Happy New Year!
2024 is the year of the dragon (or wood dragon) in the Chinese astrology. This is a good sign.
The last time we had that year, my daughter was born, and 3 more cycles before that, yours truly. Strong and sassy female personalities and so much empowerment (with a Neneh Cherry on top!) But honestly, this is good. Don’t let our youth go to waste. Get the job done, don’t mess around. Or, in the untranslatable German: Klotzen, nicht Kleckern.
In my hidden abode of production, I have been busy and industrious. I did lots of long writing on a broad range of topics – from the eternal return of antisemitism to the Climate scam – and edited a dozen or so articles by other authors over the past months. So why, I hear you say, can’t we read it on Substack? Be patient, my friends.
The reason my busy commitment to writing and editing has passed you by without a trace is that I have kept my guard so far about the spectacular news that I will launch a new online magazine this year. It is called Café Américain: An International Magazine Against the New Normal. Not only do I have a lovely, dedicated, and smart team to help me along the way, but we have already assembled a whole palimpsest of stunning pieces by rock star authors who you may know from Compact or UnHerd or whatever dissident outlet your personal go-to mag may be. Needless to say, we are ahead of the game. You will see why.
That however means that my Substack posts may not come with the frequency I had the luxury to write with. The last couple of months of 2023 were a drag, rather. The Israel situation presented yet another upheaval in the hard-won alliances against the Covid regime, after the Ukraine war already broke up many promising relationships. While I was inclined to say that “left” and “right” no longer matter in the political landscape, good old left-wing Stalinism antisemitism reared its ugly head again. This is how you know the fetishized and vulgar anti-capitalism of the left has never gone away. And as though we’re back in 2015, or in 2006, in the Al Aqsa or first Intifada, or even 1967, antisemitism disguises itself yet again in its geopolitical and socially accepted form, anti-Zionism – but the recipe for Jew hatred remains the same. To realise that you can always rely on your “anti-imperialist” lefties such as the Glenn Greenwalds or Aaron Matés of this world to spout their antisemitic rage has been a bit of an anti-climax, after the year 2023 had promised to recalibrate the old political alliances. But I guess some things never change. Antisemitism, the “socialism of fools” (August Bebel) will never be out of fashion in the left.
Substack still remains an important outlet, though do I make a daring prediction when I say it will implode? Too many writers, too much content. People lose interest, and the debating space is underwhelming, to say the least. For God’s sake, even Slavoj Zizek is on Substack now. Who is next? Jürgen Habermas? Dave Chappelle? A sure way to catapult one’s legacy into oblivion.
Until Café Américain is launched properly – we are aiming for April – I will however try to pin down one or the other piece in this space. If you miss me on Twitter, rejoice. Somebody told me as a media entrepreneur, you need to have Twitter presence. I guess it’s up to you not to make me regret it. Watch this space, as they say.
It’s gonna be a good year.
It will be a good Year Elena! All the best for you and Café Américain, Magazine against the new Normal!
It’s always a movement toward a ‘softly-powered’ open-future in my ‘Burckhardtian Thinking’…best wishes on your new endeavor…