete, to ‘what is’ and ‘what has been’, instead of to ‘what ought to be’ or ‘what can be’. ‘Properly understood’, historical thinking (as créatrice de sens) reveals the ‘Providential’ design evident in the course and test of time.
The Second European Civil War of 1939-1945, however it is interpreted, resulted in a cataclysmic defeat not just for Hitler’s Germany, but for Europe, much of which, quite literally, was reduced to mounds of smoldering rumble. Then, at Yalta, adding insult to injury, the two extra-European super-powers partitioned the Continent, deprived her states of sovereignty, and proceeded to Americanize or Sovietize the ‘systems’ organizing and managing the new postwar European order.
In his book Paths in Utopia (Routledge 1949), Buber relates the collective settlements in Palestine (he was writing before the establishment of the State of Israel) to the tradition of Proudhon, Kropotkin and Landauer. The book is a defence and restatement of that stream of socialist thought which was castigated by Marx and Engels as “utopian”:
Another crucial reason why he thought that the kibbutzim were the germs of a new form of social life was the variety to be found among them: “New forms and new intermediate forms were constantly branching off in complete freedom. Each one grew out of the particular social and spiritual needs as these came to light – in complete freedom, and each one acquired, even in the initial stages, its own ideology – in complete freedom, each struggling to propagate itself and spread and establish its proper sphere – all in complete freedom. The champions of the various forms each had his say, the pros and cons of each individual form, were frankly and fiercely debated – always, however, on the plane which everybody accepted as obvious; the common cause and common task, where each form recognised the relative justice of all the other forms in their special functions. All this is unique in the history of co-operative settlements.”
En toevallig was daar Jef Geeraerts, met Black Venus. We hadden ons schandaal. In het begin had Jef wat last met de censuur, maar alles went, en vooral: het is maar literatuur. Want dat hadden de machthebbers snel begrepen: vuile boekjes, broekjes en doekjes zijn beter dan echte subversiviteit. Laat ze spuiten, die schrijvers, ondertussen doen ze geen groter kwaad.
Bij me thuis hangt een litho van Günter Grass met een zelfportret als Dummer August, een domme nar of triestige ‘rode’ clown met een zotskap gemaakt van het krantenpapier waarop de Duitse ‘weldenkende’ pers hem als nazi had besmeurd. Gij domme august, zegt het gedicht dat rond zijn kop gekrabbeld staat, komisch toch zoals ge hier nu muilen staat te trekken onder het snelrecht van de rechtvaardigen: Schnellgericht der Gerechten. Had beter kunnen weten.
Grass was wel wat tegenstand gewoon, en als meester-spelmaker van de publieke opinie kon hij zijn belagers ook gemakkelijk uiteenspelen. Memorabel is die kaft van Der Spiegel waarop de gevreesde criticus Marcel Reich-Ranicki een roman van Grass letterlijk in tweeën scheurt – hopelijk was het boekwerk al een beetje ‘voorgescheurd’ want in een twee drie kon je de turven van Grass niet zomaar kleinkrijgen: De bot, De rattin, Een gebied zonder eind, De blikken trommel – ik vermeld enkel de ‘dikste’. En telkens won Günter Grass. De bitterheid in de correcte pers werd er niet minder om. Tot ze hem tot prulschrijver degradeerden – precies zoals ze nu doen met de filosoof Peter Sloterdijk.
En dan, natuurlijk, zijn ‘echte’, grote, originele, onnavolgbare debuut: De blikken trommel. Die Blechtrommel is evident een oorlogsroman. Het is juist dat de immer klein blijvende Oskar Matzerath op den duur als ‘pseudo-dwerg’ bij een variétégroep belandt die de soldaten aan het front en aan de Atlantikwall wat amusement moest brengen. Maar de beschreven gebeurtenissen en oorlogshandelingen kunnen niet verder staan van wat bijvoorbeeld een Jonathan Littell evoceert in De welwillenden. Daarin komen slechts gruwelen voor, begeleid door de analyse van de psyche van hen die de gruwelen beramen. Met De blikken trommel konden de Duitsers leven: geschreven van binnenuit, en dus met als stof datgene wat de mensen toentertijd redelijkerwijze konden weten – mensen die immers over geen ooievaarsblik beschikken maar slechts over de beperkte blik van de spelers op de kleine rechthoek waar ze handelen. In vergelijking met wat Reemtsma’s Wehrmacht-tentoonstellingen te zien gaven gebeurt er in De blikken trommel niets. Precies daardoor heeft deze roman bijgedragen tot Auseinandersetzung en Vergangenheitsbewältigung. 
En 1975, avec Robert Aron, Thierry Maulnier, Roger Bésus, Dominique Jamet et Claude Joubert, elle cosigne une lettre au Monde, où elle s'insurge de l'article d'un universitaire faisant profession d'« aller cracher sur [la] tombe » de Robert Brasillach.
Mais dites-moi, elle n’était pas un peu insolente, Geneviève Dormann ? Un peu insolente, vous plaisantez ? Elle était l’insolence en personne. Elle toisait du même regard bleu comme l’acier à la fois froid et rigolard, elle méprisait et elle bravait avec la même assurance, elle rejetait avec le même haussement d’épaule les bienséances, les conventions, les ridicules, les hiérarchies, les lâches, les complaisants, les décorations, les promotions, les récompenses, le politiquement correct et la pensée inique, le qu’en-dira-t-on, le qu’en-pensera-t-on. Elle était libre, Max, dans sa vie privée comme dans ses propos publics, dans ses jugements, dans ses indulgences comme dans ses éreintements, elle assumait avec une imperturbable assurance ses partis pris, et était prête à se faire hacher menu pour ceux qu’elle aimait comme à mordre jusqu’à les déchiqueter ceux dont la tête ou le comportement ne lui revenaient pas. Fidèle comme un dogue, féroce comme un pitbull, elle était la première à rire du surnom de « Dobermann » que lui avaient valu ses excès de franchise et de pugnacité. Ses ennemis, nombreux (je me souviens que nous étions tombés d’accord pour voir dans le proverbe espagnol « Beaucoup d’ennemis, beaucoup d’honneur » la plus belle devise dont puisse s’orner le blason d’un journaliste ou d’un écrivain), ne mettaient systématiquement en avant son caractère bien trempé que pour n’avoir pas à reconnaître le talent qu’elle avait mis dans les romans où elle laissait caracoler sa plume allègre et désinvolte, à la hussarde. C’était une cavale sauvage.
Stoddard was the archetypical product of ivy-league education in the old United States. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, studied law at Boston University, and obtained a PhD in history from Harvard University, later published as the aforementioned book on San Domingo (Haiti). 
But, while socially conservative, he was in every other sense a progressive liberal, strange as that may seem today: for him, eugenics was about improving the efficiency of human society—an aspiration well in keeping with the ideals of the Progressive Age in America, which was all about efficiency, wholesomeness, and purification (something not unrelated to Protestant ideals), and well in keeping with today's progressives, even if their approach is very different. Indeed, eugenics at this time (which was a generation or more before it fell into disrepute) was seen by its proponents as humane, and American writers made their case in terms of '
Unfortunately for Stoddard, his investigation of conditions in Germany in the Winter of 1939 - 194o, which resulted in the book Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today, proved disastrous for his career. As a journalistic exercise, it made perfect sense: it was topical and controversial. In the heat of the war, however, his theories came to be seen as too closely aligned with those of the National Socialists. By the time he died in 1950, his passing went unnoticed.
