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Thread ID: 6283 | Posts: 32 | Started: 2003-04-22

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Texas Dissident [OP]

2003-04-22 07:31 | User Profile

[url=http://www.vdare.com/gottfried/fact_checking_notes.htm]A Pat On The Head For Jonah![/url]

by Paul Gottfried

Jonah Goldberg has complained (March 17) that if he had an Irish name (perhaps like his mother’s maiden name?), malicious paleos would not be throwing it around. As someone who coined the term “Goldbergism” to describe current Beltway conservatism, and who has renamed National Review the “Goldberg Review,” I thought I might try to explain – and to offer him one pat on the head, since he seems to be so easily hurt.

I for one don’t care what Jonah calls himself. There are two reasons I identify neoconservative ideology and NR with this bumptious youngster. Neither has to do with anti-Semitism. Please note: unlike Jonah, I had two Jewish parents. My father barely escaped the Nazis by getting out of Central Europe in the 1930s.

Firstly, I am paying Jonah a high honor. Unlike Cal Thomas, John Podhoretz, Mona Charen, Michael Novak, Rich Lowry, and Sean Hannity, Jonah regularly engages in a process that definitely resembles thinking aloud. And, occasionally, he has interesting, or at least revealing, things to say.

Secondly, I do not want to misrepresent NR, as does its promotional literature, as "William F. Buckley Jr.'s premier journal of conservative political opinion." Buckley is about as much of a presence by now at NR as the cleaning lady who tidies up the magazine’s headquarters. Years ago, this idol of my adolescence handed his movement and magazine over to others - as Taki recently learned to his regret when his longtime skiing pal did not protect him against David Frum’s attempt to anathematize him recently in NR. Buckley is not in the forefront of anything anymore - as his columns, which read like neocon blotting paper, might strongly suggest.

By “Goldbergism,” what I have in mind is the relatively coherent rationale for a leftist revolutionary movement.

For that is what neoconservatism is. The reason the self-defined Trotskyist editors at Le Monde published on April 16 a lavishly laudatory feature article [Le stratège et le philosophe, April 16, 2003 Le Monde]on the Straussians and neocons - something they would never dream of doing for a real American or European conservative - is that they recognize the family resemblance. Unlike Buchanan or the Flemish separatists, whom Le Monde and the French neocon daily Le Figaro attack as xenophobes, Le Monde’s self-described former Trotskyist chief, Edouard Plenel, knows global revolutionaries when he sees them. Thus Le Monde asserts that the Religious Right “skirts anti-Semitism,” but it presents the neoconservatives as “brilliant” and fundamentally opposed to “fascism” (a Trotskyist-neocon code word for the Right).

Similarly, the anti-Communist Jewish liberal Sam Tanenhaus focused his attention (April 16, Slate) on the Trotskyist theme of “permanent revolution” that he and others have found to be at the heart of neocon policies and rhetoric. (Tanenhaus, following the sacred principle that paleoconservatives should never be credited with anything, attributed this insight to derivative liberal interpreters.)

And the New York Times religion editor Ian Buruma has just devoted a long column in the London Times (April 19, If we ruled the world: a tale of two revolutions) to making the same argument.

Thus my term “Goldbergism” designates a particular leftist sectarian tradition, like “Lovestoneites,” “Trotskyists,” or “Bernsteinians.” That all these leftist sects were descended from Jewish founders redounds to our ethnic credit. One would not expect Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, or Cal Thomas to found anything of note. Indeed, neocon goyim seem to be picked for their invincible stupidity—or for never straying from a prescribed neocon position.

Now allow me to call admiring attention to a few near-thoughts in Jonah’s April 18, 2003 syndicated column. [“Conservatives want change--when it's necessary”]

In it, Jonah complains that he is baffled by “the inconsistency of the anti-war liberals.” He’s right. If such liberals were consistent about their leftism, as he says, they would want to “fix the problems of other countries” universally - which is the neocon project. Jonah wants to spend our savings “tearing down the crack houses of the world,” e.g. Iraq.

In all of this, the neocons have shown themselves to be consistent leftists. Without frontally challenging the left at home - and indeed while celebrating a radicalized American government and society - neocons work to spread our form of “democratic modernization” throughout the world. Michael Ledeen, who is a fave at NR, tacitly pays homage to Trotsky’s concept of permanent world revolution when he praises America’s alleged universal commitment to “creative destruction.”

What prevents the non-neocon multicultural left from behaving with the same cultural confidence is that they are reluctant to go after Third World, non-Christian thugs. The multicultural left applies a double standard, as Goldberg correctly observes, when judging non-Western tyrants.

Goldberg also correctly observes that

“anti-war conservatives have consistent and defensible priorities. They don’t want to muck about with too much stuff abroad because they’re afraid we’ll track the mess back into our own homes.”

This is true, although it does need elaboration. Paleoconservatives believe that the Euro-American managerial state is incompatible with national identities, or with traditional constitutional limits on administrative power. They are also deadly serious about the wish that Jonah expresses only ritualistically (“I'd like to shrink the size of the federal government by, I dunno, half? Two-thirds?”), in the way that Mario Cuomo nominally deplored abortion while actually supporting feminist demands. And paleos are firmly against the alliance between interventionist administration and globalism, whether externally in the form of wars to spread “democracy” or internally in the form of the dissolution of historic nations through non-traditional immigration.

The paleocons would like nothing better than to defund the governmental export of “creative destruction.” They are therefore willing to ignore foreign “crack houses” - providing that we make no effort to import them.

I am glad to see Jonah concede the legitimacy of the paleo position. But has he checked with David Frum recently?

Assuming that Jonah actually realizes what he has said, I would like to offer him some advice, as a paleoconservative who had no moral objection to the attack on Iraq.

Generally, the paleoconservatives were indeed reluctant to go to war against Iraq. I believe that, by presenting the war as an ideological crusade, NROnline kept turning off paleos who might have been persuaded by rational, geopolitical arguments. For example, the Old Right is full of white Southerners who take pride in their Confederate forebears. Thus they must have been shocked to learn from NRO’s Victor David Hanson that General Sherman’s March to the Sea was a moral precursor of the American liberation of Nazi Germany and Iraq. And a majority of paleos do not take retroactive pleasure in U.S. participation in the First World War. Unlike the neocons, they do not believe that the First World War pitted good against evil or that it was a “crusade for democracy.” My own family fought on the losing side in that struggle – as did Leo Strauss.

By linking the war against Iraq to certain neocon fixations, Goldberg’s buddies made their mission to the Old Right that much harder.

They compound this when they smear their rightwing critics as “anti-Semites.”

Paleos who were susceptible to intimidation have already gone over. The rest are beyond being browbeaten–and they have long memories.

Paul Gottfried is Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College, PA. He is the author of After Liberalism, Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory, and Multiculturalism And The Politics of Guilt: Toward A Secular Theocracy.

Walter Yannis

2003-04-22 08:36 | User Profile

One would not expect Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, or Cal Thomas to found anything of note. Indeed, neocon goyim seem to be picked for their invincible stupidity—or for never straying from a prescribed neocon position.

Tilt!!

Walter

Franco

2003-04-22 22:51 | User Profile

Gottfried is the "good cop" in the good cop/bad cop game [i.e. to gentile Paleos].

I do not like the fact that many gentile paleos take Jewish "far-rightists" seriously, e.g. The Occidental Quarterly featuring "far-right" Jewish writers.

I have a policy that we WNs, and paleos, all need to adhere to: No Jews, Just Right [tm].

Okiereddust

2003-04-23 04:38 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 22 2003, 22:51 **I do not like the fact that many gentile paleos take Jewish "far-rightists" seriously, e.g. The Occidental Quarterly featuring "far-right" Jewish writers.

I have a policy that we WNs, and paleos, all need to adhere to: No Jews, Just Right [tm].**

Guess you guys don't think much of Das Fuehrer (aka Adolf Rothchild Hitler) then :hit: :thd:

Franco

2003-04-23 06:16 | User Profile

Okie --

Oh, the old "Hitler was part-Hebe" story, huh? Riiigghhhtt....

"No Jews" in the paleo movement...none....nope....zero....

:hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit:

il ragno

2003-04-23 11:14 | User Profile

Christ on a pogo-stick! Give it a rest already, Franco!

Turns out Jonah G's mama is not of The Tribeâ„¢! Do you know what that means?

It means Jonah Goldbug is not a landsman....no matter how haimish he feels wearing a tfillin-and-yarmulke ensemble!

**http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg101998.html

I agree with Mr. Farrakhan, we should look a little deeper below the surface of his allegations. Because if we did, we would discover that among other things, Lucianne Goldberg is NOT JEWISH. She’s an Episcopalian who never converted when she married my father. I was raised Jewish at my father’s insistence and my abiding satisfaction. **

Jonah may be satisfied....but authentic, he's not. Somewhere out there is a black-garbed Mendel responsible for asterisking the products of "bestiality" in the Big Book Of Jews...and Jonah, baby, seeing's how your daddy done consorted with a "beast of the field" Common Gentile, I'm afraid the Circle-K brand is upon you, boychik. (PS -don't bother reaching for a crucifix when things get tough for your Pop's side of the family. We don't recognize you either.)

Franco

2003-04-23 19:40 | User Profile

Old Rabbi saying: "half-a-hebe better than no hebe at all."

Or: "some sheenie DNA pumping thru the ol' bod is better'n none...."

[hummm, hummmm -- humming the love theme from "Gentleman's Agreement".....]

Okiereddust

2003-04-24 04:23 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 23 2003, 06:16 **Okie --

Oh, the old "Hitler was part-Hebe" story, huh? Riiigghhhtt....

"No Jews" in the paleo movement...none....nope....zero....

:hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:  :hit:**

Franco, since when have you understood anything about paleoconservatism, much less claim to embody any of its characteristics?

Besides, even assuming for the sake of argument that it had dogmatic anti-semitic tendencies, how could you go so far as to claim these demanded the systematic exclusion of Jews, when even National Socialism worships a Rothchild as a god? :hit: :thd:

Faust

2003-04-24 06:46 | User Profile

il ragno,

Good God! Jonah is Lucianne Goldberg's child! :blink:

Wasn't Lucianne a "Monica Lewinsky" type in her younger years??

by the way I think monica's mother was a goy too.

Franco

2003-04-24 19:17 | User Profile

Okie -- I was a paleocon. I since outgrew that....

:hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit:

Okiereddust

2003-04-24 21:23 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 19:17 > "No Jews" in the paleo movement...none....nope....zero....**

Okie -- I was a paleocon. I since outgrew that....

:hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit: :hit:**

Since you've outgrown the movement, what makes you think you still are cognizant to determine what paleoconservatism is and is not?

Franco

2003-04-24 21:42 | User Profile

Okie --

Heh, heh, allow me to define paleocon: an old-style, 1950s-type Protestant conservative who is [sometimes] not afraid to name the Jew, the fag or the Black, unlike today's wimpy Reaganites who care only about making a buck on Wall Street or saving a few in a tax shelter. Further, "race" means nothing to a Reaganite wimp. Reaganites are not paleos. CofCC members are paleos. True paleos are a rare breed today.

Okiereddust

2003-04-24 21:55 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 21:42 **Okie --

Heh, heh, allow me to define paleocon: an old-style, 1950s-type Protestant conservative who is [sometimes] not afraid to name the Jew, the fag or the Black... CofCC members are paleos. True paleos are a rare breed today.**

Not particularly specific or clear, but whatever it is, you've outgrown it anyway. You think you're grandfathered in to the paleo country club by virtue of your past experience?

If your such an expert on paleoconservatism, you ought to be able to tell us the differences between it and white nationalism.

PaleoconAvatar

2003-04-24 22:29 | User Profile

If your such an expert on paleoconservatism, you ought to be able to tell us the differences between it and white nationalism.

Isn't white nationalism basically a sub-set of paleoconservatism? If you go back far enough in this country's history, say before 1913, anyone identifying themselves as "conservative" would readily agree that this is (was) a White Man's Country.

"White Nationalism" can only really speak to the "National Question" constellation of issues: race, immigration, and the like. WN doesn't really have an official set of positions on non-racial issues, such as how to interpret the Constitution, etc. Of course, all public issues are at some level interconnected, so I'm sure you could say a certain economic policy or a certain foreign policy might best maximize the survival and advancement of Whites, but those issues still remain only tangential to race.

Franco

2003-04-24 22:29 | User Profile

Okie say: "If your such an expert on paleoconservatism, you ought to be able to tell us the differences between it and white nationalism."

Okie, Okie. Ya must think I'm a really dim bulb, don'tcha? What an insult.

Ok, I 'll play your little game.

A White Nationalist is concerned about race ONLY. Politics take a big backseat, if any seat at all. "Nationalism" means "acting as a race or ethnic group to further that group's interests."

Paleocons, on the other hand, are largely POLITICAL, with some racial awareness and actions thrown in.

There -- satisfied, homedawggy? Don't insult me from now on....and everyone knows that was your aim...

PaleoconAvatar

2003-04-24 22:34 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 17:42 ** Okie --

Heh, heh, allow me to define paleocon: an old-style, 1950s-type Protestant conservative who is [sometimes] not afraid to name the Jew, the fag or the Black, unlike today's wimpy Reaganites who care only about making a buck on Wall Street or saving a few in a tax shelter. Further, "race" means nothing to a Reaganite wimp. Reaganites are not paleos. CofCC members are paleos. True paleos are a rare breed today. **

More often than not, your definition fits the situation today, but that's only accidental. Paleos don't have to be Protestant, for example, or even Catholic. There are pagan paleos, although they don't advertise this too loudly so as not to fracture their coalition with said Christians.

Also, the "1950s" is too recent a timeframe to encapsulate the Authentic "Old Right" with any justice. Try pre-WW2. "1913" is one of my favorite benchmark years to use.

And as far as the "sometimes" in naming Jews, Blacks, and other millstone-like groups that drag down the White American body politic, the frequency of the naming increases as you go back further in time. The older, the bolder, so to speak.

You're correct that the CofCC can be called paleos, and you're correct about the uselessness of the Reaganites and any of the two major parties and their lackeys.

PaleoconAvatar

2003-04-24 22:38 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 18:29 ** Okie say: "If your such an expert on paleoconservatism, you ought to be able to tell us the differences between it and white nationalism."

Okie, Okie. Ya must think I'm a really dim bulb, don'tcha? What an insult.

Ok, I 'll play your little game.

A White Nationalist is concerned about race ONLY. Politics take a big backseat, if any seat at all. "Nationalism" means "acting as a race or ethnic group to further that group's interests."

Paleocons, on the other hand, are largely POLITICAL, with some racial awareness and actions thrown in.

There -- satisfied, homedawggy? Don't insult me from now on....and everyone knows that was your aim... **

Race only vs. political? It's either/or? You see, I'm a very greedy man--I want the whole enchilada. You bet that race is central--I agree. But I want everything else, too. I want my "isolationist foreign policy," too. I want my "protectionist trade policy." I also want my "racism" and "xenophobia" served up with a nice big side-helping of "sexism," and that means I want to repeal the 19th Amendment and strip women of the vote (along with the Jews, I count the female vote as another instrumental factor in ushering in the Death of America during the 20th century). I want it all.

il ragno

2003-04-24 22:48 | User Profile

Isn't white nationalism basically a sub-set of paleoconservatism? If you go back far enough in this country's history, say before 1913, anyone identifying themselves as "conservative" would readily agree that this is (was) a White Man's Country.

Yes; when you said "America", the "white" was implied. It wasn't shied away from; it was just so universally understood that to actually add "white" to "nation", when referring to America or Europe, was pointless repetition.

Where the strict paleos come up short is their adoption of public disdain, however mild or tentative, for the enunciated concept of 'white'. Partly this is caution, but part of it is (inadvertant?) internalization of that disdain. Hey, repeat a function often enough, by rote, and it becomes part of you.

But what Franco doesn't grasp is his one-note stridency, and his constant adolescent 'challenges' to everyone in cyberspace to out-Jewbash him at all times or be found wanting, drives people away in droves. And the funny thing is it equally alienates the already-converted! Bad enough that the Jews have persuaded our own to think of us as sister-climbing retards in overalls.....but handing them ammo when we're already pinned down by enemy fire is goddamned inexcusable.

PaleoconAvatar

2003-04-24 23:00 | User Profile

Yes; when you said "America",  the "white" was implied. It wasn't shied away from; it was just so universally understood that to enunciate 'white' was to repeat yourself.

Precisely. That "universal understanding" part is the key--that's part of how we lost it; it was taken for granted and over time our enemies chipped away at that assumed knowledge base to the point that some people today won't even believe me when I tell them of "the way we were." In 1913, if you'd told the average American citizen what 2003 would be like, they'd say, "It'll never happen." Tell someone in 2003 about 1913 and they'll say, "It never happened."

Where the strict paleos come up short is their adoption of public disdain, however mild or tentative, for the enunciated concept of 'white'. Partly this is caution, but part of it is (inadvertant?) internalization of that disdain. Hey, repeat a function often enough,by rote, and it becomes part of you.

Exactly. As I see it, a key task for right-wing/paleo/WN/un-PC (or whatever the hell you want to call opponents of ZOG's status quo) activists is to serve as the nation's "institutional memory," and attempt to recover the "universal understanding" discussed above. Remind people of what they've lost, and show people that there's an alternative--"it didn't have to be this way."

And yes, part of doing that entails pointing out the culprits where appropriate, showing exactly who is responsible for "queering" America racially (and in every other dimension as well), why they did/do it and how they benefit from it. And of course it's the Jew--one clue is the way they're the first to scream that it wasn't them.

Okiereddust

2003-04-24 23:08 | User Profile

Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 22:29 **Ok, I 'll play your little game.

A White Nationalist is concerned about race ONLY. Politics take a big backseat, if any seat at all. "Nationalism" means "acting as a race or ethnic group to further that group's interests."

Paleocons, on the other hand, are largely POLITICAL, with some racial awareness and actions thrown in.

There -- satisfied, homedawggy? Don't insult me from now on....and everyone knows that was your aim...**

Actually it was a serious question, and if are a little bit vague you're not the first one. Maybe I was a bit flippant. But with that caveat, you still have not answered my question very well about the political vs. racial, which your answer here is predicated on.

** > Originally posted by Franco@Apr 24 2003, 19:27 **Okie said: "This"? What do you mean by "this"?

Actually, Okie is correct in questioning that -- toss him a bone. I did mean the Jewish neocon movement by "this," and NOT the WN movement. But Tex was on a roll so I let it alone.

However, "this" can apply to BOTH WN and neocon movements. They are both RACIAL movements, not political movements. Both seek to advance racial interests first and foremost.

Ya want just politics? Listen to Rush Limbaugh or join the Republicans on the beach [bounce, bounce, bounce......"pass the sunscreen, Buffy!" "Oh, you're so handsome, Biff!" "Let's go to Stan Goldbergstein's house later -- he has some neat ideas about the 2004 Convention!"].

**

Sort of odd to hear anyone on these types of forums to make such a distinction between cultural things such as race and politics, let alone a Linderite totalitarian. After all Hitler said, "the entire duty of man is to serve the (his racialist) state". Like any other totalitarian ideology, it recognizes such distinction between the political and non-political man.

Although the standard definition of politics is

the art or science of government

A more clear definition in Merriam-Webster is

the total complex of relations between people living in society

What part of politics would you think race wouldn't be involved in, and what part of race would be "non-political"? I don't think you can really name anything that meets these criteria.

[url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=28&t=7458&view=getlastpost]Among the NeoCons[/url]**

il ragno

2003-04-24 23:13 | User Profile

Remind people of what they've lost....

...and what they can have back, if they're willing to admit that they want it back.

.....and show people that there's an alternative.....

...that is so realistically attainable, our fathers and grandfathers lived it!

Okiereddust

2003-04-24 23:22 | User Profile

Originally posted by PaleoconAvatar@Apr 24 2003, 22:34 **More often than not, your definition fits the situation today, but that's only accidental. Paleos don't have to be Protestant, for example, or even Catholic. There are pagan paleos, although they don't advertise this too loudly so as not to fracture their coalition with said Christians.

Also, the "1950s" is too recent a timeframe to encapsulate the Authentic "Old Right" with any justice. Try pre-WW2. "1913" is one of my favorite benchmark years to use.

**

Some of these basic definitional questions about what a conservative is or isn't, as opposed to merely anecdotal descriptions, can be found here, adapted from Russell Kirk

**[url=http://www.suba.com/~rcarrier/revcon.html]Revolutionary Conservative - What's That?[/url]

Conservatism is not ideological, but principled When I say that there are conservative principles, I am not saying that there is a conservative ideology.  The conservative does not conceive of his principles as describable in detail independent of a particular political and cultural context.  Conservatism does not admit of applicability in a manner indifferent to time, place, or history.  Although conservatism does have general principles, what is primarily conserved are institutions, and these are diverse.  Conservatism therefore differs in flavor from place to place and from time to time, and one flavor cannot be reduced to another.

Diversity in flavor does not entail incoherence at the level of principle, though.  Although applied in a diversity of ways in a diversity of contexts, conservatism does possess a coherent body of principles.  One formulation of these principles is presented by the late Russell Kirk in his magisterial work *The Conservative Mind*:

(1) Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience.  Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems....

(2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems...

(3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society."  With reason, conservatives have often been called "the party of order."  If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum....

(4) Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all....

(5) Faith in prescription and distrust of "sophisters, calculators, and economists" who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs.  Custom, convention, and old prescription are checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and upon the innovator's lust for power.

(6) Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress.  Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman's chief virtue, according to Plato and Burke, is prudence. (pp. 8-9)

Conservatism is not reactionary, but pious