The Left Conservative

In Defense of McCarthyism

2009-03-14T02:12:00.003-04:00

It's not online yet, but Dan McCarthy's piece for the first issue of Young American Revolution, is remarkable for a number of reasons. Aside from the fact that Dan gives a shout out to a certain "left conservative" blogger, turned YAR contributing editor, Dan also hits home on a couple of major points that are too often missed by political commentators of every political persuasion.

For starters Dan points to the transcendent quality of the Liberty Youth Movement in a particularly cutting way. By noting that YAL and company are "to the right of the Right and to the left of the Left," Dan echoes my father who once noted that his wayward son had always been sympathetic to the radical spirit of dissent on the extremes of both political poles. In actuality this phenomenon is common and shows us just how meaningless the artificial political distinctions are these days. In arguing on behalf of a "left conservatism," I have often talked about alliances formed to combat empire. In truth though these "alliances" are more than just pragmatic coalitions. They are natural outgrowths of overlapping philosophies that are more often than not in synch. In a decentralist world the supporters of Ron Paul and Ralph Nader would not look very different. It is only because of the problem of artificial institutional bigness that the gap appears so large today.

Dan is also wise to point out that "left conservatives" like myself "combine anti-corporatist sensibilities with a respect for established folkways, whether in city neighborhood or rural communities." In fact this is a near perfect description of the guiding principles that define Kirkian populists like myself. Localist ideas are the bedrock principles for which we stand, and as Dan notes we don't deny the tradition of leftist anti-statism in order to conform to a narrow right wing caricature of the Left.

Finally in writing about the "wildly eclectic" nature of the Liberty Youth Movement, Dan correctly hones in on the complexities that made the Ron Paul campaign so exciting to so many young people. In pulling from a wide variety of intellectual traditions, college age kids used to being victimized by the worst aspects of mass education, got their first looks at Austrian Economics, anarchism, secession, and a whole slew of other taboo topics. It is for this reason that the first generation of this movement must be on guard against the fierce sectarianism and the fantasies of street fighting militancy that sunk the New Left. Right now we need folks who are looking to build from the bottom, not lecture from the tops. To borrow an old DIY punk rock slogan, "by the kids, for the kids" should be our calling card and hands on education and application an immediate goal.

In a recent Taki's Magazine podcast, Richard Spencer suggests that the "alternative Right" look outside of the conservative movement for converts to the cause. I couldn't agree more. And while Richard never explicitly mentioned disaffected leftists, it is notable that a growing portion of them are fed up with the identity politics masquerading as anti-imperialism that has come to dominate its most influential media and cultural outlets.

On a playing field this large, with the stake so high, we can no longer afford to waste opportunities or bicker about trivialities. There can be a State and an Empire or Communities and Individuals. There cannot be both. Those that realize this much are welcome aboard, no loyalty oaths required.

"Those Paleo-Punks Sure Are Mysterious..." or the great eight(een)

2009-03-08T22:21:00.020-04:00

Over at The Northern Agrarian, Patrick Ford has outed himself as a paleo-punk. Having also come out of the DIY punk/hardcore scene, I am always quick to take notice when another member of the "alternative Right" universe has similar origins. Although no formal list of paleo-punks has ever been compiled, my fellow Charlestonian Jack Hunter definitely qualifies and both Joshua Snyder of The Western Confucian and Daniel McCarthy of TAC have hinted at having these "tendencies" in the past.

I write this today primarily as an excuse to rattle off a list of the eighteen most important albums of my life. Note that this is not a favorites list, and I have tried to avoid discographys, compilations or "splits" which were common in the punk/hardcore world before the corporate gods saw fit to rape and pillage it. I also didn't include EPs/7 inch records or Demo tapes, both staples of DIY punk rock and both mediums that contributed far more to my personal activities and interests.

Without further ado and in no particular order:

Face To Face - Don't Turn Away
Gorilla Biscuits - Start Today
Against Me! - Reinventing Axl Rose
Shotmaker - Mouse-Ear. Forget Me Not.
Grade - And Such Is Progress
Dead Kennedys - Bedtime For Democracy
Chokehold - Content With Dying
Stretch Arm Strong - Compassion Fills The Void
Milhouse - Obscenity In The Milk
Converge - Petitioning The Empty Sky
Moss Icon - Lybernum
Propaghandi - Less Talk, More Rock
Self - Codename: Spivey
Unjust - Of Love And Spilled Blood
Hellbender - Con Limon
Botch - We Are The Romans
Karate - The Bed Is In The Ocean
Hot Water Music - No Division

A more complete discussion of my punk rock past may appear at a later date. Who knows I may eventually get around to posting old Remnants of Waco videos on youtube or listing a "best of" list for things exclusively released on vinyl.

Detailed "defenses" of the picks above may be forthcoming as well. We'll see if I'm feeling chippy this week.

TLC is not dead!

2009-03-05T00:49:00.002-05:00

This blog is not dead! I have been splitting time between here and The Sniper's Tower at TakiMag as of late. While this will continue, I promise to keep this site going forward, though there is likely to be a bit of a "content shakeup" in the near future. Stay tuned...

Other Faces of Libertarianism

2009-02-13T15:41:00.006-05:00

Having just finished listening to this discussion with Richard Spencer and Austin Bramwell, a few thoughts on the "two faces" of libertarianism debate.

The designations "tragic" and "comic" are interesting and examining what those terms mean contextually within the increasingly broad libertarian spectrum gives one much to ponder. While I am not sold that either of those libertarian distinctions can be so neatly applied, the classifications unquestionably point to two existing "moods" within the broader libertarian movement (if such a thing can be said to exist).

Something that is hinted at in the Bramwell/Spencer debate, that is noteworthy, though never fully explored, is the two approaches the two moods take toward human nature. While Richard may have been reaching a bit in suggesting that the "comic" crowd ultimately must rely on some sort of global governance system to enforce its "rights" based agenda, the sentiment behind the argument is undeniably true.

To the "comics," the world is a place filled with bigots, homophobes and opponents of "alternative lifestyles." As a rule they seem to favor an aggressive counterattack against prevailing traditions and social institutions. The comics simply don't trust people to govern themselves. Enforcement of civil rights statues and PC policing have become staples of their cause, and the "selfism" so abhorred by the original American individualist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, is the norm. The State is only nominally the enemy, and at times is an appropriate agent of "social justice."

The "tragics" may have a negative view of political institutions, but they generally have a favorable view of organic communities and local customs. There is little fear among the tragics about how different cultures behave in their own backyards and the autonomy of culturally conservative (and culturally liberal) enclaves is cheered, not feared. In other words the tragics do do trust people to govern themselves.

That said, it seems that the comic/tragic divide is but one of many fissures in the modern libertarian movement, and this divide is perhaps less significant than others. One glaring example, and one that is rarely discussed in polite company, is the huge rift amongst libertarians and their often conspiracy driven, popular base. While many prominent libertarians hint at having sympathies with various conspiracist arguments involving political assassinations, false flag operations, etc., most serious movement thinkers spend their time writing or discussing questions of economics, foreign policy or personal liberty. Their primary method of criticism regarding the State is in measuring its relative inefficiency by comparison to private enterprise.

Yet a very large segment of the libertarian grassroots are diehard conspiracy theorists. To them, the Austrian Theory of The Business Cycle is not only unknown, but irrelevant. They see a very real globalist coup that has already succeeded and curiously consider the State remarkably efficient, but only when it comes to doing dangerous and wildly immoral things. While it is fair to say there is overlap between these two camps, it is also fair to say that where they do not overlap, they are doomed to be engaged in an endless civil war. The conspiracists see the intellectuals as "gatekeepers" and the intellectuals see the "conspiracists" as "kooks." This is complicated by the fact that the "kooks" need the credibility of the "gatekeepers" to be heard at all, and the "gatekeepers" need the sheer numbers and enthusiasm of the "kooks" to stay relevant.

There are many other divisions that are not covered by the "comic" and "tragic" denotations. The large gap between libertarians who put decentralism first (as do I) and those that put raw economics first (most Misesians) immediately comes to mind. Though I have serious disagreements with Mr. Bramwell's assessment of monetary issues, his central contention may in fact be true. Libertarianism may not be a fully formed, mature, political movement or ideology. What is unclear is why this would be viewed as a negative thing in lieu of what the more organized philosophies have given us over the last hundred years.

Cross Posted at The Snipers Tower

TakiMag Podcast with Jack Hunter

2009-02-10T23:23:00.002-05:00

I was fortunate enough to be a guest on the latest edition of TakiMag Radio with Jack Hunter today.

Naturally we discussed my latest TakiMag article on the truly awful Tony Blankley, but we also spent sometime discussing the new magazine Young American Revolution. I am lucky enough to be a contributing editor to YAR and must say that the first issue looks to be a great one. Those folks interested in securing a copy of the first issue should check out the Young Americans For Liberty site for details.

Tony Blankley Stinks

2009-02-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

I elaborate further in my newest piece for TakiMag.

LRC feedback

2009-02-01T02:51:00.004-05:00

I've gotten several notes on my LRC article advocating for the election of police officers by the citizens they patrol. I appreciate the feedback and want to thank everyone who has sent a note my way. I also want to expand on a couple of things that I left out of the article for the sake of brevity.

In writing the piece, I did not mean to suggest that the election of cops would solve all problems associated with criminal law enforcement. In fact I am quite certain there would still be problems, Electing policeman is not a "best case scenario" proposal, but rather a way to use existing tools to get us closer to where we should be.

A few former police officers responded and noted that some areas already elect constables and sheriffs, and in fact they are often the most corrupt people on the force. I don't doubt that. I do doubt that their positions are necessary, The election of cops on the beat would do much to undermine the bureaucratic structures currently in place, leaving those at the top of heap less able to wield any significant power.

More to the point, I believe the election of police would ultimately undermine the notion that the world would collapse into chaos absent constant government surveillance. Libertarians that prefer a private security arrangement and localists that prefer a citizen's militia might want to consider whether or not this system would help their cause or not. I believe it would and an impeachment mechanism-and None Of The Above option on the ballot-are certainly amendments that would help that process along.

Finally, my endorsement of the concept is not without an understanding of the logistical problems associated with it. I am aware of the sort of overhaul such a system would require, though I don't believe that disqualifies it from being treated seriously. The difficulties that might be involved with setting up elections, or drawing district lines, pale in comparison to the difficulties and problems we have right now.

It may be a "mild reform," but it's one worth serious consideration.

Elect The Cops!

2009-01-31T01:50:00.001-05:00

That's the title of my new article up on LewRockwell.com

Check it out.

Culture11 Dead

2009-01-28T21:38:00.004-05:00

The online web magazine, Culture11 went out of business today. I have done some work with C11 before and was actually in the midst of touching up another submission, when a friend sent me a text message informing me that the site would soon be no more.

For conservatives of all stripes this is a serious blow. There are a very small number of outlets for young writers these days and C11 was something of a depot for a variety of rightists. Though the nature of much of the writing there was not something I found particularly interesting, the wide scope of opinion made it a truly unique place. It is hard to imagine it being replicated anytime soon.

The question of how a site that was rumored to have funds extending well into 2010 could fold so abruptly is one I can not answer. No doubt others will speculate, but for now I just hope all those affiliated (many of whom took great personal risks) can land on their feet.

Kauffman on Vonnegut

2009-01-22T02:39:00.002-05:00

I've always found Kurt Vonnegut the man, more interesting than Kurt Vonnegut the writer. Bill Kauffman's new essay for First Principles does little to change this.

Of course I do not mean that as a knock on Mr. Kauffman or Mr. Vonnegut. Quite to the contrary. In fact Kauffman does an excellent job showcasing the relevance of Vonnegut the character, even as he seems somewhat unsure of Vonnegut the novelist. It is nice to know that I am not alone in this assessment.

I remember reading Slapstick and Slaughter-House Five years ago and thinking they were perfectly suitable books, with wildly inflated reputations. That said, if a writer is to have an inflated reputation, I prefer it be one who abhors militarism and understands the importance of family and tradition. Socialist or not, I'd take a thousand Vonnegut's over one Phillip Roth, and on scale it is probably a good thing that young, angsty teens, still stumble into Barnes & Noble looking to pick up his books, even if they don't pay nearly as much attention to the far more interesting atheistic, cynic, Gore Vidal.

Satan needs a blanket

2009-01-20T19:39:00.004-05:00

Has hell frozen over?

I don't know but in post-inaguration coverage today Pat Buchanan referred to the rhetoric of Barrack Obama as more "Old Right" than "neoconservative."

One can only hope Pat. One can only hope.

No Defense

2009-01-14T02:56:00.005-05:00

I'm quickly growing tired of paleocons and phony traditionalists couching their support for Israel's latest military misadventure in the sort of "defense of the West" rhetoric that is the fail safe of all justification-seeking imperialists.

Let's get real people.

Israel owes it's existence to the very worst expression of globalism on the face of the Earth, the United Nations. As is the case with most internationalist assaults on common sense, the UN giving birth to the state of Israel, has harmed exactly those people it was intended to help. In seeking to give the Jews a state of their own so that the unspeakable "it" would "never again" happen, the one-worlders planted an ethnically nationalist state in the middle of the Arab World and filled it with regional minorities. Given these realities about the origins of Israel, it seems far more honest to note that the state of European Jews on the Arabian Peninsula, is in fact a case of Western offense and incursion. You would think those folks most opposed to massive social engineering programs would be critical of such nonsense, but evidently that sort of consistency is too much to ask for these days.

"Defending" an artificial Western entity like the State of Israel should be of little concern to paleocons or traditionalists. It is high time the Israeli's justify their own existence and Americans start acting in our national interests. No more foreign aid, no more weapons, no more military pacts. If Israelis want to be covered by "Western" security pacts, move back to the West, or start lobbying for statehood.

The GOP: More Marx than Marx

2009-01-14T02:04:00.005-05:00

Today I overheard a conversation at work between two hyper-partisan Republicans. Not surprisingly the tone of the conversation was the typical doom and gloom, "the Democrats are coming!," rhetoric one has come to expect from the Fox News-fed, Coulterites that make up much of the Republican base at this point. What was a bit different about this particular conversation was the casual nature in which the term "socialism" was tossed around and the ultimate conclusion reached by one of the gentleman who felt the need to note that Obama for all of his faults "wasn't a Socialist Party member like Bernie Sanders."

Of course Bernie Sanders is not a member of the Socialist Party either, but what was interesting about this outburst, was the amusing possibility that the Socialist Party is arguably more conservative than the GOP.

Don't believe me?

In 2004 the Socialist nominated, former Oregon State Legislature Walt Brown. Brown was a highly decorated military vet and lifelong pro-lifer. In keeping with recent Socialist Party tradition, Brown ran on a platform that called for a massive reduction in military spending and overseas commitments, the immediate withdrawal from NAFTA, IMF, and NATO and the abolition of the federal government sewage pit known as NASA.

The 2008 nominee Brian Moore, did not have the personal conservative traits one could find in Brown, but he ran on a similar platform.

Those quick to point to the SP's position on taxation and social engineering programs might want to look a little closer. In reality, even if one adjusts for the more deluded big government fantasies of the SP and its small coterie of followers, it would be difficult to argue that their welfare statism is any more or less attached to conservatism than the military statism of the modern GOP, and it is far less likely to endanger the lives of the average citizen.

Whatever the faults of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas may have been, both were men of towering intellects, local attachments and deeply committed to the notion that American interventionism was a serious detriment to life and liberty at home and abroad. Brian Moore, may not be as likable as the America First Committee approved Thomas- and he's certainly not as good a candidate for conservatives as were Chuck Baldwin and Ralph Nader- but it's hard to argue that America's ability to thwart the Socialist Party from being a major electoral threat has been a serious victory for American Conservatives.

From the party of Taft, to the party of government larger and more internationalist in character than the Socialists. And they say the Democrats have a monopoly on change...

The Paleos and The Peculiar Institution

2009-01-13T09:06:00.003-05:00

Kevin Gutzman's latest at TakiMag, features a somewhat unusual split in the Rockwellian ranks. The issues at stake are primarily related to the tone and function of history and will be largely uninteresting to most people.

Having said that, Mr. Gutzman does briefly touch on an important error that many paleoconservative historians and sympathetics have made. To be specific, Gutzman notes:

There have been a few critical accounts of Lincoln by hardy souls—certainly not untenured professors—in recent years. Charles Adams and, most notably, Thomas J. DiLorenzo have attracted attention with substantial criticisms. In general, DiLorenzo’s best-selling Lincoln books are mirror images of the run-of-the-mill; for example, where leading lights of Lincoln scholarship believe that Lincoln can do no wrong, DiLorenzo insists that American slavery would have ended peacefully soon after 1861 even in the absence of Lincoln’s efforts.

I know of no reason to believe that, and good reason to disbelieve it. American slaves reached their highest value ever in 1860. They had been appreciating for years. Their value helps to explain southern touchiness about the future of slavery in the Union.
But that does not mean that DiLorenzo’s criticisms are all ill-founded. And what DiLorenzo calls “the Lincoln cult,” centered in Claremont, California, among the students and other acolytes of Harry V. Jaffa, has fired back.

In my assessment Gutzman is a hundred percent correct regarding the issue of slavery. There is absolutely no evidence to support the argument that slavery was on the way out prior to the “Civil War” and a great deal of evidence to suggest that slavery was more entrenched than ever. One can say whatever they want about slavery withering away elsewhere, but in no other nation was the “peculiar institution” expanding at the clip it was in the United States. In fact, it is not unimaginable that some form of forced servitude could have gone on into the early part of the 20th Century, as evidenced by the course taken in Brazil.

It seems to me that arguments about the inevitable end of slavery presume that the planter class would have quickly discovered the economic inefficiencies involved in such a system and moved on to the wage model prevalent in the industrial North a the time. This sort of viewpoint is wishful thinking at best, and ignores the harsh, but very real moral problems associated with racial politics in antebellum America.

None of this should be read as an endorsement of the "Civil War." In fact it is my opinion that Northern abolitionists had it right back in the early 1830's when they seriously considered secession, primarily because it would end their responsibility to adhere to the Fugitive Slave Laws. Such a strategy, combined with an outbreak of slave rebellions in the South, would have saved thousands of lives and kept government reasonably decentralized. As it was we got the worst of both worlds.

I have said it before and will say it again. There was no just "side" in the "Civil War." Only just causes.

More on McGovern/What About The Neocons?

2009-01-08T09:02:00.003-05:00

At the American Conservative blog, Dan McCarthy has responded to the arguments made by Paul Gottfried and myself relating to his TAC piece on George McGovern. As usual Dan offers much food for thought, expanding on the New Right/paleo connection I briefly made in my initial post and digging into the neocon angle as well.

The always interesting, paleoconservative writer, Sean Scallon has also entered the fray and made the following point in response to Dan's blog entry:

....Gottfried’s wrong about the communist angle and insultingly so. It’s true McGovern originally supported Henry Wallace and attended the Progressive Party convention of 1948. But what he doesn’t tell you is that McGovern switched his support to Truman when he realized the Stalinists were in control of the Progressive Party. If CREEP hacks didn’t think it was a big deal I don’t see why Gottfried does. Besides, if you use Gottfried’s logic then Murray Rothbard was a commie, everyone at LRC is a commie, and one could say Ron Paul is a commie too. In fact such crap has been said by the necons all last year.

And so long as we’re talking Commies here, why are we letting the neocons off the hook? Does Gottfried not remember than many of their number belonged to socialist political parties and groups? Did they get off easy because they were Trotskyests instead of Stalinists? Trotsky was a murderer too and had none of Stalin’s Russian patriotism. Why shouldn’t all of the gang at Alcove 6 at CCNY have gone in front of Sen. McCarthy’s committee and answered if THEY were members of the Communist Party? Hmmm? I sure we would have gotten some interesting answers from messrs. Kristol and Podheretz.

Of course the issue of why and how the neocons managed to crawl into the cracks of the conservative movement is a long debated issue that Prof. Gottfried himself has spent much of his time on over the years. I myself have discussed it some in the past, but Mr. Scallon's post was the perfect chance for me to expand on the subject a bit. Below is the response I posted to Sean and Dan at the TAC blog, which I expect may result in some unkind emails from those unable to discern the difference between criticism and contempt:

The neocons got off easy and snuck into the conservative movement because they shared the perspective of folks like Prof. Gottfried.

While it is true that there were large gaps between the New Right and the Neocons, both groups tended to view things through the prism of anti-communism and cultural liberalism. Much is made by paleoconservatives today about the "liberalism" of the neocons, but at the time of their ascension they were seen as allies because they were intellectuals, with interests in the hard sciences (interests that by their own account paleos did not have), who were openly opposed to the Great Society, Affirmative Action, et. To be more specific, the neoconservatives were opposed to the statist trends of the "Civil Rights Movement," which was to a large extent the primary enemy of the New Right.

The error made by the paleos/New Right was in assuming that eggheads of any variety were the friends of liberty or decentralized government.

Anyone with a passing interest in the work of Irving Kristol would know that he was an advocate of Universal Health Care, Social Security, expanded public education, and some sort of guaranteed annual income/family wage package. Kristol's gripe was not with the size or scope of government, but rather with government action that favored one group over the other for reasons of ethnic or gender identity alone. To Kristol social democracy was for everyone and "national greatness" was to be all inclusive.

On the other end of the neocon spectrum, the Commentary crowd was primarily opposed to this "second wave civil rights movement" for reasons that dare not be discussed without the charge of anti-semitism flowing freely (and needlessly). I will merely say that American blacks were not the preferred "victim" group with the Podhoretz clan, and leave it at that.

By focusing on decentralism rather than anti-communism, and community autonomy instead of cultural liberalism, the Ron Paul kids and their fellow travelers are promoting a much more "inclusive" form of anti-progressive politics. Though the paleoconservatives of old were right on most of the particulars, they were starting from a reference point that was a dead end and allowed for easy neocon takeover.

I don't blame the paleos for trying to make allies and build a coalition. That is the nature of politics. I do blame them for being hopelessly naive, and at times so dangerously preoccupied with certain ethnic dynamics, as to allow the worst of the worst within the "conservative umbrella."

Traditionalist conservatives and libertarians need not make enemies with a left that is increasingly allied with them on the most crucial issues of the day. An "alternative right" that has room for welfare statist "libertarians" like Charles Murray, or Israel-first White Nationalists like Larry Auster, ought not be shutting its doors to George McGovern, Ralph Nader, Gore Vidal or Robert Williams...it should be embracing them.

McGovern and The Right

2009-01-03T01:43:00.006-05:00

Over at TakiMag, Paul Gottfried has a column criticizing Dan McCarthy's latest American Conservative essay, where McCarthy discusses the GOP's obsession with George McGovern, while painting a moderately sympathetic portrait of the former South Dakota Senator. Both pieces are well worth reading, not only because of the quality of the writing, but also because they illustrate the widening generational gap on the Alternative Right.

It was Prof. Gottfried himself who first alluded to this gap on the modern right in his essay on the "death of Paleoconservatism" entitled "A Paleo Epitaph." In that essay, Gottfried argued that the paleoconservatives were an outgrowth of sorts from a "movement conservatism" which is largely irrelevant to younger conservatives who have never had a home at National Review or seen a serious threat in the Soviet Union. Gottfried also correctly notes that these "post-paleo" youths are more libertarian than traditionalist and more "Old Right" of Nock and Mencken, than "New Right" of Weyrich and Viguerie.

While one can quibble with certain aspects of Gottfried's argument, the basic points are solid. As a matter of priority the new generation of "Alternative" righties are decentralists and anti-imperialists first, and culture warriors second, if at all. To them the warfare state and erosion of civil liberties are vastly more important and relevant than the overturning of Roe v. Wade or the supposed "threat" of gay marriage. Furthermore, the primary cultural issue of interest to them is probably the decriminalization of marijuana, an issue where the paleo-friendly New Right of the 80's would have been unsympathetic at best.

In their respective takes on the former Senator from South Dakota, Gottfried and McCarthy are showcasing these differences in priorities, goals and influences that are currently playing out in the various disputes littering the conservative underground.

To McCarthy and the younger generation, the imperfect McGovern was at minimum a committed opponent to a horrific, unjust war. Though Gottfried seems unimpressed by his small town patriotism and dutiful military service, this sort of "real" background is a stark contrast to that of his 1972 Presidential opponent Richard Nixon. I do not agree with Dan, that McGovern was a "committed decentralist," but he surely wasn't a paranoid military statist and "federal government firster" like President Nixon. In a comparison of their records at the time, McGovern appears to have more admirable traits for paleos and libertarians than Nixon..at least if one is viewing things from a post-Cold War perspective.

Gottfried of course does not share that perspective. He views McGovern primarily through the prism of anti-communism and cultural liberalism. By casting McGovern as a symp for Soviet tyranny and an identity politics vanguardist, Gottfried is placing McGovern squarely within the tradition of Henry Wallace and other left-liberal useful idiots.

To Gottfried's generation the left will always be identified by these associations (assumed or otherwise) and the assumption is that their representatives are all agents of these causes. The Soviet Union may be dead by socialist ideology is not, and the usefulness of the label is good fodder to attack political figures like Barack Obama, who of course is significantly less "socialist" than much of the allegedly "conservative" party. Likewise Obama must be a "black nationalist" merely because he is black and nominally on the left. Considerations of how his policy proposals compare to figures like Marcus Garvey are never made. Furthermore there is never any discussion of why "black nationalism" is to remain a hated enemy, while "white nationalism" is at worst an exaggerated response to authentic grievances.

By breaking out of the Cold War prison, the youthful adherents to the cause of limited government and personal liberty are indeed more "libertarian" as Gottfried notes. What's odd is that they also appear to be more Kirkian.

To Russell Kirk conservatism was about protecting particulars, respecting localities, and most of all rejecting ideology. Though it is true that Prof. Gottfried and others of his generation are not wedded to the materialist philosophies of either the socialist left or the libertarian right, they are in fact wedded to a myopic political worldview that defines the left as an "enemy" regardless of the practical considerations of the moment. To decentralist conservatives my age, Obama isn't an enemy because he's a Marxist (he isn't). He's an enemy because he's a corporate liberal, and corporate liberalism is the sworn enemy of all things particular and all things local. That there is a growing segment of the American Left coming to similar conclusions should not be considered threatening, but rather a cause for excitement.

Though they share much in common, there are noticeable differences between the Ron Paul Revolutionaries and Buchanan Brigadiers. One can only hope those differences do not become senselessly magnified over time.

In the meantime conservatives all stripes would be better served to reconsider whether or not the "Silent Majority" of Nixon got it wrong and if so, how to avoid such errors in judgment from repeating themselves.

Israel and Ron Paul

2008-12-28T22:23:00.005-05:00

Press TV: There has been a lot of speculation that Israel may act on its own and conduct an independent air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Do you think that’s possible?

Paul: I don’t think there is such a thing as an independent Israel doing anything, because I think no matter what they do it’s our money, it’s our weapons, and they’re not going to do it without us approving it and if they get into trouble we’re going to bail them out, so there is no separation between the two.

I grabbed this excerpt from the new (and excellent) Young Americans For Liberty blog.

Though comments like these would be seen as impolite at worst in any other context, the state of Israel was discussed semi-critically, so one can be sure that Congressman Paul will be accused of "anti-semitism" yet again. The "misuse and abuse" of that term has a long history in American political life, but attaching it to the name of Ron Paul is nothing short of a disgrace.

For years now there have been conflicting views on Israel, with one group arguing that Israel and it's lobby wields an undue influence over U.S. policy in the Middle East and the other side arguing that the tiny Jewish state is essentialy the latest colonial outpost in the American Empire. The truth of that matter is that both are technically correct, with the point expressed by Congressman Paul being the particularly important one. Though the Israel lobby does in fact wield disproportionate influence in Washington, Israel itself is a state entirely beholden to U.S. money and power politics for its survival.

As someone generally predisposed to the notion that states don't have any rights and international institutions are criminal cartels, it is especially annoying to me to see a country of sixty years, that owes its existence to the UN, constantly invoking its "right to exist" as a welfare dependent of American taxpayers. The unwillingness of America's political class to cut off the spigots is partially related to campaign contributions, partially related to our hyper-PC culture of victimization, and partially related to cultural and religious identity politics. Still, regardless of why it happens, this endless flow of weapons and money is the reason Israel survives.

Ron Paul is correct. Israel is not an independent nation and ultimately this is to the detriment of its citizens. If Israel cannot protect itself or its people it ought not exist. The same can (and should) be said of any other country on the planet.

Back in 1981 when the Israeli's attacked a nuclear reactor in Iraq nearly every member of the U.S. legislative branch condemned the assault. Not Ron Paul. In fact he took the floor to defend Israel's right to act independently in the arena of foreign policy.

Leftists might point to this as evidence that Paul has flip-flopped on interventionism and preemption; they would be wrong. The lessons then are the same as they are now. To the Israeli's, sink or swim. To the US, "America First, Second and Third."

Reason and Ron Paul Round 2 (or 3 or 4 or..?)

2008-12-23T17:52:00.004-05:00

I'm reposting this old link dealing with newslettergate and Reason magazines PC thought policing as the issue has resurfaced over at TAC and the TakiMag blog.

If anything, the things I said back then have become more and more obvious as time has gone on.

A Tale of Two Giants

2008-12-21T00:47:00.006-05:00

Paul Weyrich died a few days ago, the second giant of American Conservatism to perish this year. Like Bill Buckley before him, Weyrich managed to maintain something of a balancing act between the principled conservatism of the heart and the "pragmatic" conservatism of the political mind. Unlike Bill Buckley however, Weyrich seemed to maintain close ties to the "Alternative Right" and was never easily shamed by the multiculturalist and PC-maniacs of the corporate liberal establishment.

Where Buckley was ultimately mau-maued into status quoism, Weyrich ended up an outsider within the movement he largely founded, advocating a prudent policy of cultural secession as the most reasonable approach for post-Cold War traditionalists to take in the uber-pornographic, consumerist empire that America had become. In a way it is sad that Weyrich will be remembered mostly for coining the term "Moral Majority" and launching the now abysmal Heritage Foundation. Buckley being remembered largely as the founder of the now thoroughly uninteresting National Review on the other hand, seems entirely appropriate.

Buckley ultimately came out against the misadventure in Iraq, and advocated drug decriminalization from the pages of National Review, but by the end he had come to symbolize a mainstreaming of militarism and me-tooism on American Exceptionalism that ultimately would bury the American Right. Weyrich may have senselessly endorsed Mitt Romney, but one never got the feeling that Weyrich was bought and paid for or advocating for a cause to maintain certain appearances. Where Buckley was an elitist masquerading as an aristocrat, Weyrich was a somewhat uncomfortable aristocrat forced into the clutches of elitism in order to keep a spot at the table he helped to set.

Unlike many who have eulogized him, I never met Mr. Weyrich and the institutions and causes he helped found had little direct influence on me. My path to conservatism has been very different from the majority of long time movement figures and my cultural outlook is quite different from that of the average man of the right. Still one can not help but salute a brave soul, who lived and operated in the belly of the beast, without ever totally succumbing to the temptations of the dark side.

By all accounts and all evidence, Paul Weyrich was a moral man, of great integrity. His instincts seem to have been nearly always "Right" in every sense of the term, even as his application of those instincts could occasionally wonder too far from the yard for my comfort. One does not have to agree with every political or social stand a man took, to come to the conclusion that the World or a cause may suffer from his loss.

In an era of potential realignment for the American Right, an elder statesman like Paul Weyrich would have been a wonderful asset. Alas, it was not to be.

RIP Mr. Weyrich.

A brief note on the evil of the neocons

2008-12-17T00:14:00.003-05:00

Watching the replay of Harball tonight and seeing the truly contemptible neocon nutcase Frank Gaffney tell Chris Matthews "Americans had to die" because Saddam "gassed his own people" was a brief reminder that as bad as the liberal internationalist are likely to be, they cannot possibly be as bad the neocons.

I am not an egalitarian by nature or upbringing. Though I was raised on the Left, I have always been suspicious of the "you can be whatever you want to be" rhetoric that litters the American public education system courtesy of PC liberalism. That said the pie-in-the-sky utopianism of the American yuppie class does not allow for the level of callousness toward authentic human suffering shown by the Gaffney and his gang of imbeciles. Yes the urge for "humanitarian intervention" will be there and we must all fight against it. But I for one am glad that true evil was rejected by Americans, even if it was traded in for overwhelming idiocy and myopic feel-goodism.

Gene Not Joe

2008-12-07T02:31:00.004-05:00

Justin Raimondo has an interesting article up on McCarthyism and what the phenonomon really represented. I can't say I disagree with the crux of Justin's argument, and in fact Murray Rothbard himself made it many years ago. Still there was a lot of bad that came from the office of Joe and Eugene remains my favorite Midwestern Senator with the last name McCarthy.

The worst part thing about McCarthy was that he became the first in a long line of militaristic populist ideologues. Considering the fact that he took the mantle from the La Folletes and ran in the opposite direction (toward centralization), I think his presence should be seen as a “net loss.” The rise of McCarthy, the death of Robert Taft, and the disappearance of the Bricker Amendment from the conservative political agenda were really the major policy/political turning points of the takeover of the American Right. That so much importance has been attributed to the Cold War obsessed attitudes of the National Review crowd is not surprising, but it is very myopic. If anything NR simply tried to latch itself onto the populist themes of McCarthyism, while playing the “aristocratic” card needed to satisfy the elites that were ultimately as uncomfortable with “tailgunner Joe’s” tactics as they were with the commies.

It has always been of interest to me that post-war thinkers like Kirk and Weaver, traditionalist to their core, could have ever found an audience during this period.

I am aware of the criticisms the Rockwellians have of Kirk and I myself think Kirk’s conservative canon is a bit too broad (though the principles of Kirk are nearly perfect in expressions of paleoism in my view). Still, it is almost unimaginable that a man who loathed the automobile, voted for the America Firster Norman Thomas, and was above all else a Midwestern localist of the old school, could have ever found an audience amidst the nationalist fever of Cold War conservatism.

Weaver is even more puzzling. Yes he was a Lincoln cultist, but Weaver was arguably the most overtly radical political theorist of the period. Reading Weaver on specialization and categorization, one sees the seeds of anarcho-primitivism. Having just finished John Zerzan’s new book, I was reminded yet again that while Weaver was a civilizationist to the extreme, and Zerzan is the leader of the anti-civilization vanguard, the luddism and contempt for rationality found in both writers is nearly identical in tone and depth. Again, it is amazing that NR could have blossomed from an intellectual foundation so overt in its opposition to planning and management mindsets. It is even more amazing that Joe McCarthy could be seen as the most potent representative of the “movement.”

I understand the Rothbardian argument for McCarthy, and I myself apply similar logic toward fair taxers on the modern right, and Naderites on the modern left. What I can not understand, and likely never will, is how McCarthy and co. came to represent a right that’s tradition and culture have more in common with Gene, than Joe.

New TAC

2008-11-26T20:25:00.003-05:00

The newest issue of The American Conservative magazine, has an essay of mine on William Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko. If you sign up for a free trial subscription, you can read it in PDF online.

Mike Paul v. Ron Paul via Pat Buchanan

2008-11-16T20:44:00.005-05:00

This is a truly bizarre exchange.

Mike Paul says the GOP needs to reach out to minorities and listen to young, fresh ideas. Since the only young people with any sort of energy and fresh ideas in this years Republican race were the Ron Paul supporters one assume Mike would be on board for Gary Johnson in 2012. After all the former New Mexico Governor has been an advocate of drug decriminalization for years, which is one of the three or four biggest issues facing many young people and minorities in America today.

Instead Mike Paul is simply spitting out empty platitudes aimed at shutting down any "traditionalist" takeover. You see in the eyes of Mike Paul, David Brooks, and friends, these "traditionalists" are somehow most strongly represented in the person of Sean Hannity, a New Yorker, with a transparently phony interest in country music, and a look (and attitude) strikingly similar to an anti-hero in a Bret Ellis novel. Since those scary, nominally Christian folks are too dangerous to allow at the helm of the party, weirdos that believe in things like the gold standard or getting rid of federal departments, like Ron Paul, should have no say in the direction of the party post-blowout 08. After all, when the good doctor goes to Manhattan he's signing books for the plebes, not having cocktails with Maureen Dowd.

In fact the only thing worse to the neocons and Wall Street-firsters than Ron Paul and his supporters, might be Patrick J. Buchanan, who seems to offend Mike Paul in the clip above by asking him to "examine himself," a suggestion Mike ought to take to heart. Pat has been right about virtually every major issue facing the nation over the last fifteen years, and his call to bring the party back toward its conservative base makes more sense than the "big tent" strategy of trying to out liberal the liberals.

If the GOP cares about staying alive, not only should they listen to Mr. Buchanan, they should take a look at the recent history of their Democratic opponents.

The Democratic tide that has swept the country in the last two elections, has a lot to do with the fact that rank-and-file Dems had buyers remorse after the Kerry campaign, and put the 04 netroots Messiah, Howad Dean, at the front of their party. Dean had the good sense to run a fifty state strategy, that actually molded the parties branding to the whims, wants and needs of voters in each individual county. This is why Democrats likes Heath Shuler and Jon Tester got elected in the supposedly "liberal" party. Dean and the Dems understand the populist appeals that can be made to their base and use them effectively. That these appeals are sometimes dangerously statists, does not make them any less real or tangible.

The mess that is the GOP will likely leave the actual traditionalist right with some opportunities, but I have my doubts precisely because of squabbles like the one represented in the video above. Buchanan was right on every pressing issue of our time and he is still treated as if he is an aloof old man by those in the party who have the money, media monopoly and institutions in their grasp.

The Deanics seized control of a party that was running against the evil "other" and defined themselves as the anti-war party, of working class Bush victims. The Republicans refuse to allow anti-war officials to even have a voice, and are too busy bailing out Wall Street to care about Main Street.

The Democrats listened to their youth movement, followed the internet phenom, and created their own institutions, media personalities and political language from that framework. Insurgents in the GOP will be fighting against Brent Bozell, Tony Perkins and Fox News, as much or more than they are fighting against the remnants of the Bush Administration.

There isn't a vacuum in the GOP right now, there are a bunch of power mongers looking to take the whole table for themselves without offering any one else, ESPECIALLY the populists, a seat.

Which raises the question; why not make our own table?

Obama's Victory is the Best Thing for Conservatives

2008-11-10T00:09:00.009-05:00

By Daniel Bein

Chuck Baldwin has a great article up at Renew America in which he argues that it was not Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism, but John McCain and George W. Bush. Baldwin couldn't be more right, and conservatives who thought a McCain victory would be preferable to an Obama couldn't have been more wrong. I understand the argument that Obama having a Democratic congress being bad news, but that simply is not enough to justify the quintessential neocon becoming George W. Bush's successor. This would have validated everything the neocons have done and given them the seal of approval of the American people.

As Baldwin points out, it was Bush and McCain who damaged the term "conservative" beyond repair-- they have destroyed it. Unfortunately those who wish to preserve the term as something to describe the small-government conservatism of men like Russel Kirk and Robert Taft will be fighting a losing battle.

This is not the work of men like Obama, who will deliver on their promises to enlarge government overseas and at home. This is the legacy of Bush and McCain, who have posed as small government conservatives, and all the while have done nothing but enlarge government and speed the conversion of the American Republic to the (already crumbling) American Empire. All who call themselves conservatives, but supported Bush even after the disastrous nature of his inventions became apparent share the blame. No matter how liberal Obama is, it is not he who is guilty of such treachery, and he is not the one who dealt the death blow.

With all the damage that Bush, McCain and the rest of the neocons have done to American conservatism and American prosperity, we should be thankful that Obama defeated McCain. A McCain victory would have rewarded the ego driven stupidity of the neoconservatives and given them the go ahead to continue destroying what better men have sought to build. Instead Barack Obama's win has repudiate the villains who so richly deserved it. Now conservatives are at a crossroads. Perhaps this is an opportunity for Ron Paul Republicans to take over the party- or perhaps, as Baldwin suggests, it is time for something new to emerge.

With the Republican party ripe for a take-over, perhaps the Democrats will be next. They were elected in 2006 to end the war, and didn't. They have won the presidency and a majority in both houses for the same reason, and once again they will not end the wars they were elected to end. Perhaps this will erode confidence in the Democratic Party as the saviors of America to the point that a Republican party firmly planted on the small government/anti war right will be able to oust them. Or perhaps the Democrats can be taken over by their populist wing. (I can see how this point contradicts my previous posts-- perhaps my predictions are all a bit premature, as I'm already altering them).

Hopefully, the election of Barack Obama will expose the Democratic wing of the war party for what they truly are the way Bush exposed the Republicans. Either way, it has stopped the scoundrels who killed conservatism from picking the pockets of its corpse.

The Emerging Cult of Obama

2008-11-05T12:50:00.008-05:00

By Daniel Bein

I looks like I was right about the absolute elation most of my peers here in Charleston expressed when Obama was made President Elect. There were cheers, shouts and even tears as he gave his acceptance speech. There were parties at the bars downtown (I received a free glass of Champaign as I walked into one) and I couldn't walk down the street without hearing shouts of "Obama". Strangers patted me on the back and shook my hand, assuming that I was just as happy as they were, due to my age and my presence in the bar where 99% of the people were ecstatic over Obama's victory.

I must admit, I did feel a great surge of relief as the fear of another four years of Bush (under McCain) was put to rest. But it quickly faded as I realized that my prediction from November third may be all too true. From what I saw last night, Obama is going to get a free pass from most of the young people in America who hated Bush so viscerally.

Obama's speech sounded great. But will his deeds match his words? He said that government wasn't the solution to every problem, and that he would listen to those who disagreed with him. And I do believe that unlike Bush, Obama is a man who can be reasoned with and will not be completely unreachable once his mind is made up. But from the looks of it, Obama is gearing up to launch a new era of big government solutions that are going to cost billions, he also supported the vile Wall Street bailout that most Americans found abhorrent.

While it's true that Obama is no Bush, he's also no Ron Paul, and he's no Nader or Kucinich. He is not a peace candidate. He has been sliding closer and closer to the center when it comes to war and has pledged allegiance to AIPAC, has vowed that no option is off the table when it comes to Iran, and has informed us that he will pull the troops from Iraq, only to ship many of them to Afghanistan and possibly engage in military activities in Pakistan. In fact, the good Senator is even more hawkish on Pakistan than the hawk of hawks, John McCain.

So while this is a turning point and the end of a disgusting period in American politics, it is only the beginning of a new administration that is no less beholden to corporate greed, powerful special interest groups and the ideology of interventionism that has been slowly pushing America toward the edge since World War I. Is Obama better than Bush and McCain? You bet. But if we go by what the man has told us, he is not going to bring peace to the Middle East or curb the expansion of empire and runaway government.

Last night I had dream about Obama. In the dream and he was doing some sort of Q and A session that I had access to for some reason. I tried to ask him about foreign interventions and to plead the case for reconsidering further military action in the Middle East, but he wouldn't take my question. He seemed evasive. He spoke to me, but wouldn't let me get to the question. In the dream he seemed like a really good guy, but was unwilling to reconsider his position. I fear this may be the case in reality.

The youth have been the most vocal opponents of Bush's disastrous policies. There energy and enthusiasm is needed now more than ever. Will their anger now fade, converting the anti-Bush masses into the Cult of Obama?

Misplaced Priorities

2008-11-03T14:58:00.003-05:00

A quicky cartoon whipped up by yours truly.

Obama and the Return of Apathy

2008-11-03T12:27:00.010-05:00

By Daniel Bein

Lately there has been much debate as to which presidential candidate is the "lesser of two evils". Many on the paleo right claim that McCain is more desirable. To these folks Obama is a bogey man; a mysterious black nationalist with questionable associations, who, along with his democratic majority, will impose a socialistic new wold order on a vulnerable American public. Others argue (and I am among them) that McCain is the more repugnant of the two due to his role as neocon poster child, war monger extraordinaire, and emotionally unstable egomaniac. McCain is also no less of a socialist than Obama, since it was he who fought hardest for one the most massive socialistic swindles of all time, the Wall Street Bailout. Is not picking the pockets of American workers and giving the proceeds to corporate robber barons a clear example of "wealth redistribution"?

While I won't be voting for either mainstream candidate, I will be less horrified to see an Obama victory than to see the neocons cemented in place for four more years. That being said, I am left with one nagging fear should Obama prevail: the end of dissatisfaction with the executive and anti-war sentiment among 18-35 year olds. With Obama in the White House most of these young people will assume that the Candidate of Change will fix all of their woes. If he's true to his word he will pull the troops from Iraq and say the necessary things about defending a woman's right to choose and other social issues, and that will be enough for most of the people who are supporting him now.

Like Clinton, the liberal minded youth will love Obama. And like Clinton in Bosnia, most won't bat an eyelash over his disastrous foreign interventions. There won't be massive protests when he gets us bogged down in an even more disastrous situation in Afghanistan, and possibly Pakistan as he has pledged to do. The anger will fade when the perceived villains are no longer in office. This will be a sad testament to the fact that most people will ignore the degradation of our currency, a sinking economy and the spread of empire as long as the man in the White House agrees with them on their pet social issues.

When Obama most likely wins the White House tomorrow, there will be much celebration. Most of the people I know who are around my age will be ecstatic. They are going to go out and rock the vote, then celebrate like mad when Obama is chosen to succeed George W. Bush, who most of them consider to be the worst president of all time. I can relate, as I too won't be able to resist a slight sense of elation at bidding good riddance to that bad rubbish.

But there is not doubt that when Bush is out, apathy will set in. And without the energy of the young, we will be worse off in the fight against government excess. This is not enough to justify four more years of neocon rule under McCain, but it is still a frightening prospect. It's always easier to find allies when there's an easily recognizable villain to face. With Obama, they won't see the train coming until it's on top of them. The most dangerous bad guys don't always stroke their mustaches while tying you to the tracks, they smile to your face, then stab you in the back.

Bill Kauffman endorses Nader

2008-11-02T13:43:00.005-05:00

Chalk another paleoish, decentralist, vote up for Nader.

1. Who are you voting for in November and why? Ralph Nader, because I never got the chance to vote for Gene Debs or Norman Thomas.

Before any opponents of the "red menace" pop up to condemn that sort of language, remember that the father of American Conservatism, Russell Kirk, voted for Socialist Norman Thomas and it was our greatest (and last conservative) President, Warren Harding, who pardoned the anti-war thought criminal and bane of the Wilson administration, Eugene Debs.

Also worth noting, in 2004 I didn't vote, but my wife cast her lot with the Socialist Party candidate Walt Brown, possibly the only pro-life, military veteran (of three wars), with years of state legislature experience to run on an anti-NASA plank. Who can find fault with that? Certainly not those "holding their nose" to vote for McWar.

Ralph Nader: The Left Conservative choice.

2008-11-01T19:02:00.005-04:00

By Daniel Bein

During the 2008 election season I have often found myself fantasizing about a world in which the 2008 Presidential race is a heated contest between front runners Chuck Baldwin and Ralph Nader. If this pleasant fiction were instead reality, I could scarcely complain if either man took the White House. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and we are instead left with the same old choice between two utterly disastrous candidates.

John McCain, the hawk of all hawks, is easily the more revolting of the two, and despite Obama's liberalism and undying devotion to the big government war machine, he is far less dangerous than McCain. Even with a Democratic congress at his beck and call, Obama is not a neoconservative, and it is precisely this group (for which John McCain is the poster child) that must never be allowed to inhabit the White House again. McCain is also a narcissistic hot head who shouldn't be allowed to make decisions which effect the lives of millions.

So the principled voter is left with three choices: third party candidates, a write in which may or may not count, or abstaining. I will be at the polls on the fourth and will not refrain from casting a vote against the abysmal two party system, so abstaining is not an option. And since South Carolina doesn't count write ins, I won't make what would otherwise be the most satisfying choice and write in Ron Paul. So my only option is to choose the best third party candidate.

Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney can be dismissed straight away. McKinney is wrong on far too much and Barr is both an egomaniac (and potential Republican mole) who has had an overwhelmingly negative effect on the Libertarian Pary. By selling out to him the Libertarians have ruined their chances of becoming a vehicle for the liberty movement that Ron Paul launched with his insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination.

So that leaves Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin and independent candidate Ralph Nader. A friend of mine has argued that principled conservatives should vote for Chuck Baldwin and principled leftists for Ralph Nader. While I agree with this logic, as a self professed "left conservative", I like aspects of both men and have had a very hard time choosing between them. Chuck Baldwin is right on the majority of the issues, and his commitment to small government is more to my liking that Nader's affinity for government solutions such as universal health care, whereas on social issues I lean towards Nader and am not a fan of Baldwin's fundamentalism. But Baldwin's decentralism almost negates this, and the decision remains difficult even after weighing the pros and cons.

So I must agree with Dylan that since Nader has access to more ballots (and with Justin Raimondo that he is the most vocal opponent of tyranny and empire in the race), a vote for Nader is the best way to make a statement against the American military-industrial empire. For this reason Nader just barely edges out Chuck Baldwin for me. In a saner world, where one of these two men had a chance of winning, I would not be unhappy with either. Both would be a good choice for those committed to sending the message that empire and excess will not be tolerated.

Fleming on McCain

2008-10-31T18:05:00.003-04:00

"a sick and evil man, whose only virtue is the fact that he served his country in a stupid pointless war."

Thomas Fleming on John McCain via the Chronicles website.

Fleming suggests that Obama and his supporters are intolerable and worse than McCain as well. I'm inclined to agree that Obama's supporters are intolerable, but the evidence that Obama will be worse than McCain is speculative at best. Still that quote is as strong an anti-McCain sentiment as I can remember seeing.

Libertarians for Nader

2008-10-30T17:12:00.003-04:00

Justin Raimondo with a much more detailed endorsement of Nader than I offered.

Of course Justin made the same choice in 2004, an election I sat out of.

It turns out Joshua Snyder of The Western Confucian voted for Nader as well for circumstantial reasons (though as he notes it was hardly a qualified choice on his part).

Ralph Nader For President

2008-10-28T14:39:00.005-04:00

One year ago the political prospects for left conservatives looked great. The vast majority of the country had turned against our disastrous occupation of Iraq. Americans from all over the political spectrum were enraged at the jackbooted federal police raids on private consumers of medical marijuana and the Supreme Court's corporate welfare seal of approval via the Kelo decision. Discontent with illegal wiretapping and warrant less searches were on the rise and working class Americans were openly contemptuous of "free trade agreements," and other sovereignty busting, international institutions. Best of all those folks concerned about all of these issues had a real candidate, in a real party, with a real chance of building a movement around the principles of limited government, decentralized power, and individual liberty.

As I have said before the success of Ron Paul's campaign had less to do with any money bomb or internet trends than it had to do with with the fact that the Texas Congressmen represented REAL opposition. While the elite media and congressional pushovers rolled over and played dead for the neolibs and neocons, the average American was boiling over with rage at the cabal of power mongers and wealth addicts at the helm of the dying Republic. Dr. No gave a voice to this, the anti-political movement of all anti-political movements, and he took it as far as the duopoly would allow him to go.

Had Ron Paul chosen to run on a third party ticket, deciding who to vote for this year would be easy. There simply is no one like "Dr. No," for an anti-imperial, decentralist, voter.

But Dr. Paul did not run third party, and a man as unique as Ron Paul has no heir apparent. So what is a left conservative to do?

Some have argued for writing in Dr. Paul's name. I admit that I find this tempting. But the reality is that these votes will not be counted, nor will their impact be reported on by the media (assuming they have an impact at all). Furthermore the good doctor has gone out of his way to say he is not running at this point and I will respect his wishes.

Others have argued that we shouldn't vote as that non-act is the ultimate expression of discontent with our rigged system. Again I am somewhat sympathetic. But I will be at the polls pulling the lever for the very worthy Bob Conley in his U.S. Senate race against Lindsey Graham, and refusing to vote for President from inside the booth strikes me as contrarianism of the worst sort.

Of course I can not vote for either major party candidate. The Republicans have nominated a warmongering, military statist, with severe emotional problems. The Democrats have done no better, choosing a man without conviction, principle or even a passing sense of patriotism. That Obama is slightly preferable to McCain by virtue of his "moderation" is no reason to cast a vote for him. I cannot rubber stamp war for Darfur or government "growth for the sake of growth."

This leaves me with the "minors," of which four are serious candidates and only two are worth considering.

Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr can be tossed on the woodpile almost immediately.

I am proud to say "I told you so" regarding Bob Barr. His coronation at the Libertarian National Convention was nothing short of a nightmare for champions of individual liberty or even for those looking for a serious alternative candidacy. Barr's campaign has been so poorly managed and so juvenile in its antics, that I must assume the intent all along was to sink the LP as a vehicle for disgruntled Paulites looking for a well organized Party to oppose McBama. That many of Barr's most outlandish statements took place shortly after the Palin VP choice was announced shouldn't be surprising. After all, Barr enthusiast and coup d'tet leader Richard Viguerie was mass emailing love letters to the GOP moments after the announcement. It is fair to assume the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, poisoned or not.

I actually rather like Cynthia McKinney, but I could never vote for her. Her quasi-black nationalism is definitely more attractive than the minstrel show version of Adlai Stevenson running on the Democratic ticket this year, but it's not the real thing either. Were she a Garveyite she would likely have my vote. Instead she thinks government is the solution to every problem and worries more about unprovable conspiracy theories than she does about getting her campaign visibility.

This leaves me with two choices. The man I voted for in 2000, Ralph Nader, and the man Ron Paul endorsed, Chuck Baldwin.

I will not make an argument against either man, though they surely do exist. There are no perfect candidates and flaws can be found with both to be sure. I am especially wary of certain fragments of the coalitions these men have built, but politics makes strange bedfellows and you must make allies where you can find them.

On the major issues it is a wash. Simply put I agree with both men more often than not, and where there are differences they are negligible.

At the end of the day this decision comes down to electoral realities and strategic possibilities. The anti-imperial, pro-civil liberties, pro-constitution base is not on the right. It is on the left. Chuck Baldwin is on fewer than 40 ballots. Ralph Nader is on 46. The cards that have been dealt may not be fair, but they are what they are.

In 2004 Patrick Buchanan senselessly "came home" to the Republican Party because George Bush was "right" on taxes and judges. I stayed home in 2004, but in 2008 I am coming home too, because Ralph Nader is right on war and empire and is the most likely magnet for the opposition to be seen and heard a week from today.

Eight years ago I cast my first ever ballot in an a Presidential election for Ralph Nader. I did it without regret or remorse. Eight years later I will do so once again.

McCain v. Ayers

2008-10-16T07:52:00.008-04:00

As something of a an amateur historian of the 1960's American Left, the corporate conservatives obsession with Bill Ayers and his alleged connection to Barack Obama has been quite amusing. Almost daily I am treated to a barrage of "conservative" talking heads and those that absorb their bizarre conspiracy theories regarding Obama's relationship with the former Weatherman. They are virtually always totally wrong headed and in the case of some of the propagandists, it is hard to imagine that they don't know the truth.

For instance just yesterday on CNN, I saw a McCain loyalist refer to Obama's "close friend" Bill Ayers as a "terrorist killer." One does not have to take Ayers at his word to come to the conclusion that this often repeated charge is nonsense. To my knowledge there is not a credible historian around who has ever argued that Ayers or The Weatherman successfully killed anyone other than themselves. Furthermore Ayers was not present at the infamous townhouse explosion that claimed the lives of several "Weather People." In fact the most successful "bombing" Ayers may have had some involvement with, consisted of "blowing up" a bathroom in the Pentagon, an act of avant garde budget cutting that would theoretically be appealing to opponents of big government and wasteful spending.

Even more interesting than the erroneous charges levied against Ayers is the suggestion that he was some sort of ultra-violent wing nut, exceptional in this regard even by the standards of the "anti-American" 60's Left. While it is not a stretch to place Ayers on the fringes of the movement, it ought to be clear to any serious observer that Ayers was not as wild eyed or as dangerous as the Symbionese Liberation Army, The Black Liberation Army or a litany of other groups that came out of the period (this is to say nothing of the far more violent European Left of the period). If anything Ayers is exceptional in comparison to someone like David Gilbert for example, because he ended up walking away from the revolutionary rhetoric, before it covered his hands in blood and landed him in prison.

One of the problems with neoconservative and nationalists accounts of the 60's left has always been the inconsistent logic that makes someone like Ayers a uniquely horrific figure, at the same time that they try to paint the broader left agents of a monolithic third world death cult hell bent on taking over the world. The reality is that there was much more nuance to the anti-war movement of the period, then David Horowitz and company would lead you to believe, though they have their reasons for keeping that quiet.

The really uncomfortable truth for Republican loyalists is that while Ayers arguably fits the definition of a terrorist and may have some sort of association with Senator Obama, the Republican Party has actually nominated a man who unquestionably qualifies as a terrorist if one is to judge by the standards of say the U.S. Army.

I am not interested in maligning the service of Senator McCain or any other American who has worn the uniform, but the facts are what they are. Sen. McCain flew 23 missions over North Vietnam, bombing areas that he no doubt knew housed civilians. Like with todays terrorists, the actions carried out by McCain were not a part of any declared war. When McCain's plane crashed, he was taken into custody and held captive at the equivalent of Gitmo, the "Hanoi Hilton." McCain was then subjected to "coercive interrogation techniques," tactics the civilized world regards as "torture."

The point here is not that John McCain is a terrorist unworthy of a vote. The point is that the term "terrorism" is a loaded one that has much to do with the eye of the beholder, or more accurately, the perspective of the victims. The spree of property destruction carried out by the Weather Underground may have been immoral and dangerous to public safety, but compared to the actions of Al Qaeda, or the bombing missions of John McCain, they can scarcely qualify as "violent." In other words if association with Ayers disqualifies one from Presidential consideration, McCain's bombing raids of a peasant society ought to as well.

Forty years removed, this is the second straight election where the Republicans have chosen to run on a Vietnam War Patriotism v. anti-war Radicalism theme. Combine this with the excommunication of the small government Paulites from the Party and the exclusion of other limited government advocates from the GOP leadership, and there can no longer be any debate: The Republican Party is the War Party.

That the Democrats are unwilling and unable to capitalize on this fact at a point in time when the majority of the nation is anti-war is troubling albeit not surprising.

Tell us future President Obama, friend of "anti-war" radical Bill Ayers; what will your excuse be when you and your Democratic Congress still have us engaged in a needless foreign war (or two) when you are up for re-election?

The "Bailout" has passed

2008-10-03T14:12:00.004-04:00

It is a official. A bill with no constituency, and fierce opponents in virtually every active political camp in the country, has passed the Congress.

The fattened up, pork project now known as the "bailout" is the least popular bill I can remember passing in my life time. Working in both retail and restaurants, I get a chance to talk to those "men on the street" we always hear the corporate media yammering about: this bill is loathed across the board.

Liberals and lefties don't like the fact that is is a corporate welfare bill, passed by a Congress filled with folks who tightened up bankruptcy law for the "regular folks", just a few short years ago.

Conservatives and libertarians don't like it because it is another big government program, that depending on who you ask either unnecessarily intervenes in natural market occurrences, or incentivizes bad behavior..or both.

Though I was excited when the House shot the first attempt down a few days ago, I knew this would happen. The Senate is to the House as the Presidency is to the Senate, or to be more clear, it knows who the boss is and will always respond accordingly.

Bigness has done this to us. Collapse is now inevitable.

Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet

2008-10-01T17:37:00.001-04:00

My review of the excellent new book by Bill Kauffman on the life of anti-federalist hero, Luther Martin, is now up on the Charleston City Paper website.

Lesser of two evils? No thanks.

2008-09-23T18:25:00.010-04:00

By Daniel Bein

I recently saw a comment online that traditional conservatism, as the negation of ideology, has always been open to compromise. The person who made this comment was suggesting that John McCain would be a good choice for conservatives in November and went on to suggest that since McCain would appoint better judges and is better on the right to life issue, he is a better choice than Obama, and that as the lesser of two evils, he is worthy of a conservative vote. I couldn't disagree more.

The minute we allow this corrupt system to convince us that the only choice we have is between two evils, we have lost all of our power. Conservatives and liberals alike are giving up everything they hold dear when they give in to this temptation. They are tempted because they don't want to see the other side win. Fear of what would essentially a third term for George W. Bush (which is exactly what John McCain represents) should not cause a single antiwar liberal to vote for Barack Obama when he is clearly not against war, and fear of the "radical" Barack Obama should not cause principled conservatives to vote for one of the worst neoconservative warmongers imaginable.

The only true option that anyone with principles has is to support third parties passionately and publicly. If we refuse to do this because we feel that third parties are not a viable option, then they never will be. We must support them so that they can become viable options, otherwise we will have to choose between the "lesser of two evils" every time, and we will be stuck with one of those evils every time. In this scenario whoever wins, we lose.

Decisions motivated by fear are seldom sound and are usually regretted. I wash my hands of both major parties and will continue to do so until one of them is actually pushed far enough to become significantly different from the other. This will only happen if they feel threatened, and as long as third parties have no power, there is no threat. As long as we refuse to support third parties, they will not have the power to threaten a system that leaves us with what we admit to be a choice between two evils, which is no choice at all.

My review of The Obama Nation...

2008-09-17T19:09:00.001-04:00

...is now up over at the Charleston City Paper.

What's The Matter With (Ar)Kansas? The Perils of Palin and Conservative Myopia

2008-09-16T15:00:00.002-04:00

The recent outpouring of admiration amongst conservatives for Sarah Palin isn't surprising. In a Republican Party where heretics are regularly threatened and excommunicated for the mildest deviations, the ascension of an independent-minded, cultural conservative from one of the most non-cosmopolitan places in the United States is a welcome sign indeed.

Though she has been criticized by politicians and pundits for her inexperience, the fact is that Palin has long been a principled advocate for her family, town and state. As a woman with tangible personal attachments to her hard right positions on God and guns, the Alaska Governor is arguably as good a public figure the Republican Party might find to represent the principled, small town conservatism of family, faith and flag.

Or is she?

During the Republican presidential primaries there was another candidate from a small town and from a state that could be defined as "middle American" with similar conservative credentials. Like Palin, he had an impeccable, consistent record on both right-to-life and Second Amendment issues. A former man of the cloth, he was a strong, folksy public speaker, with an outside-the-beltway mindset that appealed to the populist sensibilities of his Southern and Christian voting base. Nonetheless, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee garnered little support from traditionalists and virtually no support from paleoconservatives even when he was the last man standing in the way of a John McCain nomination.

The typical mainstream media portrayal of Huckabee was that of a dopey hick from the Ozarks who had stumbled his way into a high-stakes presidential race by virtue of his religiosity in a party popularly perceived as being dominated by a "religious Right." In reality, of course, Huckabee's public disavowal of the theory of evolution and his comparison of abortion to slavery were as embarrassing to the GOP as they were buffoonish to the New York Times.

While Huckabee's down-to-earth speaking style and status as a Christian leader were no doubt factors, his initial success had more to do with his attachment to the Fair Tax than it did to his position on the Virgin birth. In the lead-up to the Iowa Caucus, Huckabee was out of money and almost totally devoid of staff or advertising. His campaign adopted a "follow the leader" strategy as Huckabee followed the Fair Tax caravan to multiple events and meetings. Again, one can bet the Wall Street Journal crowd were not appreciative of Huckabee's populist sympathies and his Republican opponents spent more time dismissing the Fair Tax than not.

I am not a supporter a national sales tax nor did I support the campaign of Governor Huckabee in the Republican primaries. Nonetheless, the same anti-establishment, populist and grassroots themes that attracted Huckabee supporters are the same qualities the same crowd seems to admire in Sarah Palin.

In the words of an unidentified Robert Taft supporter, speaking of the 1952 primary season, these voters are "the vanishing Americans, pushed around by big business, big labor, big government and big military." The enemy is the bigness of the American Empire, and while they are not exactly opponents of it, they are not actively part of its machinery either.

What many see in Huckabee and now Palin is authenticity and a sense of place that other American political figures lack. The willingness of both candidates to buck the party elites in a direction that reflects the will of their constituencies and not the will of their donors is something that seems wholly unique in today's political culture. In large part, this explains the prior success of Huckabee, though it does not explain his failure to build a broad coalition, something Palin seems to have had no trouble doing.

To be fair, Huckabee had many disadvantages that Palin does not have. For starters he is not an attractive woman and mother of five. More importantly however, Huckabee had competition for the job he was seeking; Palin was given hers in large part because of who she is.

During the GOP primary campaign, the candidacies of Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo held more credibility with Christian conservatives worried about immigration and trade than anything Huckabee was offering. Tracking farther right (and farther into the grassroots) most anti-war, small government paleoconservatives rallied around the Ron Paul phenomenon, myself included.

Even the pragmatic wing of the conservative movement failed to rally around Huckabee. Instead, they came out in favor of the quintessential Eastern elite candidacy of technocratic ex-governor Mitt Romney (who was both metropolitan and metrosexual). Though former pastor Huckabee did have supporters in certain religious circles and publications, he was never the choice of movement conservatives and even when they were despairing over the possibility of a McCain nomination, the Right showed little interest in rallying to Huckabee in the hopes of placing a roadblock before the "Straight Talk Express."

Now the same folks who attacked Huckabee as a "liberal" for promoting America First public works projects and showing Christian mercy in the commutation of criminals serving lengthy sentences in Arkansas prisons, are rallying to the cause of a woman who supported the "economic nationalist" Pat Buchanan for President, and has no known record on immigration or trade.

Though conservatism is non-ideological, it is intimately attached to the concept of "first principles" as a building block to all political, cultural and social action. First steps are good steps, but the fear of co-option is real, and must be guarded against at all costs.

The fact that someone as culturally conservative and politically unconventional as Mike Huckabee was able to get as far as he did in the race for the Republican nomination is undoubtedly a good sign for the traditionalist conservatives. So is the ascension of Sarah Palin.

But if one could not support Huckabee during the primary because he was wrong on the war, wishy-washy on immigration and soft on the welfare state - how can one now support the presidential candidacy of the archetypical neoconservative simply because his choice for vice president might be incrementally better than the average GOP representative?

Conservatives have long championed a return to "realism" in the foreign policy arena even as a misguided "realism" in the electoral arena has consistently left them with unsatisfying candidates and unfulfilled policy proposals. The Vice Presidential nomination of Sarah Palin is not a departure from this trend, but rather its most recent fulfillment.

Third Parties Are Our Only Hope

2008-09-12T14:51:00.006-04:00

By Daniel Bein

When I heard about Ron Paul's idea to have the major third party candidates band together I thought it was a great idea. The third party candidates should be making as much noise as possible, touring together and debating each other, demanding equal time, and attempting to convince the American people that there is an alternative to the two major War Parties. Though I still feel Paul should have run as a third party candidate, I believe this is the next best thing. A left/right alliance against the empire is essential. Ron Paul proved this was possible with the grassroots coalition he built.

Many would claim that this is not possible because the differences between the left and right run too deep. Yet some of these same people claim that supporting Sarah Palin is somehow a good idea. It is foolish to believe that a supposed paleo VP candidate on a pro war ticket will change the fact that the differences between paleos and neocons are completely irreconcilable.

My mind has been wandering quite a bit since it became clear that Bob Barr is a treacherous scumbag who may well be a covert agent of the GOP. Since his intentional sabotage of Ron Paul's attempt to unite the third parties, I have realized that the GOP will stop at nothing to stay in power, and they may succeed. The idea of seeing another four years of the neo-cons running riot over our liberties and our Constitution is so frightening that I've even considered voting for Obama. Obama is in no way a peace candidate, but he's marginally better than McCain, and I still feel that a repudiation of the neocons is imperative. But it was pointed out to me earlier today that while McCain will attempt to go to war with Iran, and anyone else who opens their eyes at him, he will face opposition from a hostile congress, whereas if Obama chooses to go to war with Iran, or Pakistan or anyone else, he will face no opposition. One must not forget that the Democrats are internationalist hawks. They are not a true alternative to the neoconservative ideology of world domination. That only exists with the third party oppositiong. For this reason I will keep the faith, endure the sneers and taunts that come my way for my "mindless protest voting" and continue to support third party candidates.

With Barr's recent treachery and the damage he is doing to the chances of third parties running a successful opposition, continued support for third party options is even more important than ever. Whether it's Baldwin or Nader (but not Barr, because he's not a serious candidate), the choice is clear: we must support third party alternatives, because a vote for McCain or Obama is a vote for empire. Sarah Palin shouldn't cause anyone interested in peace and freedom to make the serious error of voting for McCain, and fear of the neocons shouldn't cause us to capitulate and vote for an interventionist Democrat. Third parties are the only option. We should not abstain and we should not capitulate, we should vote third party. The revolution is NOT over until we give up.

New Review Up

2008-09-11T02:01:00.001-04:00

My review of Thomas Frank's newest book, "The Wrecking Crew", is up on the Charleston City Paper website. Link.

Barr Sucks

2008-09-11T00:05:00.004-04:00

I said something nice about Bob Barr the other day. I apologize.

Barr's political grandstanding and no-show of the Ron Paul press conference today confirms all of my worst fears about the man. Prior to this I figured a vote for Barr was at worst an anti-GOP protest vote. Now it just seems like a vote for GOP-lite.

Folks who are planning to vote for Barr because they think he is the third party candidate most likely to draw significant support, should seriously reevaluate the liklihood of that in light of todays actions. Barr's repudiation of the Paul movement for reasons that are suspect at best, may very well tank his chances at playing spoiler in states like Nevada, Montana, and Colorado.

A month ago I thought Barr might be able to pull 5% nationally. Then he started failing to get on ballots all over the country. Shortly thereafter one of this top money men and most prominent supporters, Richard Viguerie came out as a hardcore supporter of Sarah Palin. Now he's decided to snub the movement that is responsible for nearly all of his base support. At this point I think Barr would be lucky to get 5% in any state, and may not even set a Libertarian Party record in total votes (which would make the soul selling the LP engaged in to get Barr atop the ticket even more disgusting).

Barr may say he didn't want to appear on stage with folks like McKinney and Nader, but I don't buy it. Barr was upset that Ron Paul refused to endorse him or run as his VP, so he decided to take his ball and go home. I have said before that Barr is a terrible vehicle for "the Revolution" and if this isn't evidence of that I don't know what it is.

Of course it is true that all of this nonsense could have been avoided if Dr. Paul had run on a third party ticket. He should have and his announcement today makes his stated reasons for not doing so seem ridiculous. Nonetheless Barr's antics make him totally unacceptable, for both principled and pragmatic reasons.

Matthew Scully is Palin's speechwriter

2008-09-10T00:06:00.003-04:00

The pious Christian and ariel hunter, Sarah Palin is taking her talking points from the weirdly neoconish, anti-gun, vegan, agnostic, Matthew Scully. Hmm..

As a long time vegetarian, I should note that I agree with the basic arguments presented in Scully's book "Dominion." Contrary to what is claimed in the link above, the book is NOT another animal rights treatise, but rather a book about human morality and what we owe to lesser creatures. Furthermore the nastier quotes in the piece are taken from parts of the book when Scully is railing against things like big game hunting and factory farming, things that I think are self-evidently immoral, if not dangerously close to evil.

Still the issue isn't Palin's lack of sincerity for aligning herself with someone with so many divergent views on things like religion and guns. The issue is that Palin has a former Bush speechwriter penning her lines, which means she is "going along, to get along", which is what many of us predicted would be the case from the beginning.

New American interviews Bob Conley and Bob Barr

2008-09-09T21:07:00.004-04:00

Despite being awfully wrong about the depth of the actual communist threat during the Cold War years, I am a big fan of the John Birch Society. When it comes to combatting the global elite, they are one of the only existing grassroots enterprises left. While other so called conservatives were clamoring for enforcement of UN resolutions in Iraq (either to authorize force, or to search for weapons), JBS was virtually alone in its oppositional stance toward the internationalization of American law and public policy. As a one time quasi-member (long story), count me among those who are happy that JBS may be experiencing a bit of a revival thanks to the campaign of longtime JBS supporter, Ron Paul.

Getting all of that out of the way, the newest issue of the Society's magazine, The New American, is up online and it has a couple of really worthwhile interviews.

The first is called "The New Democrat" and is a one-on-one with South Carolina's Democrat Senate hopeful Bob Conley. As has been noted here before, Conley is running against the abysmal Lindsey Graham and not surprisingly the JBS folks are sympathetic to his cause. Bob does a good job in the interviewing lining himself up with a previous JBS Democrat, Larry McDonald, and also does a good job combatting some of the criticism of the Fair Tax (criticisms I share, though i think they are largely unimportant).

The second interview is with Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr. I am not a supporter of Barr's but it was nice to see him actually admit to being wrong about previous votes for once. I also enjoyed his candor on spending and the size of government; unlike most, Barr admits that in order to cut or get rid of any taxes, the hatchet has to be taken to the State first.

I will vote for Conley without hesitation. Barr is another matter. Regardless of that, The New American should be commended for covering two worthwhile candidates, despite the ideological differences both men may have with each other, and with JBS.

Daniel McCarthy hits the nail on the head

2008-09-04T22:43:00.004-04:00

Over on Lew Rockwell, Dan McCarthy describes the dangers of the Palin phenomenon perfectly. I couldn't agree with this more if I'd written it myself. I knew the second I found out Palin was an alleged Buchanan backer in 2000 that some paleos would fly off to Never Never Land and start to suggest that she somehow lends an iota of credibility to McCain's campaign. She doesn't.

Someone should tell Rudy..

2008-09-03T22:20:00.002-04:00

...this convention is being held for the Republican Party of the United States, not the Likud Party of Israel.

Why the hell is the issue of an "undivided Jerusalem" even on the radar screen?

In all seriousness this is one of the most disturbing displays I've ever seen from a major politician. Rudy playing the "elitism" card against Obama is funny, but his wild-eyed disgust for Obama's failure to be an unqualified supporter of warrantless wiretapping, the surge, and permanent war, ought to tell any of those "paleos for Palin" all they need to know about supporting this disgraceful party.

"Blue Dixie"

2008-09-03T20:22:00.001-04:00

My review of "Blue Dixie", Bob Moser's new book on a potentially Democratic South, is up on the Charleston City Paper website.

"The Limits Of Power" and Conservative Realism

2008-08-31T20:05:00.002-04:00

Reading the excellent new book The Limits of Power by Andrew J.
Bacevich, I was reminded of why, for years, I refused to call myself a
conservative, despite my many sympathies and philosophical
commonalities with its founders and later prominent figures. Though
the book's primary focus is the nature of the warfare state both at
home and abroad, it could just as easily be read as an indictment of
post-war conservatism; particularly it's consistent failure to
confront hard truths, despite its allegedly "realist" rhetoric.

As a self-described conservative, Bacevich is no stranger to the
Right. Though he was an early "Obamacon," his tepid endorsement of the
Illinois Senator (The Conservative Case for Barack Obama, The American
Conservative, March 24, 2008) included one of the better descriptions
of conservatism in recent memory, in which Bacevich cited six
principles as the cornerstones of the anti-ideology:

· a commitment to individual liberty, tempered by the conviction that
genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint;

· a belief in limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law;

· veneration for our cultural inheritance combined with a sense of
stewardship for Creation;

· a reluctance to discard or tamper with traditional social arrangements;

· respect for the market as the generator of wealth combined with a
wariness of the market's corrosive impact on humane values;

. a deep suspicion of utopian promises, rooted in an appreciation of the
sinfulness of man and the recalcitrance of history.

While one might quibble with some of the implications that could be
drawn from these points, it is hard to imagine that Russell Kirk or
Richard Weaver would find much of the above disagreeable. In fact,
most self-professed men of the traditional Right have claimed most of
the above as heartfelt convictions.

With that in mind, it is interesting that Bacevich relies almost
exclusively upon the words, critiques and sentiments of Leftist
opponents of militarism and the managerial state.

Instead of quoting James Burnham or utilizing his theory of a
"managerial revolution" as it relates to government, Bacevich makes
the same general point by utilizing the theory of the "Power Elite"
promoted by New Left founding father C. Wright Mills. The entire
historical model Bacevich relies upon is that of historian William
Appleman Williams, another New Left hero. Bacevich, the conservative,
seems to owe nothing to William F. Buckley, but his account of the
rise of National Security State does closely parallel that of perhaps
the National Review founder's most bitter rival, Gore Vidal. Readers
will search in vain for any mention of Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan, and
yet Robert Byrd and Robert La Follette receive accolades. Bacevich
quotes and borrows from Leftist after Leftist - with nary a
conservative example in sight.

That a foreign policy "realist" and a self-described conservative
would rely almost entirely upon the Left to make his case is
interesting. He did not have to rely on figures of the Left to make
his argument, something Bacevich implies when pointing favorably
towards "paleoconservatives." There are deficit hawks, anti-imperial
conservative historians and others who could have been solid examples
to bolster Bacevich's argument from the Right. But these figures have
largely been obscured, not just by the rise of neoconservatism, but
also by the collapse of conservative principles in general and the
elevation of realism in the electoral arena - even as realism in the
policy arena has all but disappeared.

This is not to say that the author is unaware of the existence of
principled conservatives. There can be no doubt that Bacevich is aware
of the non-interventionist Old Right, and the realist bona fides of
contemporaries like Michael Scheuer, Leon Hadar and others are well
known. Still the reader can't help but get the feeling that the former
Army colonel knows that these figures wield no influence within the
halls of power and in fact seem to face their fiercest opposition from
those that in theory reside on "their side" of the political divide.

One of the best illustrations of this gap between conservative
rhetoric and conservative reality is Bacevich's comparison of the
language and strategies of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald
Reagan.

As Bacevich correctly notes, one of the only "realist" speeches in
recent political history was the infamous "malaise" speech delivered
by former President Jimmy Carter. The crux of Carter's speech was
that Americans needed to conserve more, consume less and "balance the
books". For this speech, Carter was labeled a "pessimist" whose
rhetoric was in direct opposition to the "American Dream." His defeat
by the "optimist" Ronald Reagan was, in part, born of that speech and
Reagan's expansionist policies both at home and abroad were largely
ignored by conservatives of all stripes, who instead focused their
collective gaze on the Gipper's abstract rhetoric about a "shining
city on a hill."

Reagan idolatry symbolizes the bankruptcy of many Right movement
figures, neoconservative or otherwise, and by proxy the corruption of
the much of the conservative milieu. The cult of the personality
surrounding Reagan has always sought to ignore the facts about the man
and his "revolution." Tax cuts promoted to increase the size of
government, unfettered spending in the most bureaucratic government
agencies and the belief in consumption with no costs may be
"revolutionary" but they certainly aren't conservative.

Though easy targets for disdain, there is plenty of blame to be
directed at the Right other than neoconservatives. By deifying the
concept that nothing (let alone ideas) has consequences as long as one
has faith in the "exceptional" nature of the "American spirit," many
well meaning conservatives have become just what they despised -
pie-in-the-sky liberals with an unfettered believe in progress. That
this liberal belief in progress is often balanced by a conservative
respect for tradition and a libertarian favoring of the
entrepreneurial spirit does not make it any less utopian.

Family, faith and free markets ought to be the basis of any practical
conservatism but are more often perverted, becoming Republican talking
points promoting growth for the sake of growth. Mainstream
conservative concerns about throwing the baby out with the bath water
are understandable, but when politics consistently trump principle one
must wonder if the baby has not already drowned; as the conservative
mind turns away from the Right, promotes the wrong and settles all too
comfortably into delusion.

Addendum:

This piece has also been posted at the excellent paleo webzine, Conservative Heritage Times

Charley Reese Retires

2008-08-31T03:00:00.002-04:00

First Novak, now this.

I'm sad to see him go. Charley was always a controversialist and his pithy style made him accesisble to even the most apolitical casual observers. Along with Paul Craig Roberts and Pat Buchanan, Reese was in many respects one of the last authentic, iconoclastic, conservative voices allowed anywhere near syndication. A truly unique writer, you never quite new what to expect from the man.

Good luck Mr. Reese. You will be missed.

Paleos for Palin? Not this one

2008-08-29T21:11:00.003-04:00

John McCain's VP choice has set the political world on fire, particularly the paleoconservative/traditionalist/libertarian blogosphere. Apparently, Sarah Palin, was a Buchanan brigadier and possibly a Ron Paulian. Good for her, but that does change the reality of why she was picked, or the reality of the awful John McCain.

Sarah Palin was not chosen, because she is a crusader for 2nd Amendment Rights or because she is militantly pro-life. Palin was chosen for one reason; she was a semi-prominent Republican politician with a vagina.

Being a Governor from a state that shouldn't even be part of the country, Palin has the advantage of being totally under the radar as well. On top of this, even if she is paleo-sympathetic on issues like trade, immigration, and empire, it is doubtful she will have any on the record statements that would contradict the views of her warmongering, invade-the-world/invite-the-world, top of the ticket, comrade. She will no doubt be a faithful servant to her neoconservative boss, now that she is "moving on up."

None of this has stopped folks like Richard Spencer and Richard Viguerie from going ga-ga over her. I don't blame them. It is a nice to delusion to believe that folks like us have any power on the decisions of major players in the Republican Party. The reality is that we don't, and Pelan has nothing to offer us anyway.

Addendum:

My guess is that the job was offered to Kay Bailey Hutchinson first and she told McCain to go to hell. It is known that those two don't get along, and yet she was consistently named as a potential VP choice. I find it hard to believe that Palin was the pick all along, though I do acknowledge that strategically, she is a brilliant pick (can you imagine the bully Biden getting tough with her on anything in their inevitable debate?).

Southern Avenger Debuts on Takimag

2008-08-28T13:02:00.003-04:00

Local talk radio host and conservative columnist Jack Hunter with the first of what will become a regular feature of Takimag called Taki TV

Two Cheers For Me!, Three Cheers for Culture11!

2008-08-27T02:16:00.003-04:00

Today is the official launch date for the new conservative web magazine and social network Culture11. The site looks great if I might say so myself and I encourage everyone to check it out. A good starting place would be my feature length article on the corporate takeover of the regional wrestling business, which can be found here. From there check out Rod Dreher's piece on his home morphing into a chicken farm, Joe Carter's disturbing look at the unintended consequences of ultrasound technology, and Cheryl Miller's write-up on the Country/Rock fusion trend.

Today also marks the appearance of my first book review for the Charleston City Paper, which can be found here. If everything goes as planned I should be working with them regularly. Stay tuned.

Cockburn Endorses...Bob Barr??

2008-08-25T18:04:00.004-04:00

I have always admired the independent streak of Counterpunch editor Alexander Cockburn. Whether it is his contempt for the UN, his skepticism of global warming, or his advocacy for a return to the literal verbiage of the 2nd Ammendment, Cockburn is one of the most interesting and iconoclastic writers on the American left. He's also one of few men on the left who has a sense of proportion and priorities when it comes to the warfare state, which allows him to actively seek out and promote alliances with libertarians and conservatives who share his opposition to Imperial America.

For this reason I was not surprised to see Cockburn include a quasi-endorsement of Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, Bob Barr, at the end of his most recent column:

"Face it, if you want to stay true to reason and conscience, the man to vote for is Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate."

Cockburn's praise was no doubt inspired by Barr's press release on the conflict in Georgia, which Counterpunch had run the day before. It's a good offering by Barr to be sure, as he makes all the same points one would expect to see from a non-interventionist. The problem though is that Barr's non-interventionist bona fides are questionable, and Cockburn's position that Barr is the only option for voters acting on their "conscience", doesn't wash with Barr's rhetoric.

I am well aware of the benefits of a Bob Barr candidacy and though I am not supporting his campaign, I have no problem with those that see him as the most likely third party alternative to shake things up and draw a big vote total. To the extent that voting is about building movements, Barr may be the best candidate, even if he does pale in comparison to Ron Paul.

On the other hand, Barr does not appear to be the man of principle that Cockburn suggests he is. Though he is running as an anti-empire candidate now, Barr voted for both the Patriot Act and the War in Iraq. When he was asked to answer for those votes by The American Conservative magazine, he relied on the old "bad information made me do it!" canard, that is usually the failsafe position for liberals desperate to keep their nominally anti-war constituents from bolting to greener pastures. As recently as a few months before he announced his Presidential run, Barr was positioning himself as America's foremost hawk in our ongoing covert drug war with Colombia. How all of this washes with Barr as the man leftists of "reason and conscience" should support I have no idea.

In 2000 and 2004 Counterpunch was the most Pro-Nader left wing media outlet in the States. I had assumed that this would not change this cycle. While I expect many pieces touting Nader's candidacy to run at Counterpunch, Cockburn seems to have soured on him. Oddly this stance seems to be based on Ralph tossing his name out as a potential protest vote for Hillary supporters, who can't bring themselves to pull the lever for St. Barack. This "sin" is of course a sensical thing for a third party candidate to do, and hardly inconsistent with any positions or principles advocated by Nader (or Cockburn for that matter).

Cockburn went gaga for both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee during the primary season, for reasons I mostly agreed with. I don't oppose his support of Barr, but if one is looking for a principled candidate of the left, Nader and Cynthia McKinney are better picks. If a consistent voice of non-interventionism is your fancy, you might favor Chuck Baldwin. If you want a somewhat remorseful, Washington politician, with some pretty good advisors...well in that case Barr would be your man.

Kudos To Glenn Beck

2008-08-25T17:20:00.003-04:00

Today on Wolf Blitzer's show Beck reiterated his dissatisfaction with John McCain, repeating his mantra "I can't see myself pulling the lever for John McCain." Even better, he followed that up by saying the potential presence of Mitt Romney on the ticket would mean nothing to him because Romney "flirts with socialism", pointing to the former Governer's health care proposal as a key example.

All election season long talking head "conservatives" have shamefully supported Romney and touted him as the conservative alternative in the race. I'm not a big Glenn Beck fan, but it was nice to see a pundit tell the truth about the abysmal Romney for once.

Antiwar Conservatism

2008-08-17T01:14:00.001-04:00

Jack Hunter and I talk about the forgotten tradition.

Interview with Bill Kauffman

2008-08-10T19:32:00.002-04:00

Here are the youtubes of an interview conducted by Jack Hunter with Bill Kauffman on the subject of anti-war conservatism. I was sitting in with Jack that day and got a few quick comments and questions in myself.

Conley Campaign Update Blog

2008-08-08T23:38:00.005-04:00

For the next few months I will be blogging on the comings and goings of Bob Conley's U.S. Senate campaign on the official campaign website. Don't be surprised if Bob gets some dual coverage over here as well, but if folks are looking for daily updates on the campaign they should go here.

CIA/Drugs v. Saddam/Al Qaeda

2008-08-06T18:39:00.004-04:00

Via Dan McCarthy at the TAC blog:

The Politico reports that Ron Suskind’s new book claims the Bush administration suborned the CIA to forge “a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein,” linking Iraq to al-Qaeda. What the Politco doesn’t mention, but the Anonymous Liberal blog picks up, is that the allegedly forged letter also advanced the Niger uranium fable. “I’m not sure what proof, if any, Suskind has that the White House was responsible for this letter,” Anonymous Liberal concludes, “but if that claim is true, it’s a HUGE deal.” (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.)

While I admit this is a "shocking" revelation of sorts, it isn't really surprising. The duplicity of this administration is well noted at this point and nothing should surprise us.

One thing this does illustrate however is just how pro-war the neocon infested media is. The case for collusion between Saddam and Wahabbi inspired "Islamic Radicals" was always flimsy and the fact that this one piece of information was seen as a trump card over all the other available evidence is truly a massive indictment of the media echo chamber.

When San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb broke a story about possible CIA complicity and engagement in the South Central Los Angeles drug trade, his "friends" in the media took potshots at him and the credibility of his story was called into question by numerous news outlets the world over. At the heart of Webb's story was the allegation that Nicaraguan gangsters were running cocaine onto the streets of L.A. with some of the profits being funneled back to finance the U.S. supported Contras in the countries brutal Civil War. Webb's work was meticulously documented and the end result was a five hundred page book. Despite the spin coming out of Washington (and the governments obvious interest in suppressing the story), the internal investigations conducted by the Justice Department and the Agency revealed widespread complicity on the part of the CIA with various Central American drug dealers, many of whom were running cocaine into the United States. Even many of Webb's biggest critics acknowledged after the fact that he had been more right than wrong in his reporting, but it was too late. Webb was persona non grata with the MSM. Left to die by his own newspaper, in 2004 Gary Webb took his own life.

On the other hand the biggest media peddler of the "Saddam-Al Qaeda" alliance myth was Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard. Hayes' work was riddled with errors and demonstrably false claims. His comprehensive review of the evidence linking the Iraqi government to Osama and friends was a brief book called "The Connection". Despite the governments obvious interest in supporting Hayes argument, the Pentagon called his work "inaccurate" and much of the rest of the book was discredited by the intelligence community before the book even hit the shelves. Hayes "smoking gun" was firing blanks, but as an active agent of state propaganda he is still allowed to parrot his nonsensical claims on television as a paid pundit.

In one case we have an investigative reporter coming to some inconvenient conclusions based on numerous sources. The crux of his allegations turnout to be true and yet his work is attacked as fradulent conspiracy mongering.

In the other case we have a partisan media pundit coming to some very convenient conclusions, based on widely discredited evidence. His allegations turnout to be almost completely false, and yet they were widely used as a justification for a war of aggression against a third world country.

The dividing line here is clear. Those who side with state and the establishment will always get the benefit of the doubt from the "watchdogs" in the media, no matter how far-fetched their conspiracy theories are. Those that challenge power get the noose.

The War Party marches on.

R.I.P. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-04T01:07:00.003-04:00

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died yesterday at the age of 89. Though Solzhenitsyn was most well known for his fierce opposition to totalitarian socialism in his native Russia, I will always remember him fondly as a true patriot who refused to play the role of propagandist in the service of any empire, communist or otherwise. Like his American, Cold War counterpart, George Kennan, Solzhenitsyn appreciated the beauty of smallness and the value of communal tradition. The world will miss him and could use many more like him.

Authentic Black Conservatism

2008-07-29T14:17:00.009-04:00

Readers of this blog are probably already aware of the soft spot I have in my heart for Ishmael Reed. Despite being one of the godfathers of multiculturalism and somewhat obsessed with pointing out the double standards active in America's race relations, Reed remains one of the most entertaining and thought provoking writers in the nation.

It was from Reed that I first encountered a favorable presentation of Booker T. Washington from a leading black leftist. Reed's contention that Washington's call for self-reliance, community control and alternative black institutions was not merely conservative, but a populist program of necessity given the racial climate at the time, stands in stark contrast to the narrative presented by many Marx obsessed lefties of various ethnicity's. To them W.E.B. DuBois was the real black leader of the post-"Civil War" period. Reed is no fan of DuBois and suspects his status with intellectuals has something to do with his "talented tenth" theory, an inherently elitist, quasi-Leninist idea that calls for ten percent of "educated, worthy" blacks to infiltrate white society, forming a vanguard that would somehow eventually lift all boats by virtue of their mere existence.

In my view that analysis by Reed is dead on, and in his new collection of essays, "Mixing It Up" Reed offers up another interesting interpretation of black conservatism that deserves some serious consideration. Referring to playwright August Wilson, Reed writes:

"For some African Americans, including myself, white conservatism is a euphemism for racism. Unlike traditional conservatism, American conservatives seem to have one issue: out-of-wedlock birth in the black underclass, about which they still write op-eds and long, ignorant books, even though the black teenage pregnancy rate has declined while that of white and Hispanic women is soaring."

"If August Wilson's plays have a conservative line, it was not an appeal to critics who misread him but a reflection of the attitudes of a large segment of the African American community. Wilson's conservatism was his, that of Booker T. Washington, Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey, all of whom preached self-help and individual responsibility, and all of whom did business with white people; not theirs, which often took the form of vicious and nasty comments about the underclass. As Wilson said, "The ground that I stand on has been pioneered by my grandfather, by Nat Turner, by Denmark Vesey, by Martin Delaney, Marcus Garvey and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad"

What interest me here is not necessarily Reed's myopic, and in my view misplaced, appraisal of what he calls "white conservatism". Though Reed is right to take issue with the bizarre obsession certain "think tank" conservatives have with black parenting skills, he is wrong in arguing that such attitudes are defining trait of the American Right. In fact the "white" American Right has no defining trait, precisely because it has abandoned its principles.

What does interest me about the above quote is the argument that conservative principles are an authentic reality of Black America and that black conservatives actually adhere to those principles unlike their white counterparts.

In the past when I have argued for Malcolm and Garvey as expressions of conservatism I have been accused by folks on both the left and the right as being horribly misinformed. Usually they cite no evidence for their "counter arguments" that prove I am "crazy", presumably because there isn't any.

It breaks down like this; the right doesn't want anything to do with Malcolm, Garvey, et. because they have historically been camped out on the "radical left" and such associations frighten them. The left wants to keep them in order to maintain their monopoly on identity politics and the "oppression narrative". Everyone is happy in the end because after all, ignorance is bliss.

The unfortunate byproduct of this covert alliance is that American blacks that don't have any interest in the welfare/warfare state have no place to go. The Shelby Steele/John McWhorter axis of black think tank intellectuals have little interest in black institutions and black communities and primarily concern themselves with the attacks on the black underclass that Reed rails about. They are descendants of the "progressive" W.E.B. DuBois, talented tenthers of the heart, and nominally "conservative" even by contemporary standards. Meanwhile rank-and-file blacks note the anti-statism of men like Elijah Muhammed, who wrote books about culinary conservatism years before The American Conservative or TakiMag were even in existence, and are told by these supposed "conservative black leaders" that the Nation of Islam is a "left wing hate group".

It should not surprise anyone that black separatists, nationalists and self-help movements have been pushed into the waiting arms of the left, by the corporate American Right. Though principled conservatism is inherently suspicious and adversarial toward government largesse and imperialism, the fiercely unprincipled, political, bastard offspring that claims the mantle today is primarily interested in maintaining massive profits for the heavily subsidized industries of high finance. Uppity blacks that don't "know their place" have no business in a "conservative" canon devoted to the idea that all working class folks should be serfs on the CEO's manor.

The emergence of this "corporate conservatism" is in no way the fault of authentic black conservatism. The ideas of black capitalists and businessmen like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey, have no influence on these folks. These "conservatives" bought their way into the movement, just as they bought their way into our government. The "diversity" plans and "tolerance" training they promote is supposedly a gift toward American blacks, but these are not the ideas of black men like the framed martyr, and black conservative, Denmark Vesey. Those men were largely advocates of community control, and were indifferent to diversity at best.

In fact the average black American is far closer to the principled conservatism of the Old Right, than are those who identify as "conservative" because they read National Review or agree with Bill O'reilly. Blacks generally take an "America First" view on foreign policy, oppose mass immigration (illegal or otherwise), and are culturally far to the right of most suburbanite whites who vote GOP. They are deeply suspicious of public officials, elected or otherwise, for good reason. Blacks also tend to be deeply interested in their tradition and heritage in ways that many American white conservatives would find bizarre.

This seems strange to many middle class whites who reflexively assume that blacks are "liberal" because they overwhelmingly vote Democrat, but it shouldn't. Republicans have done little to attract blacks and for strategic reasons that has probably been to their benefit. This however does not change the fact that the vast majority of black leaders were either outright conservatives or promoted platforms, causes and movements that had explicitly conservative agendas and goals.

The truth is that in America today there are two different movements that have roots in the principled conservatism of small government, community control, family values and traditional culture. One of them is the almost entirely white paleo/traditionalist conservatism of the Rockford Institute, The American Conservative magazine, et. The other is the black conservatism of the Nation of Islam, the Black Arts Movement, et.

The real goal for conservatives of all ethnicities should be to advocate for principle over politics, but this remains difficult when those that control the historical narrative continue to pretend that Malcolm X was to the left of Martin Luther King Jr. He was not. He was considerably to Dr. King's right, which is precisely why American elites came to find MLK as a hero and Malcolm as a radical degenerate.

After all, in the world of the elites liberalism will always be defended and conservatism always shunned.

Book Review-"Reclaiming The American Right"

2008-07-27T11:37:00.003-04:00

The following is a book review of the recently rereleased book "Reclaiming The American Right: The Lost Legacy of The Conservative Movement" by Justin Raimondo

In the days and months following the passing of William F. Buckley earlier this year, the mainstream media offered tribute and praise to a man considered by many to be the embodiment of American conservatism. As the founder of National Review, Buckley had long cemented his legacy as one of the most prominent spokesman for the conservative movement and his death was seen as the end of an era. But for conservatives and observers a question was posed in a variety of opinion journals, both Right and Left - what might lie ahead for the Right in a post-Buckley America?

In "Reclaiming The American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement" (ISI Books), conservative-libertarian Justin Raimondo argues that the brand of conservatism advanced, promoted, and to some degree founded, by Buckley was a perversion of an older political tradition, now commonly referred to as the "Old Right."

According to Raimondo, conservatism's roots originally were defined by the uniquely American ideals of individualism, prudence, and respect for private property, basic concepts that have since given way to the modern state - big government, welfare statism and perhaps the most active agent, the national security state. Buckley and his cohorts are identified as enablers, if not outright culprits in this turn of events, and the case Raimondo presents is quite compelling.

While others have noted the heavy influence of ex-communists on the post-WWII Right, Raimondo is one of the few authors to note the Marxist sensibilities reflected in the "global revolutionary" mindset of the Cold War Right. Militant anti-communism became the sole litmus test for Right wing politicos in the 1950's and 60's, and the rabid militarism rightly associated with today's GOP is the logical extension of that crusade.

Raimondo, who is the editorial director for popular online magazine, antiwar.com, has no use for imperialism, democratic or otherwise. A long time opponent of what President Dwight Eisenhower once called the "military-industrial complex," Raimondo is more than willing to appropriate the language of various Leftists, particularly New Left founding father C. Wright Mills, specifically when the author refers to a "Power Elite" of "managerial" liberals at the helm of American political life.

Raimondo rightfully notes that American history overflows with conservative examples of opposition to foreign intervention and empire. The most prominent group, although perhaps the least organized, emerged in the period between WWI and WWII. In their day, writers like fierce critic of Franklin Roosevelt, John T. Flynn and the Saturday Evening Post's Garret Garrett were cherished political commentators with wide followings, published in mainstream publications. The Chicago Tribune, owned by the anti-New Dealer Robert McCormick, was a bastion of anti-imperialist patriotism, a concept that would befuddle many talk radio saturated "conservative minds" these days.

The goal of profiling these men is not to document a few eccentrics in the conservative closet. Quite the contrary - Raimondo's goal is to showcase the uniformity of such viewpoints on the American Right and their prevalence just a few generations ago. By "Reclaiming" the roots of an authentically American political philosophy, Raimondo is calling for conservatives to fight against bigness and indeed to rally around "America First".

Pointing to the dichotomy that exists between today's "neoconservatives" and the intellectual godfathers of the original movement, Raimondo is not just arguing against the inclusion of the globalists on the "right" side of the political spectrum, but is in fact arguing that the neocons and their allies in the GOP are literally promoting an alien ideology, that exists outside of the traditional culture and mores of American society. Vanguardists of any stripe cannot be conservative, or even loyal to their own country, and Raimondo clearly believes the contemporary Right is overflowing with folks who are more comfortable with Lenin than they are with traditionalist Republican hero Robert Taft.

In a post-Buckley world, the ideas and concepts of the "Old Right" ought to be considered strongly by conservatives looking for a way out of the wilderness and Raimondo's book is a useful guide to the key figures and causes of that movement. A return to individualism based on private property, non-aggression, and self-reliance was at the center of Ron Paul's youth inspired presidential campaign, and it should surprise no one that this book was a major influence on the Texas Congressman (in fact he provides a blurb for the book).

In the book's last chapter Raimondo writes:

"Yesterday they were New Deal liberals, today they are neoconservatives, but the result of their powerful influence has the same effect; to preserve and expand the specifically American form of incipient fascism which is the welfare-warfare state".

When those words were first written a decade and a half ago, many Americans likely would have deemed them the rantings of a reactionary crank. After eight years of the Bush administration, they come across as the sincere sentiments of a patriotic, principled American. An American Conservative.

Paul Craig Roberts - "The Mother Of All Messes"

2008-07-27T04:32:00.003-04:00

Long time readers of this blog will recognize Paul Craig Roberts as one of our favorite columnists. Though I have never had much use for the supply-side revolution of which Roberts was a driving force, his sharp, polemical, writing style is always a pleasure to read. More to the point, Roberts is one of a very small group of writers that is consistently opposed to the imperial state, both at home, and abroad. For this reason, Roberts columns regularly run in outlets as diverse as Counterpunch, VDare and Chronicles and he fits nicely the motif of this site.

A few days ago, Roberts published a column entitled "The Mother of All Messes", that is one of his best yet. While summarizing the damage done by the GOP Roberts made an interesting point, worth commenting on:

" Republicans view the Constitution as a coddling device for criminals and terrorists. Republicans think the Constitution can be set aside for evil-doers and kept in place for everyone else. But without the Constitution we only have the government’s word as to who is an evil-doer."

...

"However, Democrats, or at least some of them, do care about the Constitution. If it were not for Democratic appointees to the federal courts and the ACLU (essentially a Democratic organization), the Bush regime would have completely destroyed our civil liberties."

Many conservatives who are theoretically detached from modern Republican politics, would no doubt be repulsed by this statement by Roberts. Habit and tradition are conservative traits that one must be wary of breaking to be sure, but as it regards the GOP v. the Democrats, particularly on Constitutional issues, it is time to cut the chord that strangles the head.

The truth is that the Democrats for all their faults do care FAR more about the Constitution than the Republicans do. While the House has Ron Paul, Jimmy Duncan and a few other Republican patriots, in the upper chamber the only member to show a broad knowledge of Constitutional history is West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd. When it came time for the up or down vote on the Patriot Act, Byrd and everyone else capitulated, except for one Dem, Russ Feingold.

The Republican rank and file applauded the repeal of the Magna Carta, as they applauded the unconstitutional war in Iraq. The rank and file Dems on the other hand are seriously worried about civil liberties issues and our aggressive foreign policy. In recent years they have given us Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Jon Tester in Montana, two Senators better than anything the Republicans have offered in nearly a decade.

In 2004 most of the media regarded Al Sharpton's run for the Democratic nomination as a joke. This may have had something to do with the fact that the Reverend ran an issues oriented campaign, something Republican talking heads would reject in 2008 in favor of technocratic, Mormon Messiah, Mitt Romney. In 04 Sharpton acknowledged Constitutional procedure and called for a series of amendments to the Constitution to legalize his liberal agenda. In 08 Romney ran on a quasi-fascistic national health care proposal and a never ending regime of torture and war in the Middle East.

In my home state of South Carolina, the good lord has given us an old fashioned Dixiecrat in Bob Conley. Conley understands The Constitution. In fact he carries one everywhere. He voted for Ron Paul and has no use for the perpetual war state. His opponent, the Republican Lindsay Graham, is a John McCain lapdog who calls those who would defend the border bigots and thinks NAFTA has been a boon for the American worker.

I will vote for Conley in November of course, though I will not vote for Obama. Nonetheless the wind is shifting. Constitutionalists that used to look for a home in the Grand Old Party may want to cut their losses and cast their lot with the party of Jefferson.

I'm back

2008-07-27T04:29:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm back. After a month of very limited net access, I now have full time access. Of course I am way behind on several writing assignments, not to mention how far off pace this blog has gotten, but I'm ready to hit the ground running.

WWJD v. The GOP

2008-07-22T02:50:00.003-04:00

James Dobson's endorsement of John McCain today was sad. While I have never had much respect for Dobson, or folks of his ilk, I had admired his commitment to principle in opposing the cultural liberalism of John McCain. By coming out for McCain this late in the game, the accepted wisdom is that some sort of back room deal was cut. Previous agreements between the "Religious Right" and GOP insiders have not given much to the rank and file Christian voter, but have given an awful lot to the foundation heads and leaders of the various "movement" organizations. One wonders how many pieces of silver Dobson got.

The really sad thing about this endorsement though is what it says about the state of religion in America. When the most respected pastor in the United States advocates voting for evil-lesser or otherwise-the crisis of our most long standing cultural institutions becomes almost comedic. A fundamentalist is by his nature obsessed with principle, tradition, and purity of form. When a fundamentalist tosses out all of the above in the voting booth there are serious problems to say the least.

Dobson's endorsement of McCain not only defies common sense, it is unbecoming of a pastor and arguably unChristian. The presence in the Presidential race of a consistent, cultural conservative, and Baptist minister, Chuck Baldwin, makes Dobson's great betrayal even more disgusting.

Internet returns on Saturday

2008-07-22T02:37:00.003-04:00

This month has been very slow moving here. I've had an unusually large workload and the move has left me without home internet access for several weeks now. Still I've been chipping away at a few projects and in the coming weeks I hope to have a few book reviews up either here or elsewhere if things pan out. I also have a longer piece on the decadent pro wrestling industry in the works for the new LibertyWire online magazine that starts up in August.

Tomorrow I will be a guest of "The Southern Avenger", Jack Hunter, on local radio here in Charleston. The subject will be anti-war conservatism. Bill Kauffman will also be on the show. Expect youtubes in the near future. Also, keep your eyes out for Jack's article in the new issue of The American Conservative on South Carolina Senate hopeful Bob Conley.

More later.

Police quotas motivate unfair treatment

2008-07-12T17:16:00.006-04:00

While driving home from work last night, I was followed for a few minutes by a police car. Although I was traveling just five miles over the speed limit, the moment I saw the police car I tensed up, cringed, waited and prayed he wouldn't pull me over.

I’m willing to bet that if I took a survey, most people would tell me they have similar anxieties when being tailed by the police. That people are unsettled by mere police presence is unsettling in-and-of-itself, especially considering that the main purpose of law enforcement is to “serve and protect.”

Typically, police won't issue warnings or tickets to drivers going a mere five miles over the speed limit, particularly on a busy highway where every almost other driver is doing the same. But that most people cringe when a cop pulls up behind them - even when no laws are being broken - is telling. Drivers not only cringe because they are aware that their fate is completely subject to the sporadic whims, mood and general disposition of that particular officer – but that sometimes police officers are compelled to be more heavy handed at certain parts of the month, issuing fines on the 30th, they would never consider on the 1st – to meet their quota.

Imagine that as a police officer, you simply want to uphold the law and prevent serious criminal offenses, but your own judgment must give way to your department’s policy of issuing a predetermined number of traffic tickets? Though you wouldn't normally pull someone over for certain minor infractions (like speeding a mere five miles over the limit), your own sense of proper justice is replaced by an arbitrary quota.

The justification is simple enough: quotas motivate officers to do their job, but it’s a false justification. Quotas are often rationalized as encouragement for law enforcement, but they also negatively influence the behavior and judgment of police officers, who for a brief period each month, are no longer “serving and protecting” but pilfering, as they become tax collectors for the city.

Many would accuse me of rationalizing my own desire to speed, but this is not the case. As a safe driver in general (I had never been issued a speeding ticket until last year) it still has become obvious that many aspects of modern law enforcement are more about harassment than protection.

Consider my first, recent traffic violation. While working as a chauffeur I was pulled over by a police officer for speeding near the airport. The speed limit was set at a ridiculous 25 miles per hour (I say ridiculous because the limit is still 25 even far removed from the airport where there are no pedestrians) and traffic consistently moves at a speed well above the limit. This is because most drivers assume, due to experience, that the speed limit is likely 35 or even 40 miles an hour. The police are aware of this common mistake – so they’ve set up a speed trap.

As a chauffeur, I have driven by the airport hundreds of times and have never seen an accident there. Is this because the police are constantly there to nail offenders? No, because almost no one drives according to the absurd speed limit along that stretch - that's why they're getting caught.

When I was pulled over, I explained to the officer that I hadn't noticed that the limit was so unusually low, that I was new on the job, and that I had never in my life been pulled over for speeding. I promised to be more careful and asked to be let off with a warning. The officer was unmoved, and instead gave me a $125 dollar ticket.

Why? Because I was a threat? A menace on the highways? I was following the normal flow of traffic on a road where there is no good reason for the limit to be 25 MPH, with nary a pedestrian in sight. Exactly why wouldn’t this particular officer, considering it was my first offense, let me off a warning? Here’s why - It was the end of the month and he had to meet his quota. To dismiss my assessment of what happened as unfairly skewed, or as an attempt to justify my own lawbreaking would be absurd when considering the repeat offenders who are often given warnings the first week of any given month – and yet a stiff fine is issued to a first time offender. I’m sure I’m not alone.

In a more human scale community, where the local officers were actually attached to the community and the people in them, it’s harder to imagine law enforcement harassing their neighbors to please the city treasurer.

Simply put, if there were no police quotas, I would have not been issued that ticket. Imagine a local sheriff, without pressure to issue fines and collect revenue, pulling over a guy from his neighborhood, or even some poor guy from the next town over who was clearly not a repeat offender. A warning to “slow down” would be more likely than a fine, and it would still be enough encouragement for drivers to be mindful of the speed limit. When cops are accountable to the people, particularly their reputations, you get better “service”. In modern, often disconnected, often overcrowded, “communities” (for lack of a better term) where cops are less accountable to the people because they neither know them nor fear them – you get quotas. Drivers become primary sources of tax revenue, not simply a traveling public to be protected.

I’ve even heard of police departments that hold contests where the officer who arrests the most drunk drivers wins a Playstation 3. If this isn't corruption - by encouraging officers to make arrests they might not otherwise - I don't know what is.

Contests, roadblocks, “check points,” and the like, in the end harass more innocent drivers than punish guilty ones, and yet quotas are still considered justified as an appropriate "law enforcement tool." However small, this is tyranny.

Just ask yourself this question; if the crimes of those who are typically punished due to quotas are indeed worthy of punishment, what is the purpose of quotas?

Jared Taylor and White Nationalism

2008-07-04T17:44:00.002-04:00

IQ has nothing to do with the desire to see one’s people survive and flourish. The North American Indians never got out of the Stone Age until the white man came along, but they want their people and traditions to continue. They hope their descendants will dance the snake dance and purify themselves in sweat lodges for ever, and God bless them for it.

My view is no different. It doesn’t matter if immigrants are smarter, better-behaved, better-looking, and superior to us in every way; I still don’t want to be replaced by them. I love the traditions of the West, not necessarily because they are superior but because they are mine, just as I love my children because they are mine, not because they have high IQs.

It is interesting that these words come from Jared Taylor of the "race realist" (White Nationalist) magazine American Renaissance. While I am absolutely sure that Mr. Taylor does in fact believe that his culture and race are superior to others, it is certainly admirable for him to admit that the real issue facing society is whether or not cultural secession and self determination is something that ought to be preserved. Debating the relative merits of one race v. another race in regards to IQ or athletics or anything else for that matter is uninteresting to me because it largely ignores these issues.

The bedrock principles of self government and federalism are predicated on the notion that relatively small groups, of a similar cultural background, ought to determine their own fates by their own standards. One may view Mr. Taylor's language regarding Native Americans as "bigoted", but I do not, nor do I care. The truth is that American Indians DO have the right to have their own social and cultural mores and norms. I imagine in the age of peak oil, industrial decay and resource wars, their lifestyle is much more attractive to a lot of white folks than Taylor may let on, but again the yuppies, working class whites, elites, et. should all have some say in their own affairs.

Of course paradoxically perhaps, this is precisely why an Americanist "White Nationalism" is a non-starter. Such a concept is not going to fly in Harlem or Watts for obvious reasons. We gave away Miami to Cubans in the name of the Cold War. My dad grew up in New Mexico pre-1965, and even then a purely White European culture would have been impossible without a massive suppression of local tradition and customs. A "sea to shining sea" White Nation, cannot happen in the States. On the other hand it could happen in a State or a community which is what the "race realists" ought to shoot for if they are serious.

Lack of updates/Happy 4th

2008-07-04T14:37:00.006-04:00

My apologies for the recent lack of updates. I've been ill and Dylan's been in the process of moving and is still without internet. We are both going to try to get something up here ASAP.

Either way, we want to wish everyone a happy 4th of July.

Here's a great piece by Pat Buchanan on American Independence, and how to avoid losing it.

--Daniel

Re: Daniel, Gas Prices and truly "living local"

2008-06-25T13:45:00.003-04:00

I've never driven a car in my life, and have been walking or riding my bike to work regularly for almost ten years, but I have still decided to move to a less taxing and more "user friendly" setting. The house we are moving to is three doors down from the school my daughter will start attending in a couple of months. There is a bike path immediately behind the house. It runs parallel to a major highway, and connects several neighborhoods and business districts, before ending right at the foot of my wife's place of employment. The house is also almost exactly in between my two jobs, and is within reasonable walking distance of various stores and restaurants (whether one choices to use the bike path or not).

I'm moving this coming week and posting may be slow because of this. I have no clue how long I'll be without internet access, but the move is an exciting one to be sure.

Ralph Nader, White Guilt and Black Nationalism

2008-06-25T13:02:00.004-04:00

Kudos to Ralph Nader for telling the truth about Barack Obama:

He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.

Very early on in this election cycle I realized that Obama's skin color was a huge drawing card for yuppies and hipster, liberal, youth desperate to feel good about themselves by voting for a member of the "oppressed underclass". As Nader notes, Obama is the best of both worlds for voters like this. Obama's blackness allows them to pull the lever for "social responsibility" and "diversity" without having to vote for a populist or "small d" democrat, that might challenge the managerial elite they so desperately cling to.

Mr. Nader also does a fine job destroying the myth of Obama as a "black nationalist". Obama isn't running on a theme of black self-help or community separatism, he is running on liberal internationalism. Obama is no different than Adlai Stevenson, aside from possibly being more of a militarist. Those worried about Obama pulling an FDR and "changing course" once in office, may want to consider what in fact a black radical/nationalist/et. would actually do for America.

The truth is that conservatives, traditionalists and other "small is beautiful" folks, can only dream of an authentic black nationalist getting anywhere near the White House. While black nationalism has its ugly and unrealistic side (the obsession with reparations for slavery, topping the list), the reality of the matter is that the basic program and dominant themes of black radicalism would be a marked improvement for our society. Small bands of self-reliant families, that are reflexively opposed to the corporate cartel class and the big government welfare statism of the modern world do not endanger whites, America or White America. Conservatives who know nothing about black nationalist and black power movements have created a "black radical" straw man, without understanding what in fact such radicalism has historically represented. That the same people who rant about the dangers of an Obama presidency, regularly cite Booker T. Washington as an appropriate model for black Americans, is a telling example of how clueless many of these people are (Obama is above all a globalist. Washington was a conservative black nationalist).

One can safely assume that these comments will get Mr. Nader into as much trouble with certain "civil rights" leaders, as his previous comments on "gonadal politics" got him into with the feminist racket. That Ralph Nader doesn't care what these liberal interest groups think, seems to indicate that on at least some of the "taboo" issues, the American Left is as willing to confront the fallacies of PC culture as is the American Right.

Gas too high? Try human scale communities.

2008-06-25T12:41:00.005-04:00

One of main stories on Yahoo.com on Monday was about a "drastic" way to handle gas prices. The drastic measure? People are moving closer to where they work.

To some, this may seem extreme. But is it really so drastic to suggest that a person live relatively close to where they work and do business? Their is also a huge benefit to living and working in the same area; to do so fosters a sense of community rather than detachment. It is tragic that so many people regard their home as a place to sleep and watch TV, their workplace as the place they must go to make money, and the places in between as merely roadways lined with gas stations, strip malls and fast food restaurants. All of these places should be part of a whole-- a community --but there is no cohesion in modern life.

The problem is that businesses sectors and suburban neighborhoods are often separate. If one shopped, worked and sent their kids to school in the same place, a sense of community would naturally develop. This cannot happen when people live 45 miles away from their job, and send their kids to a school 30 miles away.

This lifestyle of car culture-- where every place that one needs to go is so spread out that driving long distances is the only way to get there-- is unsustainable. It is based on an unsustainable resource: oil. And perhaps the loss of that resource will be a blessing in disguise. If driving becomes inconvenient, perhaps human scale communities will become the norm.

The Yahoo article gives an example of one family who moved closer to where they worked due to rising fuel costs:

"Jason and his wife Tara moved to Orwigsburg from a town 25 miles away. High gas prices weren't the only reason they moved - the couple hopes to start a family and wanted to be closer to relatives in the area."

Maybe rising gas prices will give people an excuse to return to a more human scale existence-- which I believe many people secretly wish for. People will still drive, but at least the temptation to drive over large distances will be lessened.

Montana

2008-06-25T01:48:00.004-04:00

Though New Hampshire is widely regarded as the most independent and libertarian state in the nation, that myth has more to do with its proximity to the Eastern media centers than it does with reality. Out in Big Sky country the most interesting state in the union politically, gets more interesting everyday. Here is the latest development.

Ron Paul draws record crowd to Montana GOP convention

In the last few years Montana has elected the first statewide Constitution Party official Rick Jore and seen Ron Paul finish with over 20 percent of the vote in both the GOP caucus and primary. In 2006 a blue skinned Libertarian Stan Jones got 10,000 votes in a close Senate race throwing the election to the Democrats and the Montana Sec. of State Brad Johnson recently suggested that secession was on the table if the Supreme Court rules against individual gun rights. Just a few weeks ago a fiercely anti-war socialist won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

For months now I have been saying that a third party candidate would be smarter to focus on a state like Montana, than they would be to tour the country wasting money in pursuit of some likely unattainable national vote percentage. A rural state, with a small population, Montana is almost instinctively opposed to bigness, whether it takes the form of business or government (or both). Opposition to the federal government and respect for private property are near unanimous viewpoints in the state, and its citizens appear to be willing to vote on those principles, whereas other folks just talk.

If Bob Barr is smart he will take his funds to the Mountain West, campaign on an America First platform, and try and peel off some electoral votes. It is not as impossible as it seems. In a three or four way race the liberty minded can stage a coup if they are well organized. The state that ignores speed limits seems like the best place to start.

The Post and Courier goes after Bob Conley

2008-06-21T19:09:00.003-04:00

The smear merchants didn't take long to go after Bob Conley.

In today's Charleston Post and Courier, there is a thinly veiled hit piece targeting the allegedly deceptive nature of Conley's status as a Democrat. As first reported in the hysterically pro-Lindsey Graham PandC, "Republican Party officials in Horry County said Friday that Conley won a spot on the county Republican Party's executive committee, representing a North Myrtle Beach precinct, in February 2007." The article goes on to claim that Conley's resignation only occurred when he filed papers to run as a Democrat in the Senatorial primary. All of this is supposed to indict Conley as a fraud, since he previously claimed to have left the GOP years ago over opposition to their policies regarding war, trade and immigration. In actuality it is a self indictment, of an awful newspaper, that couldn't be bothered to cover the primary at all when it was going on, and ought not be treated seriously when it cries foul after the fact.

When Bob Conley says he hasn't been a member of the Republican Party in years I believe him. His position on the Horry County GOP executive committee would normally be damning, but in the context of this political season it is not. Why you ask? Because Bob Conley is a Ron Paul Revolutionary.

Prior to this years Republican Presidential Primary, I had never voted for a Republican for any office (or a Democrat for that matter). I have always regarded the Republican Party as an organization filled with corporate criminals, snake oil salesmen, and war mongering military statists. Sure Warren Harding is my favorite President, and Dwight Eisenhower was the last one that wasn't a complete disgrace, but the notion of supporting a Republican for the highest office in the land would have made my stomach turn. Then Ron Paul came along.

Though I had never identified as a Republican before, and was in fact raised by leftist Democrats, I was a die hard supporter of Congressman Paul and remain so today. Not only did I vote for the man in the primary season, but I seriously considered joining the local branch of the Young Republicans, and formally joining the GOP so that I could potentially serve as a delegate down the road. I did this despite an almost total disagreement with mainstream Republicanism, and it seems entirely likely to me that Bob Conley acted on the same impulses in Horry County.

It also seems likely to me that "Flattop Bob", has come to the same conclusions I have about where the best hope for an alternative politics lies within the two major parties. While I don't hold out much hope for the Democrats, it seems to me to be unquestionable that the base of their support is anti-corporate, anti-elite, and anti-war. Though they have but a few populist patriots taking up these causes with regularity in Washington, recent trends indicate that the number may be growing. I certainly applaud the efforts of the "Ron Paul Republicans" that have run campaigns based on similar principles, but they are running against the grain of a party that has made support of empire its sole litmus test. Conley on the other hand, seems to be swimming with the tide of grassroots Democratic discontent.

As I have noted before, Conley's Democratic affiliation is likely to get him a huge number of spill over, straight ticket votes from black South Carolinians that will turn out in huge numbers to vote for Obama in November. This strategy may come off as stealthy and somewhat dishonest, but in actuality black Americans agree with Conley on most issues, and here in South Carolina some of the most interesting Democratic populist candidates have been black.

Longtime Democratic shills like Waring Howe may claim that Conley is "not really regarded as a very serious candidate", but the truth is that the establishment statists on both sides of the aisle are terrified of folks like Bob Conley. The intent of the Post and Courier article wasn't to expose Conley as a liar, it was a desperate attempt to depress traditionally Democratic voters from supporting someone who is not a multiculturalist, liberal. One can only hope it does not succeed.

Dr. Paul's Prescription Still the Right One

2008-06-19T16:32:00.003-04:00

It's nice to see Ron Paul Republicans (and Democrats) winning primaries. This is an exciting election year and the stakes are high. Here's something I thought of a long time ago and never got around to doing. It's a cartoon by yours truly.

"Dr. Paul's Prescription"-- By Daniel Bein

Dylan on Takimag

2008-06-19T13:37:00.006-04:00

Dylan has a piece up on Takimag.com about SC Senatorial candidate Bob Conley, who some are calling a Ron Paul Democrat. Conley is running against incumbent Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, a typical neocon who is wrong on the war, immigration and just about everything else:

"Maverick Conley bolted the GOP a few years ago over amnesty, war and trade policy and was a vocal supporter of Ron Paul’s presidential bid.

Though his primary campaign was poorly covered by the media (a blessing in disguise), Conley represents a unique combination of dissident, anti-establishment themes running on the fringes of both major political parties and his candidacy is perhaps the best hope for putting a paleoconservative in the U.S. Senate this November."

Read the entire article over at Takimag.

Raimondo on Russert

2008-06-19T12:26:00.004-04:00

Justing Raimondo has an interesting piece on Tim Russert over Anti-war.com. Raimondo is pretty hard on Russert... but he's right. After I watched the interview Raimondo linked to, I was in agreement.

Russert was trying to discredit Paul the whole time. In part two of the interview Russert brings up the topic of earmarks, bombarding Paul with accusations and examples, then REFUSES to allow him appropriate time to explain his position. Typical garbage from the establishment media. Disgusting.

Quotes of the day:

2008-06-18T20:24:00.003-04:00

"People are rallying around the idea of looking out for America first."--Walter Jones

"Just because you don't like a dictator doesn't mean you go to war all the time!"-- Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

2008-06-18T02:06:00.003-04:00

Over the last few weeks, a huge amount of Gore Vidal material has hit the net. At the tender age of 83, the greatest essayist in the history of the Republic also remains the greatest interview. Here is proof.

FEMA: proof that federal bureacracies are inferior to human scale charitable organizations

2008-06-16T17:26:00.010-04:00

By Daniel Bein

CNN has been reporting on yet another blunder by FEMA. This time, the infamously inadequate federal agency has given away 85 million dollars worth of badly needed supplies that were supposed to go to Katrina victims. According to CNN, "Before the giveaway, pallets at a warehouse in Fort Worth, Texas, were piled high with boxes of buckets, boots, cleansers, mops and brooms, as well as clothing, bedding, plates and utensils." James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, originally declined an interview request from CNN because the story was "not news".

After the owner of the warehouses where the supplies were being stored announced plans to tear the buildings down, the supplies were classified as "surplus" and were offered to other governmental agencies and several states, including Louisiana, which, according to FEMA, actually rejected them. FEMA is trying to shift the blame, but what the agency failed to mention is that they did not contact the correct state division within Louisiana-- the one that that actually deals with helping the Katrina victims.

David Paulison, The director of FEMA, also claimed in an interview with CNN, that the supplies were not all meant for Katrina victims. This claim had already been refuted by acting press secretary McIntyre, who told CNN before the story broke, "That is property that was purchased in response to Katrina."

Last week, CNN reported that Martha Kegel, director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, a group that finds housing for Katrina victims, said her group never knew about the surplus materials and is now fighting to get have them returned for the victims.

This latest mess is a classic example of the failings of large federal bureaucracies. By their very nature, these agencies are inefficient and out of touch with the people they are supposed to be serving. Groups like Unity are well aware of the needs of those they are serving, but their efforts are undermined when federal agencies are trusted to secure these items. Donations should have been directed to the folks on the ground who knew what the victims needed, not disconnected Washington bureaucrats.

The corporate media wouldn't dream of disrupting the status quo by stating the obvious fact that the federal government is inefficient and should be replaced by local civic groups, charities etc. But, Senator Mary Landrieu hit the nail on the head, stating "It's just another example of the failings of the federal bureaucracy". Amen.

Tim Russert: RIP

2008-06-13T21:56:00.004-04:00

It may seem strange to some to see an epitaph for a establishment liberal on this page, but the truth is I have always had a soft spot for Tim Russert. While I often times felt he took the wrong side on certain issues, and he was as beltway a journalist as you could possibly get, Mr. Russert was also a legitimately "tough interview" in an era of fluff and sentimentalist, sensationalist garbage. These days you can't expect much from the mainstream media, and Russert did not preform as strongly pre-war as I would have liked, but he did his best to call a scam a scam when the shit hit the fan. On top of that Russert was one of the only major network reporters who would even dream of giving time to folks like Ralph Nader and Ron Paul and his presence in that regard will be sorely missed

Above and beyond all of that Russert was an Irish Catholic, localist patriot of Buffalo, who was unafraid to call his father his hero, and loved his little piece of the Earth more than most of us could imagine. For that alone he should be remembered and he will not be forgotten.

Bob Conley For US Senate

2008-06-13T21:09:00.007-04:00

Can this man win?

Yes he can.

While this blog has not endorsed any candidate for President, when it comes to the race for U.S. Senate, our support will go to the Democratic nominee Bob Conley. As The Southern Avenger points out in his latest commentary, Mr. Conley is not only more conservative than Lindsay Graham (who isn't?), he is in fact a Ron Paul Democrat.

This may seem strange to some, but it shouldn't. I have argued before that the anti-corporate mentality of many "labor" Democrats could be channeled into an authentically pro-liberty message with a little education, and that seems to be Conley's goal. Conley is not only right on war (unlike Graham's primary challenger Buddy Witherspoon), but he is also right on trade, immigration, civil liberties and amazingly enough the Fed! While I myself find many of the social issues to be peripheral at best, Conley is a pro-life, observant Catholic. His slogan appears to be "help me fight the neocons and advance the cause of liberty". What serious paleo or decentralist would ignore that call to action?

No he does not have a lot of money and he does not have a lot of organization, but he has several things going for him. For starters his cultural conservatism and opposition to mass immigration makes him appealing to many traditionally conservative Reagan democrats and disgruntled Republicans. Graham is loathed by both groups for good reason.

On top of that Conley's positions on trade will appeal to many Lou Dobbs-loving, John Edwards Democrats in the upstate. Everyone may have grown tired of the "my dad worked in a mill" narrative from Johnny boy, but the reality is that the textile workers gave him a healthy share of their votes and Conley is in perfect harmony with them on their big issue.

Finally, the huge number of black Democrats that will vote in the general election, will certainly help Conley. Many SC African-Americans vote straight ticket. They are thirty percent of the states population and nearly all of them are Democrats. With Obama on the Presidential line, it is expected that African-American turnout will be at record levels in this state. The trickle down votes to Conley (a man more in line with their views than Obama incidentally), could be huge.

In 2006 George Allen was considered the frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination in 08. He was seen as an insider with enough support from the conservative base to coast through his Senate race and into the White House two years later. When pro-confederate, pro-gun, anti-free trade, antiwar Jim Webb crept onto the scene most people viewed him as a novel curiosity with no hope of being elected. Early polls had him thirty points down. While Webb was more well known than Conley is, Webb wasn't elected because of his status in the Reagan administration. He was elected because he united culture conservatives, populist Democrats and antiwar dissidents in opposition to the establishment beltway Republicanism of his opponent. Graham is a significantly worse version of Allen, with much higher negatives in his home state. Conley is a much better version of Webb, and voted for Ron Paul in the primary season.

Already folks are counting Conley out and treating his campaign as a joke. A friend of his sent me a message today suggesting that he "accidentally won the nomination". One can hold on to that theory if they like, but I believe it was divine intervention and I will do my best to make sure Conley is the next Senator from South Carolina.

Gottfried on Obama's Looming Reign of Terror

2008-06-12T13:06:00.013-04:00

By Daniel Bein

Paul Gottfried's latest piece on Takimag is indicative of a hysterical and illogical fear of Barack Obama, the brown skinned candidate. Gottfried's grim prognostications about 8 years of Obama are far from convincing and he fails to present any real evidence that Barack would be any worse than Hillary Clinton, John McCain etc.

Gottfried writes: "What is scary about Obama, but draws me to him as a well-deserved fate for this country, is that he combines two equally repulsive worldviews, black nationalism, which in the case of his pastor and affirmative-action enriched wife happens to be directed against my race, and the idiosyncrasies of the American social Left."

And: "It is even dumber to think that the useless and spineless GOP or the hitherto obliging media will manage to halt the momentum of what Obama seeks to implement."

The sinister way in which Obama's alleged black nationalism is bound to materialize is not given much attention by Gottfried (and apparently, due to his wife and former pastor's sinister influences, he'll be hostile to the Jewish race-- and here I thought the neocons had the market cornered on the anti-semetic smear).

Just what is it that Obama seeks to implement? I offer this prediction:

Barack Obama will not be much different than any mainstream democrat and will support the same multi-culturalist programs that Hillary and the others would have. There's really no evidence to believe otherwise, unless one is still clinging to the stupid idea that Obama's relationship to Jeremiah Wright actually means that he's a closeted black nationalist.

The other candidate, John McCain, is worse than Obama on the war and on many issues it is hard to tell which one is more liberal than the other. I've got very little affection for Barack Obama (who deserves to be slammed for his kowtowing to AIPAC, among other things), but of the two, I would rather see him in office. Both candidates are potential disasters, but Obama is right on Iraq and doesn't represent the continued hold of Bushite neocons on the White House. Black nationalism is a good straw man to take shots at, but it's not a strong point on which to attack Obama.

Gottfried's piece is entitled Thinking About Obama, but that doesn't seem to be what he's doing at all.

Ron Paul or Bust?

2008-06-12T01:54:00.003-04:00

Does Ron Paul's status as a near perfect candidate for libertarians and small government conservatives mean that everyone else is awful and unworthy of support? According to Lew Rockwell the answer to that question is "yes".

Rockwell is right to criticize Amit Singh or any other candidate for bad policy positions or questionable associations in their past, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water here. Looking for ideological purity from every person expressing a political opinion is not an achievable goal, nor is it a desirable one. Rockwell, whom I generally agree with, wouldn't even hold up to a purity test himself.

Bob Barr, The Drug War and Vincent Kennedy McMahon

2008-06-11T18:11:00.005-04:00

I Was Wrong About The War On Drugs--It's A Failure

It seems to me that this piece serves two purposes for Bob Barr. Firstly it is an attempt to make a direct appeal to young people and others skeptical about his past record as a drug war hawk. Secondly it is to feed some red meat to the overtly conservative-libertarian base, who may be sympathetic to government deregulation of some drugs, but feel that some sort of free market enforcement mechanisms need to be in place to serve as a bulwark against libertinism. That argument may have some validity to it, but pointing to Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment as a successful example of this is horribly misinformed.

To be fair, most people are not pro wrestling fans and have no clue what actually goes on in the industry. Those outsiders who want to examine one of the most bizarre subcultures in American life, have the ability to do so, but it's not pleasant. On the other hand, one ought not write about something from a position of authority if the only source they have is a person paid to live a lie and directly benefits from the narrative they are putting forward. We shouldn't have trusted Ahmed Chalabi on Iraq and we shouldn't trusts Kane on the state of pro wrestlings drug problems (Bob Barr trusted both).

Several books documenting the drug related pathologies of the wrestling business have come out over the years, the latest of which I recently reviewed on this site. Without getting into the particulars of the matter, it is a widely accepted fact within the "industry" that drugs have been a massive problem for years and there is no end in sight. While Barr applauds McMahon for "taking responsibility" for this problem by setting up a wellness program, and enforcing it more rigidly in the wake of the Benoit murders, he misses a few key points.

For starters WWE wrestlers aren't really employees. They are independent contractors who are locked in to extremely tight agreements that are very one sided. Barr foolishly claims that wrestlers unhappy about health exams (and drug tests) are free to leave and go work elsewhere. That simply isn't true. While the company will occasionally grant quick releases to disgruntled talent, it is rare and usually comes only after the wrestlers marketability has been demolished via a literal on-air character assassination of some sort. To make matters worse there is at best one other company in the United States that can offer some degree of economic comfortability, and it suffers from most of the same problems that the WWE does.

On top of all that, the only sort of medical treatment the WWE gives it's "employees" at all is "wellness related". Wrestlers pay for all their own medical bills, their rooms on the road, and most of their travel costs. There are no retirement funds or pensions for wrestlers. In fact aside from the "wellness program", the only "benefit" that the WWE offers to its contractors is a free, all expenses paid trip...to drug rehab. Vince offered this beauty up in the wake of the Benoit tragedy and it is open to anyone who has ever worked for his company. That may be an example of Vince feeling guilty about past sins, but it's not an example of his benevolence as an entrepreneur.

The truth is that there is a worthwhile point to be drawn from the WWE's drug problems and the band-aid approach to healing them, but it has nothing to do with libertarian economics. In fact the WWE is an example of the twin dangers of corporate culture and monopoly capitalism. Vince gets away with what he gets away with because their are no competitors, there is no collective bargaining, and his business is a "con" that people cheerfully watch because it is "goofy". The expendable nature of the performers is of little concern to a society brought up on mass media infotainment and this should really surprise no one.

The current WWE wellness policy is a joke and all long time fans and followers of the wrestling business (both inside of it and outside of it) know this. It is routine for "suspended" wrestlers to come back from their little vacations, working in higher profile settings than they were when they left and making more money then ever. Excessive muscle mass is still the quickest way to get to the top and the tests are easy to cheat. The two big problem drugs in the business, painkillers and steroids, can be consumed at will as long as a doctor note can be secured. I'm a longtime advocate for drug legalization, and I have no interest in regulating the wrestling business, but to hold that up as a model of successful free market enforcement is absolutely insane.

Mr. Barr, you were wrong about the drug war, and now you are wrong about Vince McMahon.

Scott McConnell speaks his piece

2008-06-10T01:22:00.003-04:00

I may not entirely agree with Mr. McConnell's assessment of WWII, but I was still happy to see him set the record straight on the latest paleo rift. Good for you Scott. Long live TAC!

Crazy polls

2008-06-10T00:17:00.004-04:00

Why is Nader suddenly polling at 6% in the CNN poll? I love Ralph and wish people were gravitating toward his message, but I suspect this bump is largely a reflection of the anger some Hillary voters are harboring toward Obama. While I think the majority of these folks will just stay at home in November, I can see people voting for Nader out of spite, just as many angered conservatives voting for Perot out of spite in 92. The irony is that Nader has no interest in the narrow, "gonadal politics" of the organized feminist movement, and yet he may end up getting a huge popular vote total bump as a result of the identity politics wars going on in the Democratic Party.

The only other explanation I can see for this sudden uptick in Nader support, is a bit of buyers remorse from some of the younger Obamaniacs. Obama's core constituencies are young college kids, African Americans, and relatively well educated "progressives". He has two primary selling points with these groups.

The first selling point is that he is black. The mainstream media has been claiming for months that bigoted voters are refusing to vote for Obama because of his skin color, but the truth is that Obama gets more votes because of his race than he loses because of it. It's not just that black Americans are rallying around one of their own in record numbers either. Young liberals and older "intellectuals" are quite open about the reasons they support Obama and "I'm voting for him because I think a black man should be President" is something I have heard multiple times from white, hipster, college kids (I suspect this has a lot to do with these liberals desperately wanting to recreate and live out a 60's-like, civil rights narrative, and this is the least risky way to "take a stand", but that is another post in and of itself comrades).

The second selllng point Obama has is that he has been running as the anti-war candidate from day one. The Democratic Party is filled with opponents of the war at all levels and yet the majority of the parties candidates for President had either voted for the War in Iraq or were wishy-washy about how and when they would withdrawal. Obama was one of two credible exceptions, and Bill Richardson didn't have that black thing going for him.

Now that Obama has secured the nomination though, he is moving quickly to the establishment center on the War. He is talking bellicose toward Iran, pandering to AIPAC and hedging his bets on withdrawal from Iraq. No one is doubting Obama's legitimacy as a black man, but some of those anti-war voters, particularly the young ones, may be loosing faith in St. Barack as a peacemaker. The Lebanese-American Ralph Nader may not be minority chic, but he is right on the war, and if Obama isn't careful this poll could be a sign of things to come.

Re: Daniel and Bob Barr

2008-06-08T17:44:00.002-04:00

Daniel notes that Barr is the only visible reminder of the Paul campaign, but one of the primary reasons I am not sold on Barr is because I find that assumption to be suspect. For starters Chuck Baldwin, who actively campaigned with Dr. Paul, is the Constitution Party nominee. While it is true that "Pastor Chuck" is not a visible, mainstream figure the way that Barr is, he has a lot of credibility with the Paul coalition Daniel talks about. He also has a very large following online due to his status as a longtime columnist for VDare and other sites. Furthermore Baldwin was recently endorsed by Alex Jones. I'm not a huge fan of Jones, but there is no question that he has a lot of clout on the net and in certain anti-government circles. For these reasons and others I think Baldwin's appeal and status is much larger than some may assume.

Secondly and more importantly, one of my primary objections to Barr is that I think he is an absolutely awful representative for the Paul coalition. Let us not forget, the Paul coalition consists of disgruntled conservatives and constitutionalists as well as libertarians and populist leftists. The grassroots of this coalition is very young, but also very committed. If this movement is to be worth anything, it can not afford to lose the young and I am not sold on Barr as a person that can "hold" them.

While Daniel says he is usually an "issues only" voter, I am not. I try and and see what coalition and ideas are being represented by the respective candidates and how things fit. Barr so far as I can tell is trying to appeal to ex-Romney voters and the talk radio set more than he is to Paul supporters.

Thoughts on the Bob Barr candidacy

2008-06-07T17:22:00.005-04:00

By Daniel Bein

I was originally going to use this post to break with Dylan on the Barr issue, but as I wrote, I ended up arguing myself out of it. I think I've ended up somewhere in the middle now (not my favorite place to be). But I see the validity of Dylan's argument as well as the argument that Barr could prove useful.

While I still agree that Barr doesn't stack up well against Paul, I have begun to give further consideration to his usefulness as a third party candidate. Whereas Nader is still as right as he's ever been, Barr, as the Libertarian nominee, is the only major third party candidate that will be a visible reminder of the Ron Paul coalition.

He may not have been the best option for the Libertarian party, and I don't consider his name recognition to be enough of a reason for him to have received the nomination. Still, he is similar to Paul in that he is a former Republican denouncing the party's commitment to belligerent interventionism and governmental abuses. Hopefully this will inspire more libertarian minded people to break ranks with the Republican (war) party.

If Barr hadn't run there would be no (semi-)Paulian voice left this election year other than Nader, who is too easily dismissed. Whether I can pull the lever for him, I haven't decided (as I am usually a strict "issues" voter-- I may have a hard time voting for Barr based on tactical reasons). I may vote for Nader or abstain. But I do believe that Bob Barr has value as a third party candidate.

Barr's greatest strength is that he did what Paul wouldn't do. He defected, and decided to run as a third party candidate. Though he may be less than ideal as a standard bearer, Barr doesn't necessarily hurt the movement as a whole (as long as the standards aren't further relaxed), and he keeps it in the public conscience. I can only hope that Barr does not prove to be a step in the wrong direction and that the standards for anti-establishment candidates continue to climb, rather than fall.

Raimondo on Obama's chilling statements regarding Iran

2008-06-07T15:33:00.008-04:00

Justin Raimondo's latest piece over at Antiwar.com focuses on some very disturbing words from Obama. Barack may be better on Iraq than McCain, but his belligerent language about Iran is chilling.

Obama to AIPAC: "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything."--Barack Obama

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert prepares to ask Bush to assist in attacks on potential nuclear sites in Iran, the Democratic presidential candidate is stating that he will stop at NOTHING to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, even though, as Raimondo puts it:

"Everything" includes murdering tens of thousands of Iranians, mostly civilians – driving the price of oil up above $300 a barrel and destroying the US economy – and involving us in a war that will make the Iraq conflict look like a Sunday school picnic. And for what?

The irony, of course, is that Iran is nowhere near obtaining nuclear weapons, as the President's own intelligence agencies recently informed him: but no matter. That's a small obstacle to those who disdain "the reality-based community," and see themselves as Making History while the rest of us watch, helpless and aghast. As Ha'aretz recently reported"

Dark times are ahead. It seems that regardless of who replaces Bush in '09, the empire will not tone down its war mongering, nor will it even BEGIN to consider the broader consequences of its actions.

Whoever wins in November (though this impending disaster will likely start befor then), it looks like our government will not back away from a disastrous war with Iran... or Syria... or Lebanon... and so on. Screw the American people, and the Iranian people... as usual.

Check out Raimondo's article for more.

PS-- Here is Obama's full speech to AIPAC , which Raimondo also provides in his article. (note that Obama asserts right off the bat that he considers the "bond between the United States and Israel" to be "unbreakable today... tomorrow... and forever.)

More on why Hillary hung around so long

2008-06-06T21:07:00.012-04:00

By Daniel Bein

While surfing the net (desperately hoping, for humor purposes, that someone on a paleo site would suggest that Obama's fist bump, a gesture that originated in black street culture, is further proof that he is a thuggish black nationalist) I came across this short letter, sent to VDare by a New Jersey Republican.

It looks like Jeffrey St. Clair and I aren't the only ones who believe that Hillary's seemingly pathetic, up-to-the-last-second denial of her also ran status is a sign that she has her sights set on the Democratic nomination in 2012:

"If Barack Obama gets blown out in November, Hillary Clinton's, Quixotic insistence on pursuing the nomination past the point of logic could then become cast by her as a heroic effort to save the party from folly thus making her the 2012 “I told you so” frontrunner."

Personally, the idea of a Hillary win in 2012 fills me with dread, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Left Conservative Mission Statement (better late than never)

2008-06-06T20:30:00.003-04:00

By Daniel Bein

Since Dylan Hales and I started this blog I have been trying to articulate in my own mind a concise reason for co-authoring it other than simply voicing random opinions about decentralism/anti-imperialism; opinions that I am admittedly fairly new to in the grand scheme of things, and that many are already familiar with and more adept at promoting. After reading William Appleman William's excellent history, Empire As A Way of Life, I am now fully committed to an explanation.

When scribbling down the idea for my last post at a local coffee house, I realized that many of my recent pieces have revolved around the same central idea, so I may as well express that idea concisely now, rather than continue to run it into the ground. Though I am by no means the originator of this idea, I am becoming increasingly interested in the promotion of it. That is, the idea of promoting a left/right fusionist movement that ignores less critical differences and stands firmly against imperialism, centralization of government power and foreign interventionism.

Though there are individuals of some visibility already calling for this in the blogosphere (please forgive my use of that irritating term) and in certain important conservative publications, I feel that as a young, arrogant, big-government hating Southerner, I should speak up and cast my lot with the others. (Especially when there are many otherwise brilliant and articulate spokesmen for the modern paleoconservative movement that allow themselves to be tripped up by trivial matters and miss the bigger picture; that a left/right alliance is the best way to make headway in a larger fight against the Imperial establishment).

Though I hesitate to use the "term mission statement" because I don't want to condemn everything I produce from this point on to be narrow and overly similar (and will try not to do so), I feel that a statement of my intention is worthwhile. At least as an explanation, primarily for my own benefit, of why I scribble down my ideas and post them online. I can't speak for Dylan (though I feel that he and I are generally on the same page here), but I can offer this as a statement of MY intentions (for what it's worth):

My purpose is to promote the idea of a left/right fusionist movement against The American Empire, as well as centralized government power and foreign interventionism (a movement in the vein of the Buchanan candidacy of '96 and the Ron Paul Revolution of 2008). And to explore the ways in which that movement could be promoted and manifested, and the manner in which it would operate.

There. Not too grandiose, I hope.

Unite in Opposition to Empire As A Way of Life

2008-06-06T20:29:00.000-04:00

Note: at the risk of driving this point into the ground, I'm offering up yet another argument for left/right coalition building.

By Daniel Bein

Today I finished reading Empire as a Way of Life by William Appleman Williams (Williams has become a major influence on my view of American Imperialism. Specifically in understanding that empire, as a way of life, is not a 20th Century, Wilsonian invention).

In Empire Williams makes a brief point that I think deserves some consideration and ties into my post from a few days ago. In describing the varied shades of resistance to FDR's Imperialist machinations, Williams points out that that the "isolationist" camp was widely divided:

"Although they were often lumped together as isolationists by the Roosevelt administration and its supporters, they actually offered a wide variety of proposals, which often conflicted with each other."

He adds: "A wide range of such plans were supported by shifting coalitions among the anti-interventionists".

Finally, Williams makes clear that "Those who supported Roosevelt's various actions... that steadily increased the probability of war came to defend the President on the grounds that it was impossible to have a useful debate with such a hodgepodge of mutually contradictory critics."

Though the differences between them are worth consideration, I take this as a warning that the opponents of empire should focus on finding common ground, rather than reinforcing old prejudices and squabbling with one another over left/right distinctions that no longer matter little when considering greater problems. We can't afford to do this when the establishment left and right are firmly united in their belief that the logic of interventionism and big government Imperialism is gospel.

As Dylan points out of Takimag, casting out dissenters for minor sins instead of trying to form alliances and come to agreements on the best way to fight the real enemy is a waste of time and a disservice to any larger potential anti-imperialist movement (which conservatives and decentralist leftists should agree is essential in these times). We should follow the Paulian wisdom of unity in the face of empire.

Nader on the voting age, Brimelow on immigration

2008-06-05T21:21:00.006-04:00

Ralph Nader has an interesting piece up on Counterpunch where he advocates dropping the voting age to sixteen. While this idea is generally regarded by many conservatives as horrible for a variety of reasons (teens aren't mature enough, it would split families further, et.), I have been a fan of this proposal for years. While I would personally like to see a grassroots movement at the local level promoting civic education from kindergarden to graduation first, a reduction in the voting age would allow for undiluted radical ideas to be presented into American political culture. On top of this it would give kids a stake in their own future and if one assumes statist ideas would dominate, they have no clue what the young generation is up to these days. The young folks gave us Ron Paul, while the greatest generation has given us every entitlement known to man, the national security state and AARP. Let the taxed, but unrepresented youth, vote.

Over at VDare, Peter Brimelow has a piece on immigration up. Obviously that is not a shocker and wouldn't normally be worthy of comment, but it is the text of a speech he gave at a recent conference dubbed "A Liberation Case Against Immigration". Hans-Hermann Hoppe was the conference sponsor and I actually think he does a better job of making a truly libertarian argument against immigration than Brimelow, but the piece is still noteworthy as it is the foremost restrictionist in the world appealing to the anti-statist sentiment for purposes of building an intellectual coalition. This used to be more common among rightists and populists, but lately large chunks of those movements have been wasting time infighting over trivial matters that are for the most part irrelevant. Brimelow should be applauded for his work as usual.

TakiMag v. AmCon Round 2

2008-06-04T22:35:00.007-04:00

TakiMag has run yet another hit piece on The American Conservative, this time delivered by John Zmirak. Expanding on the implied theme of Paul Gottfried's post from a couple of days ago, Zmirak basically argues that The American Conservative has been overrun by liberals and leftists. He also attacks the personal integrity and conservative credentials of TAC editor Scott McConnell, repeating the non-sensical argument (also advanced by Gottfried) that Mr. McConnell is simultaneously anti-Israel and yet desperate for the approval of leading neocon Norman Podhoretz .

As I pointed out in my post a couple of days ago, this line of thought is a rather troublesome leftover of the "movement conservatism" that Gottfried himself acknowledges is of little concern to what he calls the "post-paleo" generation. This archaic "us v. them" mentality may have had some value during the age of the Soviet Empire, but it is largely a distraction now, and TAC is right to treat it as the relic that it is. Still, the charge that TAC is kowtowing to the liberal establishment, is most clearly rebuked by a twenty minute overview of the available facts.

Earlier tonight I logged onto the TAC website, went to the archives section and starting with 2007* worked my way through the contents of each issue. In doing so I discovered that out of 35 issues published in the last year in a half, twelve writers commonly identified as "left of center" churned out a less than whopping number of 23 pieces for TAC. Though I refused to buy into the notion that Scott McConnell ought to be included as part of the "liberal" equation, I tried to use a broad definition of the political left and came up with the following names: Glenn Greenwald, Philip Weiss, John Mueller, Stewart Nusbaumer, Benjamin Barber, Richard Silverstein, Robert Bryce, Mahmood Mamdani, Nicholas von Hoffman, James Howard Kunstler, Uri Avnery, and David Lindorff. Does this sound like a who's who of the "liberal establishment" to you?

More interesting to me though than the names or political backgrounds of the writers listed above, is the actual content they submitted. Were they using the pages of TAC to push a liberal agenda? Not Glenn Greenwald, his pieces were about government corruption, overreaching executive power and the unapologetic nature of the "war pundits". Another multiple time contributor, Nicholas von Hoffman, used two pieces to attack the Clintons, and the rest of the time worrying about the cost of our government and dangerous decisions from the Federal Reserve. The most anti-Republican partisan of the bunch, Stewart Nusbaumer, contributed a grand total of zero political reports (his pieces were all war diaries), and the most explicitly left wing contributor, David Lindorff, wrote a semi-conspiratorial piece about missing nukes and dead soldiers.

In fact of the 23 pieces in question not a single one was explicitly leftist in content. While the argument that TAC tilts toward the Palestinians in the Israel/Palestinian conflict may be supported by the presence of Philip Weiss, Richard Silverstein and Uri Avnery on this list, it is worth noting that Weiss usually focuses on issues involving Jewish culture and assimilation as much as he does the conflict in the occupied territories.

As a long time reader of TAC, I can count exactly two occasions in which I thought the content of a piece was clearly liberal in tone. The first was a piece Taki wrote some time ago on environmental issues. The second was a piece written earlier this year by Fred Reed on immigration. Obviously the TakiMag writers have no problem with their benefactor and Mr. Reed doesn't hear their catcalls either, presumably because he is right on the "national question" (which is to say he believes in the biological explanation for IQ differences between the races and is willing to appear in front of the American Renaissance crowd).

The charges of "predictable" liberalism hurled at TAC don't hold up at all. They are particularly weak coming from a website that is most well known for its ability to grind every subject into the ground and excommunicate long time allies for minor sins (seen Justin Raimondo over there recently?). On the few occasions when TakiMag is "unpredictable" it is hardly trending in a conservative direction. After all, the two most "unpredictable" pieces of writing to appear their were pieces extolling the virtues of Abraham Lincoln's nation building and Paul Gottfried himself pleading for a return to the "Fairness Doctrine".

Mr. Zmirak's political hero is Pat Buchanan. I can sympathize. Pat Buchanan is the first conservative I can remember regularly agreeing with and it was his association with TAC that originally attracted me to the magazine. As a somewhat qualified Naderite, it was the TAC interview Mr. Buchanan conducted with Ralph Nader that completed my conversion from ideological leftist, to left conservative. That sort of fusionism is not impossible or a heresy. Pat Buchanan realized as much when he linked arms with Lenora Fulani and Mr. Zmirak would do well to pay attention to his mentors example.

*I chose this time period, because it has been suggested by some that TAC took a sharp bend to the Left, when Ron Unz took over as publisher in early 2007.

Barr does something right? Arguable, but interesting

2008-06-04T01:35:00.004-04:00

The new Banned In DC blog on Bob Barr's public disassociation with the racialist wing of the paleo movement.

I'm not sure there is any politically graceful way to deny the support of race obsessed supporters (which is one of many reasons, I thought Obama should have just told everyone to go to hell over the Jeremiah Wright fiasco..a sentiment also expressed by BIDC a couple days ago), but it is nice to see other paleo friendly writers making note of the crossroads that this "movement" has reached. BIDC calls the split "racialists v. realists", which I am not entirely comfortable with, but the broader point being made is dead on.

Backwards Thinking

2008-06-03T01:12:00.015-04:00

Daniel McCarthy has an interesting post over at Tory Anarchist documenting the fact that Jim Webb is more libertarian on the war on drugs than the Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr is. Of course I agree with Dan on this and the evidence is pretty compelling, but what is puzzling to me is why this would be surprising to anyone (though in fairness Dan has been a long time supporter of Webb, and isn't really playing the "shock and awe" card in his post).

For a while now I have been pretty hard on Bob Barr, and some of my liberty minded friends have taken exception to this. The accusation is that I am being unreasonable and holding Barr up to a puritanical standard that regards consistency as a more important virtue than conversion, and doesn't allow for politically necessary "nuance" at all. Similar charges have been tossed at both myself, and my friends Jack Hunter and Daniel Bein, because of our opinion of senatorial candidate Buddy Witherspoon. While I understand and agree that politics is the art of the possible, I can't help but think that many of my critics are missing the depth of possibilities available to us, and I am certain that they are misunderstanding my objections to Barr (and to a lesser degree, Witherspoon).

The ups and downs of political trends is interesting. In 2000 the "hip" third party candidate to cast a ballot for was Ralph Nader. While I believe that Mr. Nader is much more conservative than the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party-and is a true American patriot in ways that most modern politicians would find quant- there is no question that the majority of Nader's supporters were liberals and/or leftists. As someone who grew up in a very leftist household, and pulled the lever for Nader in 2000 at the age of 19, I can say without qualification that I was not voting for Ralph because of his views on "corporate pornography" or his qausi-restrictionist position on white collar immigration. Ralph Nader as "Old Right" revivalist is not the stretch some people think it is, but that was not the base of Nader's support and to pretend otherwise is silly.

Eight years later though and the United States is in a totally different place. The massive expansion of government and draconian advances of the Homeland Security bureaucracy have turned huge portions of the traditionally big government left into skeptics. The office of the Presidency is now widely regarded as the most dangerous force on the planet, even by typically deferential American liberals. The military-industrial complex and the Empire are now openly attacked in books, magazines and even amongst certain sectors of the pundit class in ways that would have seemed unimaginable in 2000. In sum the tyrannical overreach of the Bush administration has taught many, including much of the American Left, that big government really is as bad as big business.

The best evidence to support the intensity of this shift was the strength of the Ron Paul campaign and the depth of its constituency. Paul's anti-big government campaign wasn't so much a vanguard movement as it was an expression of already existing anger with the sweeping statist mindset. While it is true that Dr. Paul changed many minds, the grassroots of the Paul movement were largely already converted or semi-converted opponents of the modern monolithic state. Many of them were reared on the decentralizationist Green campaign of Nader or the pitchfork populism of Pat Buchanan and Paul was seen as the next step, the fusionist who could bring them to the promise land.

I am not going to waste time here ranting about the reason Congressman Paul's campaign wasn't able to fully capitalize on this authentic and spreading phenomenon, but I will say that the level of success reached by a candidate running primarily on an opposition to the Empire, the war on drugs and the Federal Reserve was largely a shock to the political know-it-alls and should be instructive. And that is why Bob Barr fails.

Amongst young libertarians, opposition to the war on drugs and American interventionism are the two key issues. What does it say when their candidate, the assumed heir to the Ron Paul throne, is not only shaky on these two issues, but is demonstrably worse than a top VP contender for the Democrats? What does it say for the direction of this movement when its new standard bearer writes essays promoting hemispheric intervention to combat market based crop production in a developing nation, while his FDR-admiring, defeated adversary, speaks eloquently about removing troops and bases from all international countries and terminating the drug war in full? Finally, what does it say when the "party of principle" nominates a man who refuses to admit that his vote to invade Iraq was anything more than a decision made on faulty intelligence (that was used to authorize force in contrast with his understanding of the bill), while one of the biggest war hawks in the country, representing one of the biggest military districts in the nation, is able to publicly admit that he was totally wrong about Iraq, and still win reelection?

Distrust of the Fed, disdain for the war on drugs and contempt for the Empire are the three primary issues that unite the libertarian right and the populist left. They are issues that led to a loose coalition around the candidacy of a pro-life, Texas, Republican, most well known for his outright contempt for federal government spending. I believe that Dr. Paul was right about much more than just the Fed and the War, but the oppurtunity to push that decentralizationist vision forward is wasted when the person who has assumed the helm of the movement is several steps behind his predecessors.

Bob Barr would have been a perfectly acceptable small government, conservative candidate in 2000 or 2004. Many of the ideas, and much of the language he is running on now, would have been revolutionary for the time. But in a post-Raph Nader, post-Ron Paul, political universe, Bob Barr is a step backward. Not back toward the traditional American Republic, but back toward the managerial state and the totalitarian status quo.

Conservatives, get your heads out of the sand: The establishment left and right have already aligned on the side of empire.

2008-06-01T19:49:00.016-04:00

Ivan Eland over at Antiwar.com posted a great piece criticizing the movie Charlie Wilson's War back in January entitled "Charlie Wilson's Warlords". Eland hits the nail on the head, warning of Hollywood's dangerous oversimplification of complicated issues and its tauting of interventionism without examining the consequences.

But Eland also hits on another key point, that the establishment left and right have for years been in line with one another on interventionism and empire. Writes Eland:

"It is ironic that during the Cold War, liberals like Charlie Wilson and neoconservatives like Ronald Reagan agreed on pursuing this costly and interventionist containment strategy. The venues in which they preferred to challenge the Soviets may have differed – the neoconservatives preferred the futile effort to support the Contras in Nicaragua, while the liberals preferred backing the mujahedeen in Afghanistan – but they had the same foreign policy."

As Eland points out, the neocons and the big government liberals both firmly subscribe to the fatally flawed logic of interventionism and big government. There may not be a cohesive alliance (although they did in the case of Charlie Wilson and the Afghan war), but they sure as hell seem to have formed at least a loose one. They squabble over power, but they are both perfectly happy with the advantages they enjoy as proponents of interventionism and the military industrial complex. They are reaping the rewards as allies of empire.

Why then are so many paleoconservatives steadfastly opposed to a tactical alliance with those on the left who are clearly of a decentralist stripe? Should we not put aside certain differences on domestic policy (mostly of a social nature) to fight the far greater threat of continued empire and the inevitable collapse it will bring?

The statist/interventionist Left and right have already banded together in support of empire. Why shouldn't the decentralist/non-interventionist Left and Right band together to save the Republic?

Ring of Hell

2008-05-31T18:56:00.021-04:00

I've been slowly working my way through several books this week and had sworn I would do a straight review of at least one of them, but a multitude of side projects is slowing me down. Still I feel the need to write down some comments on the new book Ring Of Hell, an expose on the twisted world of professional wrestling by Matthew Randazzo V.

Straight out of the gate I should note two things. First I am a huge pro wrestling fan and have been for my entire life. In the minds of some people this disqualifies me from being taken seriously on any matter of importance, but then a lot of those same people think Al Gore is the godfather of environmentalism, and regard Thomas Friedman as a a serious intellectual force.

Secondly Matthew Randazzo has been a friend of mine for years. I first starting discussing the finer points of obscure wrestling bouts with Matthew nearly a decade ago and Matthew's unique, polemical, writing style was tailor made for a book of this ilk.

"What ilk is that?" you ask? Well, it's not a book for fanboys of the pro wrestling industry. In fact the book is a scathing critique of the entire business, using family annihilator and pro wrestling legend Chris Benoit as a prototypical model of the ultra-obsessed "mark" who loved this deranged "sport" more than he loved himself, his family or anything else. It has been compared by some reviewers to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, but I think it is more like H.L. Mencken doing Helter Skelter with pro wrestling being the topic of choice. Lest one think this comparison is a major stretch, the book is categorized as true crime by Barnes and Noble. While Benoit's murderous rampage is only covered in the last few pages of the book, the other 330-plus pages are devoted to exposing the much larger criminal enterprise that is the wrestling business itself.

One of the central themes of this blog has been an interest in decentralism, localism and regionalism and a commitment to the "bigger is badder" ethos of left conservatism. While Randazzo's book clealy argues that the seedy culture of the business predates the corporate takeover of pro wrestling, he reserves most of his more severe denunciations for the big wrestling empires: New Japan Pro Wrestling, the now defunct World Championship Wrestling and arguably the worst of them all, Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment. Reading about dojo murders and their cover-ups, yakuza control of the Japanese market, backstage politicking and ineptitude of the highest order and wild drug binges and sexual crimes all in one book, there is certainly a lot of blame to spread around, but the modern industry is clearly the focus.

It is worth noting that the term "industry" was virtually never used in reference to pro wrestling before the McMahon takeover of the old territorial system in the mid-80's. As someone who has often been accused of neo-luddism, I tend to shudder when I see that term applied to anything, as the word denotes a sort of inhumane, bottom-line approach, that pushes real human needs, wants and desires to the back of the bus. While Randazzo is right to note the ritualistic hazing, torture and generally terrible conditions wrestlers like Benoit were subjected to in the territorial days, one of the more interesting passages in the book comes at the tail end of the fifth chapter when he makes a solid argument that the death of the territories effectively destroyed any hope for a pro wrestling landscape filled with well-adjusted, down-to-earth, family men.

For example Randazzo notes:

"Unlike the NWA territories which kept a wrestler within driving distance of his family at most times, these international brands sent their wrestlers from one end of the continent to the other...This in effect put an end to the camaraderie that had existed in the territories. No longer were wrestlers members of a freewheeling carny brotherhood, a traveling biker gang; now they were interchangeable cogs within a heavily bureaucratic corporate behemoth, cowering in their cubicles in fear of the next downsizing."

In other words, pro wrestling may have always been filled with self-mutilating eccentrics, who's behavior would have been considered bizarre at best, but at least in the territorial days there was some normality, some structure. Not so after the corporate monolith reared its typically grotesque head. Wrestlers were downsized out of the industry or run into early graves all out of "respect for the business".

This "respect the business" mantra is really puzzling to outsiders looking in. After all, one never hears stories of Best Buy shoppers chanting the companies name if they score a good deal on a DVD, or people applauding a coal miners dedication to his craft when his workplace implodes on him. Pro wrestling is literally the only business I know of where both fans and wrestlers are expected to show total dedication to the "product" (another disgustingly inhumane word in this context) to the point of actively celebrating behavior that would be considered barbaric, immoral or insane in any other line of work.

To take one example, Randazzo's book is the first study of pro wrestling to really focus on the ins and outs of training for the business. While many of the details Randazzo divulges about the horrifying conditions of the infamous "Hart Family Dungeon" in Western Canada are known to long time wrestling fans, they would shock the average citizen of a civilized Republic. The even more disturbing stories that come out of the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo have managed to shock even some of the most
"boys will be boys" hardcore wrestling fans. Still, I want to briefly focus on a relatively minor charge dug up by Randazzo that would be considered scandalous in any other context.

While discussing the ins and outs of the dojo training in Japan, Randazzo makes note that world renowned wrestling superstar Jushin Liger would often walk up to helpless trainees and punch them full tilt in the face for no reason. In a chapter where ritual sexual humiliation and outright murders are discussed this does not seem so bad, but lets think about this for a moment. The defense of Liger's behavior has been something along the lines of "hey, wrestlers have to be toughened up and getting hit is part of their job". While it is true that bumps in wrestling do hurt and often times wrestlers do absorb full contact strikes to the head, would this line of defense be considered seriously in any other business? I work in a restaurant, where burns are far more commonplace than are unprotected legitimate punches to the face in the choreographed "sport" of pro wrestling. Still if I had been purposely burned at random for months in order to "prepare me" for the inevitable dangers of the job I would have sued the pants off of the place. In wresting if you complain, let alone sue or fight back, you are tossed out of the brotherhood forever. Just ask Jim Wilson. If you allow yourself to be punched in the ears until you are concussed and bleeding you become a superstar. Just ask Chris Benoit.

Many laymen are totally unaware of the economic realities of the wrestling business. Even most fans have literally no idea that wrestlers do not receive pensions or health insurance from their employers. They do not have a union or any other collective bargaining agency and the paranoid nature of most of the performers almost assures they never will. For the most part they pay their own travel expenses and are required to get themselves from place to place while keeping up with their hectic road schedules. When these details become known the most common response is "regulate it", but would that help?

Regulations would likely have the same effect on the independent wrestling companies that they had on small artisans and farmers during the Progressive Era. In other words it would make them extinct. This would strengthen McMahon and the corporate class even more and would leave those concerned few who take the lives of pro wrestlers and their families seriously back at square one. In light of these facts Randazzo's implied call for abolition hardly seems crazy.

The modern wrestling industry has no true parallel historically, but I like to compare it to Hassan I Sabbah and The Assassins. Vince McMahon is the "Old Man On The Mountain" himself guaranteeing glory, immortality and honor, but dispensing only copious amounts of drugs and loose women. His empire promotes placelessness, if not outright homelessness, in service of an undefined "greater good". The Assassins were promised heaven. What the hell is McMahon really promising other than a place for long time marks to fulfill their fantasies by showing their creepy level of commitment to a business that leaves their bodies broken and homes shattered?

Hassan I Sabbah is said to have uttered "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted" moments before his death. It is hard to imagine a more chilling and accurate epitaph for Chris Benoit and the wrestling industry at-large, but if one is to be found Randazzo's book will be the Rosetta Stone.

Problems with Lukacs's review of Buchanan's latest book

2008-05-31T10:54:00.009-04:00

By Daniel Bein

The recent review by John Lukacs of Pan Buchanan's latest book "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World" has generated a great deal of controversy as of late. As Dylan pointed out, much of the criticisms have been aimed at the editorial staff of The American Conservative for publishing the review. I'm going to let Dylan deal with that can of worms for the moment (as he is likely far more suited to the task) and focus on the review itself.

I will also leave the debate over attacks on American Conservative's editorial staff and Lukacs's larger body of work and his views on nationalism and anticommunism etc. to the folks over at Takimag (who are, I must admit, more familiar with the subject matter). For me there were other problems with Lukacs's piece that are of interest. I will address two of them here.

Though Lukacs's review focuses on his disagreement with Buchanan that intervention in WWII by the US and Britain was a mistake (Buchanan believes it was), my first problem with Lucaks's piece is not precisely relevant to the WWII debate, but is worth noting because of it's implications regarding what I consider to be the larger issue... the scope of US Imperialism. The problem is one that I always feel the need to address; It is the thesis that American Imperialism truly began in the 20th century.

Lukacs claims that "the reaching out of American power all over the world, the fact that there are now American bases and missions in more than 700 places around the globe, the building of a 600-ship Navy, etc., began with Eisenhower...". Whereas Buchanan (according to Lukacs) seems to believe that the conversion of the American Republic to the American empire began with George W. Bush. The problem is that both arguments ignore the fact that US Imperialism is a theme that began with the founders and has continued ever since. The massive military build up Lukacs describes may have begun with Eisenhower, but the empire did not. This fact always seems to be glossed over in debates about America's later and more international imperialist ventures.

But it is always worth remembering that Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Madison, Monroe, Polk, etc. were all interested in extending the bounds of the American empire. They believed it was the only way to ensure freedom and prosperity for the American people. Wilson, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush all worked to extend this concept (which was already a central theme in American foreign policy) overseas in the name of spreading that freedom to others. I believe there is a problem with limiting the critique of American imperialism to 20th and 21st century presidents.

But back to WWII and my second gripe: the primary weakness of the pro-WWII argument...

Lucaks accuses Buchanan of basing his arguments around half truths. Lucaks supports his indictment with the following:

The British decision to offer an alliance to Poland in 1939 was a hasty one, replete with unintended consequences. Partly true. Hitler did not wish to destroy the British Empire. Partly true. He did want to destroy Communism and the Soviet Union. Partly true. Churchill was a warrior; he was obsessed with the danger of German power. Partly true. Hitler wanted to expel Jews from Europe but not to exterminate them, at least not while the former policy was still possible. Again, partly true. Or in other words, true but not true enough.

The critical flaw with this line of reasoning is that he admits that these arguments are partially sound, but in the next breath assumes that they are not sound enough to justify NOT going to war. But if these are half truths, then the counter arguments are only half true. In my view, rock solid arguments are far more necessary when JUSTIFYING war than when backing away from it. When the arguments are not solid and war is on the table, it is infinitely wiser to err on the side of caution. The Cold War logic that waging war in areas that are being overtaken by the bogey man is an act of caution necessary for preventing disaster has been proven wrong. Disaster always follows when war is waged in the name of prevention (I can't help but point out that preemptive war was something Ike said he would never take seriously).

Until preemptive war and imperial adventurism is dismissed out of hand, and to err on the side of peace, not war, is considered to be a necessary error made on the side of caution, we are in for more war and more shoddy justifications for US imperialism. George W. Bush is the inheritor of and imperial way of thinking that has plagued this country in various forms from the beginning. The most powerful weapon used by the imperialists is the fear of a bogeymen that will get us if we don't get them first.

TakiMag v. AmCon

2008-05-29T22:11:00.008-04:00

The latest pile on attack over at Taki's Top Drawer seems to be aimed at the editorial staff of the American Conservative magazine for the negative review published in its pages of the newest Pat Buchanan book. The review was assigned to John Lukacs, a known hysterical opponent of WWII non-interventionist arguments and a fanatical devotee of Winston Churchill. Since Buchanan's book is a direct critique of the diplomatic and strategic failings made by Churchill in the lead up to WWII and the cause and effect of said actions, it is not surprising that Lukacs would dump on the book. For that reason and others I agree with many of the general criticisms made of the review itself by Marcus Epstein, Richard Spencer and others over on Taki's site. On the other hand the latest offering by Paul Gottfried on the subject is a string of paranoid nonsense and typically anti-leftist hysteria from an otherwise brilliant man.

Gottfried has long argued that alliances with the left are a devils bargain for true conservatives. I am not going to suggest that such an argument is totally absent of worth, but in an environment where the terms "left" and "right" are rarely defined in a meaningful way, it is hard to see how a rigid adherence to such definitions does anyone any good. I have privately thought for sometime now that Gottfrieds now somewhat infamous epitaph for paleoconservatism was a thinly veiled acknowledgment that the newer waive of decentralist, small government, "conservatism" had been influenced to one degree or another by ideas that are considered "leftist" by many traditionalist/movement conservative types, and that Gottfried was uncomfortable being directly associated with that. This latest essay only confirms my suspicions.

The piece is basically a collection of silly charges against the American Conservative magazine, by a member of its editorial board, who has consistently had full page ads for his latest book appear on the back cover of the biweekly. Why would someone who has obviously benefitted from the existence of such an unconventional, paleoesque, magazine accuse it of being "predictable" and "often formulaic", and even go so far as to say that "on most other matters, the American Conservative rarely stands to the right of the neoconservative press"? I don't know for sure, but I suspect it has something to do with Gottfried's absolute contempt for the idea of a Left-Right alliance.

Gottfried seems to think that the magazine's decision to allow an occasional leftist submission is a sign of trying to kowtow to the "liberal establishment". This might make sense, if Kirkpatrick Sale, David Lindorff or Phillip Weiss had any power within such an establishment. The problem with Gottfried's argument is of course that they don't. In fact of the identifiably leftist contributors I can recall appearing in the pages of the American Conservative, none has the mainstream media exposure or public persona, of Pat Buchanan, the very man Gottfried and co. have been defending so fiercely all week.

The real problem of course is that Gottfried is obsessed with the American Left, and yet knows next to nothing about it in its contemporary form. An expert on American Conservatism, Gottfried has made excellent points about neoconservatism being an outgrowth of liberalism. I find these points to be basically undeniable. On the other hand Gottfried's consistent conflation of various leftist strains with establishment liberalism and the managerial state mindset is a critical failing of his, and in fact was a critical failing of the "movement conservatism" that Gottfried rightfully notes plays little role in today's "post-paleo" movement (Gottfried however is a product of "movement conservatism). The truth is that when it comes to understanding the existing political landscape Gottfried is much closer to neoconservatives like David Horowitz, than Kirkpatrick Sale is.

Sadly Gottfrieds views on the left, seems to have infected his thinking on other issues. For example, try and make sense of the following excerpt from today's piece:

The same magazine [The American Conservative] is also vehemently against the war in Iraq, indeed so much so that its tirades are often formulaic. Almost every issue has at least one piece on the war, and often by authors who have made similar denunciations in earlier issues. On most other matters, the American Conservative rarely stands to the right of the neoconservative press, and its tendency to feature fairly conventional leftists suggests for me that the editorial staff is trying to build up a following among liberal establishment journalists.

What does this even mean? Is Gottfried suggesting that the neoconservatives are covert war opponents? After all if AmCon "rarely stands to the right" of the neocons, but "almost every issue" contains an anti-war piece, what other conclusion could be reached? Later in the piece Gottfried suggests that the magazines current editor Scott McConnell actively seeks the goodwill of those he admires, including leading neocon and Commentary magazine guru Norman Podhoretz. Yet earlier in the piece Gottfried says "the magazine is usually predictable, for example, in opposing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and in supporting the Palestinian cause, sometimes to the point of playing down Palestinian violence." Again, what does this mean? Is it possible to believe that a magazine which takes a consistent anti-occupation stance regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict could possibly be openly seeking the approval of known Israeli-firster and anti-Arab bigot Norman Podhoretz?

These seemingly inconsistent views can only be explained one way. Gottfried thinks the American Conservative magazine has been taken over by leftists. Thus his real argument (implied at times, but never clearly stated) is that the anti-war position of the magazine is not based on conservative principles, but on leftist principles. AmCon does not attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of Podhoretz on war, but rather on certain social issues where the magazine has at times taken libertarian positions. The absence of evidence for Gottfrieds claim is irrelevant, because AmCon has committed the sin of publishing leftists and liberals and thus must be the victim of an ideological takeover, just as the neoconservatives took over the "conservative movement" that Gottfried was once a prominent member of. That Gottfried himself has publicly defended the continued occupation of Iraq for purposes of national honor, and seems to be indifferent to problems caused by the occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel, apparently does not make Gottfried someone who "rarely takes stands to the right of the neoconservatives" because he is a product of that "conservative movement"..the very movement that the post-paleo, descendents of the "Old Right" have no use for (according to Gottfried that is).

In other words the real sin committed by The American Conservative is that they "get it". AmCon is virtually alone among the major paleo outlets in realizing that a tactical alliance of decentralist leftists, populists, libertarians, and conservatives is not only a good thing, but is a necessary thing if progress is to be made on any common goal. The inability of Gottfried and co. to come to this obvious conclusion suggests a paranoid political mindset leftover from the Cold War. AmCon hasn't been taken over by leftists, its just that they aren't stupid and don't want to refight the "movement" wars of years gone by. To Gottfried and his ilk that is unacceptable, and that lack of priorities is sad.

One final note on the subject of the TakiMag v. AmCon issue. Last year Taki himself vanished from the pages of AmCon for reasons that were never explained. Soon thereafter Chronicles took up his column. Last week TakiMag announced that they will begin publishing Pat Buchanan's syndicated column and featured a long excerpt of the previously mentioned book as a feature article. Given all of that, one has to wonder what sort of behind the scenes issues have been going on with both of these journals and why have they now evolved into a public pissing contest?