← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · xmetalhead
Thread ID: 18480 | Posts: 14 | Started: 2005-06-01
2005-06-01 21:04 | User Profile
[B][SIZE=4]Who Is Winning the Culture War?[/SIZE] [/B] Friday, May 27, 2005 [url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157952,00.html[/url]
[I]This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," May 25, 2005, that has been edited for clarity. [/I]
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In "The Great Debate" segment tonight, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (search), who works at a television network I can't remember the name of, has a new book out called "Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Administration and Hijacked the Bush Presidency." Wow, what a title.
But what we want to know from Mr. Buchanan is if the left is really winning the culture war? Pat Buchanan joins us now from Washington.
I'm right in the middle of this culture war. In fact, my next book is going to be called "Culture Warrior." And, you know, I'm right in the middle of this thing and I didn't know I was losing.
PAT BUCHANAN, AUTHOR, "WHERE THE RIGHT WENT WRONG": You are losing, Bill.
O'REILLY: Am I really?
BUCHANAN: Well, look, in the battle against Marxism (search) and Leninism, in economics and politics the Western civilization won, the United States won. The Soviet empire collapsed. But what I called cultural Marxism and militant secularism are clearly winning in the United States of America.You just did that ad by Paris Hilton (search). That would never have been shown in the '50s or '60s in the United States. If you take a look at the pornography and the filth that pours into American homes and you see the consequences in divorces and broken families and delinquency and all of the rest of them.
There was a communist known as Antonio Gramsci in Italy who argued that this is the only way that Marxism is going to win. And I have to say they are sure making progress and I think they're on the offensive.
O'REILLY: Yes, but in the totalitarianism regimes of China and the Third Reich and Stalin, they didn't want any of this stuff. I mean, they knocked this stuff out.
Franco in Spain. I was in Spain when Franco was in power. Man, they didn't want any of that. Even in Singapore. The totalitarianism regimes did not want them. So what's the difference here?
BUCHANAN: What's the difference here is that this is sort of, if you will, soft Marxism. And what it's done is replaced Christianity. You know, a culture is a product of a cult. Western civilization is a product of Christianity.
And Gramsci and the others realized they had to de-Christianize the culture. They had to change values. They had to make people think differently, and then the citadel of western civilization would collapse.
If you look at western nations, there's not a single one today, Bill, that's got a population that is not dying out. And I think if you take a look at the culture we have now, compared to what we had in the 1950's, you cannot say that is progress.
Especially when you see folks that are cutting off their TVs or throwing them out. They're not going to movies; the language is filthy. I think you take a look at the popular culture and you can't say we're winning.
O'REILLY: All right. Now, the secular progressives who were at the forefront of promoting this kind of behavior -- and I'm going to ask you why in a minute -- will point to the declining pregnancy rate among teens. It's going down. Crime rate's going down. Education scores are going up.
And they're going to say, "Hey, we can digest this kind of stuff, and it's not going to have a pernicious effect on our society." How do you answer that with the stats?
BUCHANAN: Well, take a look at the stats. You have something like more than two thirds of all African-American children are born out of wedlock. It was only eight percent in the 1940s. Something like a third of white children and 40 percent of Hispanics or maybe 50 percent. And you've got all these attendant social problems.
Now I'm not saying we lose every battle. You know, the battle of gay marriage, you win it at the ballot box. But the idea you'd be talking about homosexual marriages -- in the 1950s nobody would believe it.
So I think what is happening is there's no doubt that the left is making tremendous progress. We win some battles, but I believe we're losing the war.
O'REILLY: Now, the vanguard, the panzers of the left, are the press, the elite media, The New York Times, L.A. Times, L.A. Times column by this nut -- what's his name? -- Robert Scheer -- attacks the Catholic Church for opposing gay marriage and saying the pope is an awful guy. And they're all a bunch of hypocrites.
I've never figured out why The New York Times and The L.A. Times or even network news, which doesn't actively promote secular progressivism but certainly is comfortable with it, why they want to change the society in that direction. Do you know why they do?
BUCHANAN: Well, do I know exactly why? I'm not exactly sure, but I can tell you this.
The elites, you mentioned the media elites. But you take the culture elites in Hollywood and New York. You take the academic elites. All of them have been converted to what we used to call the counterculture in the 1960s.
In those days Reagan and Nixon could roll up 49-state landslides. Conservatives, social conservatives can't do that now. We're 31-state landslides.
It goes back, frankly, to the French revolution, the ideas do, and even before. And it is fundamentally, deeply anti-Christian, anti-Catholic, because it rejects the values and beliefs and what those cultures basically created in the west. That's why it's cultural Marxism. The great enemy of Marxism is western civilization.
O'REILLY: But you don't know why the people at The New York Times want to promote this kind of behavior? You don't know why, what the genesis is? Because I don't. I have to confess, don't know why.
BUCHANAN: I mean, let me say this, Bill. I can't understand how someone, even an atheist who disagrees with me, is going to want to put this filth in the movies.
O'REILLY: Yes, why would anybody want...
BUCHANAN: There's filth on television.
O'REILLY: Right. Why would anybody want gangsta rap to go into the poorest neighborhoods in the country and teach kids who are already disadvantaged and largely unsupervised, in some cases, how to curse, sell drugs and carry weapons? Why would any corporation want to do that? We know they make money. Why would they?
BUCHANAN: The corporations are basically, they are animals. I mean, they're like sharks. They swim and they eat and they feed or they die. The corporations make money.
But why the elites converted to this idea -- and you can go back to Robespierre. You go back beyond him to Rousseau. All of these ideas you find, in my judgment, of basic war against the ideas and the philosophy that is rooted in Christianity.
And if you take that down and destroy that in the hearts, minds and souls of people, you get what we got today in a significant part of our society.
The question is, why do they so hate it and why do they want to bring it down? I don't have the answer to that question, why it's in these people's hearts to do that. When they see the consequences, as you point out...
O'REILLY: Yes, very damaging.
BUCHANAN: You see what gangsta rap does.
O'REILLY: Tremendously dangerous to society, with no judgments made about any behavior. Just read "Lord of the Flies" and you're going to know what kind of behavior you're going to get.
BUCHANAN: Exactly.
O'REILLY: Very interesting, Mr. Buchanan, as always. "Where the Right Went Wrong." Pick up Pat's book. And we appreciate it.
BUCHANAN: Thank you, Bill.
Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the "Radio Factor!"
[I]Content and Programming Copyright 2005 Fox News Network, L.L.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2005 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, L.L.C.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.[/I]
2005-06-02 06:19 | User Profile
Yeah, them Frenchies are to blame for it all: Robespierre, Rousseau, frog fags like that.
You go git them Cheese Eatin' Surrender Monkeys, Paddy Boy! :dung:
2005-06-02 11:29 | User Profile
Who's responsible? Why, it's the Liburrals! It's them damn Secular Humanists! It's the Pagans! It's the Hippies! It's the Elites! It's the French! No sir, there's no Evil Anti-semites around here, boy. Them joos is God's Chosen People, y'know.
2005-06-02 12:43 | User Profile
Well Pat did mention Marxism and Leninism as well as Gramsci as West-killers, but to even mention Robespierre and the French Revolution, to France-hater O'Reilly and Fox News Droids nonetheless, without mentioning Boas, Strauss, Freud, or thousands of others of their ilk?? Oh, Pat, Pat, Pat.
At least O'Reilly plugged Pat's book. Even if a few Foxdroids decide to pick it up and read it and learn something, it's good.
2005-06-03 01:26 | User Profile
Do not be too hard on Pat, I know I have attacked him a number of times, his errors are almost always caused by his misplaced loyalty to the his Church, the US government and the GOP. All three of the instructions are undeserving of his loyalty due to their marxist nature but he can not let go. He knows the turth but he can not admit it to himself I fear. He has written more good article than anyone else in the mainstrean.
2005-06-08 18:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE=N.B. Forrest]Yeah, them Frenchies are to blame for it all: Robespierre, Rousseau, frog fags like that.
You go git them Cheese Eatin' Surrender Monkeys, Paddy Boy! :dung:[/QUOTE]
Does this mean that Boas, Adorno, Marcuse, Horkheim, and Benjamin were Frenchmen? Live and learn!
Buchanan is actively trying to join the Republican mainstream again and play the part of the good Republican on TV, and what better way to do so than to attack the favorite bete noir of the Faux News neos?
2005-06-08 20:07 | User Profile
I liked these parts[QUOTE=xmetalhead]
BUCHANAN: What's the difference here is that this is sort of, if you will, soft Marxism. And what it's done is replaced Christianity. You know, a culture is a product of a cult. Western civilization is a product of Christianity.
And Gramsci and the others realized they had to de-Christianize the culture. They had to change values. They had to make people think differently, and then the citadel of western civilization would collapse........
O'REILLY: ....... I've never figured out why The New York Times and The L.A. Times or even network news, which doesn't actively promote secular progressivism but certainly is comfortable with it, [B]why they want to change the society in that direction. Do you know why they do?[/B]
BUCHANAN: [B]Well, do I know exactly why?[/B] [B][SizE=2][U]I'm not exactly sure[/U][/SIZE], but I can tell you this.[/B]The elites, you mentioned the media elites. But you take the culture elites in Hollywood and New York. You take the academic elites. All of them have been converted to what we used to call the counterculture in the 1960s.
.....It goes back, frankly, to the French revolution, the ideas do, and even before. ....................
O'REILLY: [B]But you don't know why the people at The New York Times want to promote this kind of behavior? You don't know why, what the genesis is? [/B] Because I don't. I have to confess, don't know why.
BUCHANAN: I mean, let me say this, Bill. I can't understand how someone, even an atheist who disagrees with me, is going to want to put this filth in the movies........
O'REILLY: ..... [B]Why would any corporation want to do that? We know they make money. Why would they?[/B]
BUCHANAN: The corporations are basically, they are animals. I mean, they're like sharks. They swim and they eat and they feed or they die. The corporations make money.
But why the elites converted to this idea -- and you can go back to Robespierre. You go back beyond him to Rousseau. All of these ideas you find, in my judgment, of basic war against the ideas and the philosophy that is rooted in Christianity.
And if you take that down and destroy that in the hearts, minds and souls of people, you get what we got today in a significant part of our society.
[B]The question is, why do they so hate it and why do they want to bring it down? [/B] [B]I[U] don't have the answer to that question,[/U] why it's in these people's hearts to do that.[/B] When they see the consequences, as you point out... [/QUOTE]Pat does get in some cryptic talk about the elites. But when O'Reilly starts asking the tough questions [B]"Why would the elites want to do this"[/B]Pat is stuck - "duh I don't know, that's just the way they are, going back to Robespierre".
Well at least we know that Pat actually knows quite well, he's just afraid to say it. If he quits dancing around the "J" word he probably won't be on O'Reilly or anywhere else very long.
2005-06-08 20:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]I liked these partsPat does get in some cryptic talk about the elites. But when O'Reilly starts asking the tough questions [B]"Why would the elites want to do this"[/B]Pat is stuck - "duh I don't know, that's just the way the are, going back to Robespierre".
Well at least we know that Pat actually knows quite well, he's just afraid to say it. If he quits dancing around the "J" word he probably won't be on O'Reilly or anywhere else very long.[/QUOTE]
Okie, you bring up an interesting point. Do you think O'Reilly was trying to bait Pat into giving a politically incorrect answer to the repeated question "Do you know why.....?" I wouldn't put it past O'Reilly to try to discredit a real conservative like Buchanan....a conservative who has no problem criticising George W and his beloved Neocons and their pet project Israel.
As repulsive a man as O'Reilly is, he certainly knows the correct answer to his own questions.
2005-06-08 21:01 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Okie, you bring up an interesting point. Do you think O'Reilly was trying to bait Pat into giving a politically incorrect answer to the repeated question "Do you know why.....?" I wouldn't put it past O'Reilly to try to discredit a real conservative like Buchanan....a conservative who has no problem criticising George W and his beloved Neocons and their pet project Israel.
As repulsive a man as O'Reilly is, he certainly knows the correct answer to his own questions.[/QUOTE] I'm not sure how close O'Reilly is in his own mind to the answer, or what exactly he thought he might find. But re reading the transcipt he was definitely looking around, sniffing, for something. When a journalist asks the same question several times, there's something going on here.
I wouldn't doubt the O'Reilly was digging for something here. But its part of the general cat and mouse game I've noticed a pattern on regarding Pat on TV. People are always looking for an opening with Pat to get him to slip up, and Pat is very sensitive to this and drops back a little to his stock cover up. Whenever you see someone referring to ancient/distant historical figures (not just the French, [I]but 18 century French[/I]) I suspect that's part of what's going in.
The question O'Reilly is asking is a logical question of course for conservatism. Conservatives tend to be hiererchial - trusting the elites. What exactly is it that are so untrustworthy about our elites? Why are they set against the nation?
I'm sure O'Reilly, like anyone else in the top media, has his own up close and personal perspective on the situation, gained from experience, which he knows he had better not open his pipsqeeck mouth about, especially with his past scandals now. And I'm sure bring Pat down wouldn't hurt him with his bosses.
2005-06-08 21:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Okie, you bring up an interesting point. Do you think O'Reilly was trying to bait Pat into giving a politically incorrect answer to the repeated question "Do you know why.....?" I wouldn't put it past O'Reilly to try to discredit a real conservative like Buchanan....a conservative who has no problem criticising George W and his beloved Neocons and their pet project Israel.
As repulsive a man as O'Reilly is, he certainly knows the correct answer to his own questions.[/QUOTE]
Buchanan is either playing a very clever game or trying to serve two masters (i.e. his beliefs vs. the GOP establishment). Either way he obviously has to watch what he says very carefully in order to get air time. Spouting nonsense about Robbespierre is his way of earning the right from the media and party apparatchiks to talk about Amen Corners and pen "Who's War" once in a while.
2005-06-08 21:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]Buchanan is either playing a very clever game or trying to serve two masters (i.e. his beliefs vs. the GOP establishment). Either way he obviously has to watch what he says very carefully in order to get air time. Spouting nonsense about Robbespierre is his way of earning the right from the media and party apparatchiks to talk about Amen Corners and pen "Who's War" once in a while.[/QUOTE]Well don't get too hard on Buchanan for slipping back into historical and philosphical vagueness. Even Sobran, like I noted on his essay [URL=http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showpost.php?p=114473&postcount=4]How Tyranny Came to America[/URL] sometimes can't venture to bring up anymore than references to [I]The Merchant of Venice[/I] when he discusses the problem, and Sobran now has comparatively and pretty much practically nothing to lose now.
In truth, the jewish question is not an easy or simple one, and Pat is just trying to do something that is so unquestionably part of conservatism that it is accepted pretty much [I]prima facie[/I] even by neoconservatives - just refer to the larger subversive political and social problems jews are a part of, without mentioning them by name - a coyness that O'Reilly is definitely onto when we review the transcript.
Of course Buchanan faces a certain dilemma. Once you publically raise a problem, you are obligated to take sides and put forth a solution, even if it isn't an easy one for you. A less evasive answer would squarely align them with the WN's - who rather obviously at this time have some major problems of their own.
2005-06-08 22:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Well don't get too hard on Buchanan for slipping back into historical and philosphical vagueness. Even Sobran, like I noted on his essay [URL=http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showpost.php?p=114473&postcount=4]How Tyranny Came to America[/URL] sometimes can't venture to bring up anymore than references to [I]The Merchant of Venice[/I] when he discusses the problem, and Sobran now has comparatively and pretty much practically nothing to lose now.
In truth, the jewish question is not an easy or simple one, and Pat is just trying to do something that is so unquestionably part of conservatism that it is accepted pretty much [I]prima facie[/I] even by neoconservatives - just refer to the larger subversive political and social problems jews are a part of, without mentioning them by name - a coyness that O'Reilly is definitely onto when we review the transcript.
Of course Buchanan faces a certain dilemma. Once you publically raise a problem, you are obligated to take sides and put forth a solution, even if it isn't an easy one for you. A less evasive answer would squarely align them with the WN's - who rather obviously at this time have some major problems of their own.[/QUOTE]
Well, Buchanan could have given an answer along the lines of the Frankfurt School and its disciples. That would still be a political argument rather than an explicitly ethnic one, and it's one that the neos would have a hard time attacking (i.e. if they attack a rightwinger for talking about FS, they come across as sympathetic to the Frankfurt School, which isn't politically profitable for them)..
I know what you mean about Sobran being frustrating. I was rather shocked to see him pen an article taking Buchanan, Francis, and Brimelow to task for their opposition to Mexican immigration, legal or not (this stance probably has more to do with his libertarianism than his Catholicism, otherwise Buchanan would be singing the same tune too).
2005-06-08 22:57 | User Profile
It has been awhile since I saw this segment, but I would almost swear that part of it has been edited out.
2005-06-09 01:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]Well, Buchanan could have given an answer along the lines of the Frankfurt School and its disciples. That would still be a political argument rather than an explicitly ethnic one, and it's one that the neos would have a hard time attacking (i.e. if they attack a rightwinger for talking about FS, they come across as sympathetic to the Frankfurt School, which isn't politically profitable for them).. Well he talks about cultural Marxism, but chooses to cite Gramsci. That is the same way a lot of conservatives pundits do. I think for instance Limbaugh likes to talk about Gramsci.
Clearly it baffles non-conservatives to hear conservatives always talk about this obscure Italian communist of the 30's when really Frankfurt School types like Adorno, Benjamin, Fromm and Marcuse are genuine cultural icons at least among the educated elite, unlike Gramsci, who only radical fetchiscists discuss to my knowledge.
In fact its really very rare for any mainstream conservative to discuss the Frankfurt School. Read NR for 30 years and never remember a peep about it. The only reason I can think of is that mention of that or similar jewish communist (Trotsky) is immediately jumped upon by the jewish groups. I remember them whining once just because Ronald Reagan of all people had once accussed Hollywooders not of being communist or Stalinists (that's OK for a right-winger) but Trotskyites.
But you're right - its a mine field, and Buchanan had a golden opportunity to attack it, but ducked it. I can't blame him though, in unrehearsed situations, for being cautious. I can smell a response from O'Reilly just waiting i.e.
O'Reilly:
"you mention the Frankfurt School. All those people were jewish weren't they? What are you saying Pat? Haven't you been accused of this before? The Goldman-Sachs remark, calling Capitol Hill 'Israeli occupied territory' etc. Aren't the phrases you use "the elites" , "Hollywood", the NY media" really just code word for "evil jews"? " You aren't going to be able to dress up your anti-semitism here Pat. You may have thought you'd gotten away with it, but I won't let you get away with it here. This is a 'no-spin zone', and tonight I'm putting a stop to it once and for all."
Can't you imagine O'Reilly relishing in the publicity "O'Reilly factor definitely exposes Patrick Buchanan as anti-semite?"Do you trust that guy reading that exchange?