Democracy Then
Conservative Scott McConnell writes in The American Conservative that he fears the spread of fascism -- in our own country. He's joined by fellow conservatives, Paul Craig Roberts, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo, and even Fritz Stern:
...Rockwell (and Roberts and Raimondo) is correct in drawing attention to a mood among some conservatives that is at least latently fascist. Rockwell describes a populist Right website that originally rallied for the impeachment of Bill Clinton as “hate-filled ... advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now.” One of the biggest right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of Arab cities. Letters that come to this magazine from the pro-war Right leave no doubt that their writers would welcome the jailing of dissidents. And of course it’s not just us. When USA Today founder Al Neuharth wrote a column suggesting that American troops be brought home sooner rather than later, he was blown away by letters comparing him to Tokyo Rose and demanding that he be tried as a traitor. That mood, Rockwell notes, dwarfs anything that existed during the Cold War. “It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth—not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.”
Be sure to draw Cathy Seipp's attention to this article. On Dennis Miller's show last week, she said something in her remark on Johnny Carson about how comedians joking about the president on TV is proof that the left is wrong about the "crushing of dissent" in this country (if anyone on the left thinks that "dissent" = jokes about the president, they'd better start looking for a new job).
Lena at February 7, 2005 7:07 PM
The left thinks all kinds of nutty things. But re Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo (I'm not familiar with the other names): they are not conservatives but famously nutty large-L Libertarians. American Conservative magazine caters to the paleo-conservative branch of isolationist anti-semites; in fact, American Conservative editor Pat Buchanan no longer writes for National Review, becaues NR got disgusted with his anti-semitism a few years ago. So I wouldn't really trust anything from that magazine.
Cathy Seipp at February 8, 2005 7:22 PM
Extreme right-wingers were calling for pre-emptive nuclear attack in the '80s too -- remember "with enough shovels"?
But yeah, it is pretty sad if dissent is solely represented by comedians saying "nuculer" and "internets."
LYT at February 8, 2005 8:11 PM
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