Taki's Magazine

Is It a Revolution?

2009-09-24T09:55:23Z

The doctor shoved the syringe into the old man’s neck. He collapsed in convulsions before lying still. The Grim Reaper cackled surprisingly loudly in the background, as President Obama (or at least someone with a mask that looked like him) danced in celebration at the macabre spectacle. “There goes the media,” said one of the protesters in disgust as the cameramen predictably ran over to film the farce.

We were outside the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland, protesting President Obama’s latest attempt to smear some lipstick on his effort for healthcare “reform.” A hardy band of about 15 University of Maryland students, fiscal conservatives all, were joined by a protestor from DC FreeRepublic holding aloft the Stars and Stripes and the Gadsden flag. At some distance on one side were Randall Terry and his cadre of homicidal doctors and grisly Specters of Death. On the other side, holding the ubiquitous Obama-with-Hitler-mustache signs were a few of the thousand yard stares of LaRouche PAC. Despite rolling their eyes at the other protestors, the students were pleased with the action, confident that President Obama’s speech could at least not be reported as being received with unanimous support by the campus. The emotional pleas by several Campus Progress activists (wearing their official George Soros funded t-shirts) for the media to “stop covering them” went unheeded.

In miniature, this was the Taxpayers March on Washington on September 12, and pretty much every Tea Party protest that has surrounded the healthcare townhalls. There was even that same liberal guy with the giant Public Option Now sign and the shirt with slogans in Hebrew. Every possible facet of the Right has at least implicitly supported these actions, mostly because it centered on precisely the most wonkish, uncontroversial, easily controlled, and most unanimously supported aspect of modern conservatism—limited government. In other words, it centers on the kind of harmless tinkering with the welfare state that the Conservative Movement is all about. From the tax-cutting leftists at Cato, to LP members, to Sarah Palin-loving conservatives, to College Republicans, every single possible person and faction is showing up to these protests, with nary a disagreement between them. Everyone at the protests is reasonably satisfied about how they are going. At the same time, it has attracted those who the Movement either wants to keep some distance from or cast out from respectable society altogether. Hence, the faux horror of leftists who find a sign that upsets their tender sensibilities in a gathering of (depending who you believe) 70,000 to several hundred thousand people.

The reaction of the left and the respectable right has been predictable but also fascinating. There is a certain amount of “point and stutter.” (The now famous James O’Keefe defined activism for me years ago as. “Putting a camera in somebody’s face until they do something stupid.”) This strikes me as unfair as it is effective, especially with large-scale protests. It is so easy to exploit agent provocateurs, attention seekers, or outside groups riding off the work of other organizations. Still, the other side will always do this (as we always will to them) and there is no sense objecting.

Of course, particularly for Takimag writers and others on the Alternative Right, it is also so easy to simply say “screw respectability” and embrace those officialdom have sentenced to wailing and gnashing of teeth. The exaggerated declarations of shock and outrage, which always come across comically on the intertubes, make it difficult to take a respectability campaign seriously. On the other hand, somewhere around the time one of the LaRouchies (LaRouchites?) was telling me that it was actually the British monarchy behind the Obama “death panels,” I began to sympathize with the Jon Henkes of the world and began subtly maneuvering myself out of the frame as a cameraman attempted to take a picture of me reading a LaRouche flyer with a giant Obama/Hitler in the background.

All activism or modern political debate consists of is baiting, tricking, or capturing your political opponents doing or saying something outside the mainstream. Then you use manufactured moral outrage to limit his or her access to the public. That’s it. This is a huge disadvantage for the Right because our margin of respectability is so thin, whereas the leftists can almost say whatever they want, short of advocating child prostitution. It is not a great thing that there are looney groups at the Tea Party, but that is how these things work, and it is only the Right that is forced to apologize for them. Hence, being a member of a communist group called STORM is not extreme, but pointing it out is. The Conservative Movement should grow up, understand this, shrug off the name calling and rejoice in the irrational fear of the Left.

Still, as always, the Left gets it more than the Right. Huffington Post readers are obsessed with two things—sucking balls and the implicit whiteness of the crowds. People are taking to the streets who aren’t allowed to take to the streets. Even Rush Limbaugh is using rhetoric that speaks to the anger of a dispossessed class who openly state that they have lost their country and who are tired of being called racist for protesting taxes. Liberal blogs make encouraging reading these days, as they make it sound like the Buchanan Brigades have morphed into the Beck Brigades, have found the torches and pitchforks, and are rallying to storm DC. Frank Rich resembles a besieged lord in his latest column, which frets about populist anger “breaching” the secure barrier of the Capitol.

If only! The protests are at least partially inspired by Glenn Beck and the Ron Paul Revolution, as the libertarian Right continues its smooth transition into the mainstream. Neocons fret, with reason, that the Republican Party has become the Ron Paul Party. However, these forces are so scattered ideologically that they are limited in what they can accomplish. Just as David Sirota finds flag-waving reactionaries humbly petitioning the federal government to come save them as evidence of an anti-government militia, so too are leftists finding protesters loosely organized by the fascists over at FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity as the equivalent of a peasant rebellion.

These organizations do great work and I agree with them, but the fiscal conservatism that unites these protestors is irrelevant. There is a greater chance that the Mencken Club becomes a governing junta within six months than the size of the federal budget is cut one iota in any of our lifetimes. The confused ideology of the Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck fans, Palinistas, and all the rest is irrelevant. Even the healthcare issue itself is irrelevant—there is little chance of stopping some kind of healthcare reform that will expand government involvement and generally make things worse. If McCain had been elected, we would probably have already passed a healthcare bill pretty similar to whatever Obama is able to get through. At best, on the policy and electoral side, all these protests and activism may help the GOP in Congressional elections in 2010, assuming people remember them that long.

What is important about the protests is who these people are—a combination of a radicalized conservative base and the possible return of the Middle American Radicals who understand, albeit in a confused form, that the rich and powerful of this society are not something that even conservatives should defend. Frank Rich is right in that the real question to all of this is who will funnel this populist anger and this developing constituency. Obama’s status as The Man and his dependence upon the Wall Street establishment make him an unlikely champion of this rebellion. There is no populist right figure like Pat Buchanan on the scene that could harness populism as an explicit political strategy. The Moral Majority that could pull behind a traditional values, limited-government, fusionist candidate like a Sarah Palin does not exist anymore. The “Birthers” and all the rest will always be there, but do not have a real political organization behind them.

The newly found anti-system mentality of the GOP is also hard to take seriously—even Joe Wilson’s status as a populist right champion has more to do with the Republicans’ minority status than with principled opposition to the welfare state or even benefits for illegal immigrants specifically. What role the Conservative Establishment has in promoting and organizing these protests will vanish once Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee or whatever champion of the Right emerges to cut George Soros’s taxes. The limited respectability granted the Beck Brigades will also be quickly withdrawn once Republicans are inevitably elected again. Bob McDonnell’s falling fortunes in Virginia also indicate that the political spectrum has not opened up sufficiently to forgive dissent from liberal orthodoxy, even when it’s from a 20-year-old college paper and even when your opponent has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to the budget.

The only large scale organized force that is in but not of the Republican coalition is the Campaign for Liberty and the candidates and institutions that it is creating and inspiring. Much will depend on the campaign of Rand Paul to determine if the Liberty movement has any kind of power at the ballot box. Failing the limited potential of C4L, there is simply no new place for this populism to go, except on the pages of the New York Times to scare liberals who forever think the Michigan Militia is about to march up Fifth Avenue. Where it will go is where it always goes—to the next Republican candidate who can save the country from Obama, or Clinton, or Gore, or whoever else the threat of the day is. From where we sit now, I do not see a single GOP candidate who can win an election against Obama.

The protests are simply the newest expression of a very old phenomenon—a party base that is more radical than its leadership and has no champion and no outlet except talk radio. The only way it could possibly lead anywhere is if Republicans at the national level do not recapture the majority, and the GOP base continues to see itself as dispossessed. The Bush years are what conservatives can do when we have an absolute majority in the federal government. If that is what “a conservatism that can win again” is trying to go back to, here’s hoping we never win. Unfortunately for the GOP, I do not think we can.

In contrast, the Tea Parties are what conservatives can do when all aspects of the movement are working together and are united in opposition around issues that everyone agrees on. It will not change policy, but it has mobilized a constituency that wasn’t mobilized before. Conservatism as it exists today does not have an ideology or a champion to organize these people. The question is not what they do after the march. The question is what they do after conservatism.

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The Alternative Right

2009-07-27T03:30:01Z

And the impossibility of conservatism.

It’s 1964. A stranger approaches and tells you two political movements will arise in the near future, the New Left and the New Right. One of these movements will dominate American politics for a good quarter century. Indeed, political scientists will define the entire period in terms of the ascendancy of this group; historians will write books naming this age after the movement’s most successful leader. Politicians, scholars, and activists on right and left will go so far as to call it a “Revolution.”

Imagine then that you could look at the America (such as it is) of November 5, 2008, at the end of this era.

The election of “the most liberal man in the Senates” is a crowning moment for a federal welfare state that’s grown steadily for over 50 years, regardless of which party was in office. Each individual state is merely an administrative unit for a centralized bureaucracy. All important decisions are made by the Supreme Court. On social issues, conservatives have been in abject retreat even as leftists bemoan the rise of “Christian fascism.” The ban on School prayer, enacted in 1962 with Engel vs. Vitale, has about as much chance of being overturned as the ’64 Civil Right Act. Gay marriage is a reality in several states. Mass immigration from the Third World is not just permitted but hailed as a moral imperative and encouraged by leaders of both political parties. The children of those immigrants receive preferences in education and job placement over Americans whose roots go back to the Founders.

Iconic American corporations such as McDonald’s, General Motors, and Coca-Cola fund far Left groups with hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants each year—even as some struggle to make profits. Universities are filled with “ethnic studies” and “women’s studies” majors who are skilled in organizing protests against Western Civilization, but can’t read the books that define it. News articles habitually reference public schools removing the names of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, to be replaced by some community organizer or another who was successful at stealing taxpayer money.

All of the above—and much more, of course—have occurred during and after the “Reagan Revolution” and the mighty deeds of its heroes that are regularly recounted in story and song at the foundations, think-tanks, and non-profits that occupy Northern Virginia. The cadres of Young Americans for Freedom may have gotten elected to office, but we all live in the world of Students for a Democratic Society. During the Age of Reagan and conservative hegemony, the New Left decisively won the culture wars, by largely abolishing, often through state fiat, the previously existing culture.

The American Right won past electoral victories by appealing to Middle America, posing as its defenders against the left-wing radicals who spat on the society that gave them so much privilege. Beyond lip service though, the conservative movement didn’t actually do anything to conserve that society, never mind roll back the gains of the Left.

But appealing to the heroic American past, traditional values, or the need for a strong defense of the American society is no longer a sound election strategy because the “Moral Majority” no longer exists. More than that, it is doubtful an American people, conscious of itself as a people with a particular culture, tradition, and identity, even exists.

In my view, the graying boomers who run and staff the current “conservative movement” probably represent the last generation of the Right that can justifiably call itself conservative. The constitutional and laissez-faire republic is long gone, a victim of the world wars, hot and cold. And the traditional Protestant and upright culture that once characterized American society as a whole, as well as the United States’ identity as a Western nation-state, won’t last much longer if present trends continue.

More than that, at a core level, we should ask ourselves seriously, What is there going to be worth conserving in the America of the next generation?

I’ve often thought that we got here because the conservative movement’s fetish about “the state” and the size of government fatally compromised its ability to challenge the left-wing ruling class. Who is a more important question than what, and a political movement that has as its chief concern what level of bureaucracy should handle policy can not accomplish anything important.

In contrast, Daniel McCarthy has argued, in the September 2008 issue of New Guard, that there is an anti-state Right and a national Right concerned about American identity, virtue, and culture. He points out the stupidity of trying to protect America through the government since, “[t]he state is the indispensable means by which the Left carries out its transformation of the country, and government in 21st century America cannot be turned into an instrument of virtue or nationhood.” I’d first counter that there hasn’t been much of a “national Right” in this country to begin with; those “conservatives” most interested in using the state for their ends have been social gospel types, who are as equally invested as the Left and the neocons in the idea of America as a “universal” nation.

But in the end, this debate actually doesn’t matter much—conservatives lost the battle against the state and the Left. Progress is not possible on either front without dismantling the current managerial regime.

The patriotic leftist and democratic socialist George Orwell once wrote,

It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be turned into children’s holiday camps, the Eton and Harrow match will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same.

He was dead wrong. Orwell’s England is being eradicated, deliberately, consciously, and with staggering speed—even though Eaton, Harrow, and the stock exchange still stand. The British upper class, which Orwell loathed for its jingoism and self-satisfied nationalism, now champions this dispossession, with the indigenous working and middle classes serving as the only resistance. Much the same is happening here: the once dominatant WASP upper crust is about as likely to take back their America as are the Cherokees.

Enoch Powell may have argued that he would fight for his country even if it had a Communist government. At a certain point though, it is no longer a question of a different form of government for a country, but a different country altogether. The position of American conservatives regarding the regime they live under is approaching that of a pagan Roman after the eternal fire of Vesta was extinguished, or a Catholic Frenchmen after the slaughter in the Vendee. An appeal to a shared past will no longer work because that shared past does not exist. The legacy of the Founders can only be defended by incorporating them into a universal progressive history that ignores their actual beliefs. A legalistic identity based on a murky conception of universal human rights has not sufficed to hold together other regimes, and I doubt it will be able to do the same in America.

Such rhetoric seems apocalyptic, but something is happening on the American Right.

Who could have imagined average conservatives even using the kind of rhetoric we hear today? Who would have predicted that a governor would even mention the idea of secession? More to the point, who could have seriously argued even three years ago that the most dynamic movement in American politics—on both left and right—would be headed up by Texas Congressman Ron Paul? Even the Tea Party phenomenon, easily mocked as it is, represents conservatives actually taking the first few tentative steps into something resembling an activist mindset. It may just be a safety valve, as such talk will be easily forgotten when the next Republican is elected. Still, rhetoric has consequences, and you can’t just start throwing words like “revolution” without changing the mindset of the people involved.

The Ron Paul movement must be credited for opening up space for conservatives on ideas such as the Federal Reserve, secession, and the accepted narratives about American history. Even more remarkable is the seeming refusal of the mainstream conservative movement to engage with the emerging liberty movement, even though it is huge potential source of activists, donors, and serious candidates.

Perhaps the reason behind this disconnect is that the Paul movement is the beginning of the post-conservative era for the American Right. If conservatism is about defending established institutions, Paul is not conservative. The liberty movement fundamentally challenges the legitimacy of the state, and implicitly challenges the cultural regime that supports it. A group that can cheer wildly when Abraham Lincoln is denounced as the worst president in American history is certainly a radical departure. The Paul movement’s historical revisionism, anti-state line, overt hostility towards the corporate (as opposed to capitalist) and government establishments, and indifference towards questions of respectability and permissible associations suggest that a decidedly anti-system Right is emerging.

The attacks on the liberty movement from the Left seem oddly divorced from reality. Left-wing sneers at Paul, the Tea Parties, and the Right (such as it is) generally have little to do with inflation, federal power, and government spending. The federal and state governments, with the clear help from the Fed-like, pseudo-private “watchdog” groups, have been issuing warnings about the danger of organizations like the Constitution Party and the Campaign for Liberty morphing into “militias” dedicated to–of course—white supremacy. The inevitable move towards European-style speech codes is justified by similar fears, that cries of “End the Fed” will somehow turn into “Wir müssen die Juden ausrotten!” And of course, we have the claims by innumerable leftists that the Tea Parties are actually white-power rallies. There is no engagement with the Right on the issues that they are actually talking about and organizing around.

But let’s give the Left a little credit, because as usual, the Left understands the Right better than the Right knows itself. As Professor Gottfried wrote at LewRockwell.com (before it was cool),

While the Left rails against the bogus Right ... it knows where its real domestic enemy is to be found. The media Left lurches fitfully into attack mode against the Militia Men as rightwing extremists, a reaction that is never apparent when it discusses the Black Panthers or Hispanic racial nationalists. One likely reason is that, in contrast to designated indignant minorities, ‘rightwing extremists’ are not clients of the administrative state. In fact they would be happy to junk this entity entirely.

Right-wingers mobilizing around economic issues and the Fed may be a threat to the system, and the multiculturalists grasp this. However, it is the war on the West itself that mobilizes the cultural Marxists and provides the real justification for their redistributive economic policies.

The entire Obama presidency seems to be justified purely on cultural grounds, whether redeeming us from our sinful racist past, making us look better in the eyes of the world, or liberating us from the dark Christian theocracy of the Bush years and the “old America.” I have yet to meet an Obama supporter who has tried to tell me how the stimulus plan will really benefit the economy or that the Democrats have better ideas on how to reduce the deficit. On the other hand, I’ve met plenty who think that only Obama stands between them and the vengeful white rednecks waiting to seize power.

Mass immigration and cultural disintegration will continue to exist if the Fed—or the state—magically disappears tomorrow. Even materialists must concede that we can’t even begin to talk about issues like education, health care, crime, poverty, or whether we have a society worth living in without talking about issues of multiculturalism and demographics. These issues need to be confronted by someone, if not by libertarians themselves. The reaction to Tom Tancredo’s visits to the University of North Carolina and Providence College shows how fully the Left becomes unhinged even with a message like Tancredo’s—which is fairly common sense, standard, and maybe even boring stuff about assimilation and the rule of law.

Hence, Youth for Western Civilization, despite mostly being funded out of what’s left of my salary post condo fees, garnered huge headlines and controversy, even though we don’t have a single employee. Thus far, YWC’ers can’t even really be placed on the “Alternative Right,” as we are essentially just echoing standard conservative rhetoric on immigration, multiculturalism, and American identity. (The difference is that we actually back it up.) But even this moderate approach is too much for leftists. Calls to completely transform the structure of the American economy meet far less opposition than suggesting the enforcement of existing immigration laws. I submit this tells us what the real forbidden issues are in America today and where the Left really sees the battle lines falling.

In this environment, “breaking the clock of social democracy” requires not just economic analysis or more tired rhetoric about a liberalism—classical or otherwise—that the West can no longer afford. The Left is the Establishment, the financial and cultural elite of the Western world support them, and all the SDSs, Indymedias, “antifascists,” and the rest are nothing but the managerial state’s militant wing, lackeys of the powerful as surely as were Pinkerton detectives.

To defeat them requires mobilizing those constituencies that are excluded from the current political and social structure, and that means mobilizing the conservative base to fight—for once—in their own defense. The potential possibility that they will do this, whether it’s in the name of stopping mass immigration, ending the Fed, cutting taxes, or whatever, is what really scares the Left.

With the Paul movement, the Tea Parties, and the general shift in rhetoric after President Obama’s election, there are signs that conservatives are finally learning that the Establishment is not something to defend or join. Some are even questioning whether the American system is fatally broken. If conservatives understand that, they cease to be a safety valve and can accomplish something other than tax cuts for left-wing millionaires. A post-conservative and post-national right can maybe be a voice for a “revolution” that isn’t just rhetoric.

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Dispatch from Knob Creek

2009-04-09T13:41:05Z

Dave Weigel has a typically vivid piece about what the Knob Creek machine gun shoot was like this year, capturing the mix of gunnies, gawkers, conspiracy nuts, and folks looking for cheap ammo. Arguably, the profile of the audience at Knob Creek is newsworthy because a good chunk of the people here form the Republican base. The most revealing part of Weigel’s article comes at the beginning, when one of the organizers says “we” almost won the last election. (The speaker should have been reminded that McCain supported closing the “gun show loophole.”) Attendees at Knob Creek were overwhelmingly McCain voters and Bush/Cheney stickers could still be seen on the backs of trucks

There’s plenty of crazy stuff at the show, but you have to go looking for it. One shouldn’t think the pictures on the article are typical (as Weigel notes)—most of the stuff being sold is spare parts, manuals on various weapons, and books on military history. Politics itself is not a big part of it—this event is directed at people knowledgeable about technical aspects of firearms and looking for parts. If you aren’t, a lot of the stuff being sold is frankly uninteresting. However, people who think things like bayonet plugs and flash suppressors constitute an “assault weapon” would be freaked out here. It is a leftist’s worst nightmare.

There was a definite difference between this year and years past. Under the Bush presidency, while you could find the occasional “militiaman’s handbook” or some other tract printed off the internet, most “political” stuff was flags, t-shirts, or other items for sale related in some way to the war in Iraq or the larger War on Terror. I never saw a Turner Diaries book floating around but plenty of Operation Iraqi Freedom memorabilia and Israeli flags. Conversations revealed a certain amount of paranoia about Muslims, but the enemy, in whatever form, was foreign, not domestic.

This year, the threat is here at home. There was a much greater emphasis in the displays on resisting domestic tyranny and big government than on successful completion of President Obama’s Overseas Contingency Operations. Birchers, and Truthers, and Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim conspirators are easy to mock. That said, as some of t-shirts worn proclaimed, people at Knob Creek are bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. Nor are they necessarily wrong to do so.

Books like What’s the Matter With Kansas or Deer Hunting With Jesus point out that economic policies pushed by conservatives actively hurt the economic interests of voters such as conservative Knob Creek attendees. They miss the point. Policies pushed by Democrats such as racial preferences, mass immigration, and welfare programs for the connected, rich, and politically correct poor also squeeze rural, working class social conservatives. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. The Republican Party may take advantage of these voters, rolling out the Sarah Palins at election time and pretending to care about gay marriage, but they’ll treat their base the same way Democrats treat urban blacks, with a benign contempt that accidentally provides them with something they actually want once in a while.

The Democratic Party will support even worse economic policies that specifically target these voters. No group is more despised in film, story, and song than the rural, white, Southern, Christian gun owner. Trapped between the Scylla of the party of McCain, which will screw them in a few ways, and the Charybdis of the Party of Obama, which will utterly annihilate them, the attendees at Knob Creek must be the most disenfranchised people in the country—and the only people in America you’re allowed to openly hate.

The difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is that the Republican Party has a base more committed than the leadership, whereas the Democratic Party has a radical leadership and a moderate base. If the GOP accomplished the trick of avoiding the rabbit holes of “Obama is a Muslim” but actually responded to the real and legitimate grievances of people who might be scared or bitter for good reasons, the champions of the “rural” power will be no more delighted than leftists are when they meet antiwar conservatives.
What’s remarkable about the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot is not paranoia, or fear, or scary guns, or the occasional “World War II re-enactor” guy who you think is training a little too hard for World War III. What’s remarkable is that the best thing that well armed, paranoid, and frightened people can think of to do about how they feel is vote for John McCain—and liberals consider even that a threat.

Leftists fear “rednecks with guns” residing in the backwoods of Kentucky. The rednecks are afraid of the most powerful government in the world. You tell me who’s being paranoid.

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I Saw Iceland Melt

2009-02-03T16:41:59Z

Coming to an ostensibly stable and prosperous nation-state near you

The annoying thing about tear gas is that it doesn’t hit you all at once. They had used a smoke grenade before that and so you assumed it was just another one. You cough slightly at first, so slightly you don’t think about it. Then you notice everyone else is doing the same thing. Then you curse, then it gets much worse, and then you run like hell.

Iceland’s capital of Reykjavik has been hit by days of nonstop demonstrations, which bordered on riots in the evenings. The Icelandic krona has collapsed in value, banks have been nationalized, and the center-right Independence Party, which led the governing coalition, had stubbornly clung to power until recently. As of this writing, the new prime minister is a left-wing lesbian who is being hailed as the first openly gay head of state in the world.

This is the story from the streets of the “saucepan revolution” that forced the government from power. Hundreds of Icelanders occupied the square in front of the Althing (the parliament) banging drums, pots, street signs and whatever else they could grasp. Since more people speak English in Iceland than in Bush/Obama’s Washington, I didn’t pick up any Icelandic except for “Vanhæf ríkisstjórn”—“incompetent government,” the tribal chant that echoed throughout the city for days.

I had come to Iceland to escape the crowds and kitsch of Obama’s inauguration, but instead glimpsed what could be the future of the United States—when “Hope” and “Change” get a hard punch in the stomach from economic reality, and Austrian economics.

This is what we have in store for us.

On January 17, as every Saturday for about fourteen weeks prior, crowds of thousands gathered in front of the Althing to denounce the government. When organizers say that something is spontaneous or not masterminded by a political party, they are usually lying. That said, in this case, it is less of a lie than one would expect, as the people showing up have lost jobs, savings and faith in the future of a country that until recently could boast the highest standard of living in the world. The speakers included academics and unemployed workers, not representatives of a particular party or movement. Only two demands united the crowd—the resignation of the leading ministers in the government and immediately hosting new elections.

Beyond the fury at the establishment, there was no unity in the crowd. There are people waving EU flags, and people waving anti-EU flags. There were a few Soviet flags, and just as predictably, Che Guevara made an appearance on a T shirt. Fresh from a Ron Paul rally, V was there. And of course, some guy handing me pamphlets about how this was all Israel’s fault for attacking Gaza. Like a Ron Paul demonstration, it was a collection of people who are all against the status quo but have nothing else in common. As a drunk girl in Reykjavik bar told me, “it is precisely because no one knows what to do that we are all so angry.” And a “throw the bastards” out platform, in this case, has a certain amount of righteousness behind them. Until recently, no one had been held accountable for the wholesale collapse of the economy. The movement was not about reform so much as justice—in a contemporary Viking sort of way.

A demonstration is usually an implied threat, but Saturday’s demonstration looked nothing like one. Even though there was the usual black bloc and Red flags, the crowd mostly milled around, had their say, and dissipated quickly. It was a controlled opposition, with even the Communists mostly telling me how they wanted to “open up a discussion” and create more social reforms. The talk of “revolution” was laughable in a small, mostly homogenous nation that doesn’t have an ethnically or socially distinct proletariat to be rallied to overthrow the regime. Socialism would be implemented by popular consent. Even the Reds, perhaps preparing for the Obama era, eagerly told me that there was nothing in the United States Constitution that prohibited Communism.

Some of the organizers of the rally were admitted Communists, but most came from various apolitical or more moderate backgrounds. A small contingent of the populist right Liberal Party appeared, but they did not have much of a following. Polls show that the party has fringe appeal, and is not poised to grow as a result of the crisis. One could possibly expect a right-wing backlash in response to the crisis. After all, with the sagas, the ethnic homogeneity, and the quiet nationalism of a country that defines itself by a common history and not an abstract ideology, one could at least expect an “Icelandic First” movement to grow. However, the center-right in Iceland, as the Communists in China, defined the core of their legitimacy as ensuring economic growth. Once this was lost, they have nothing else to offer. The far right, or what passes for it, can offer some anxiety over blond haired Polish immigrants, not enough to build a populist alternative to safeguard Icelandic workers. The land of Vikings, especially in the city of Reykjavik, is more subject to the global mass culture of MTV than it is to the Prose Eddas. The “alternative” English language newspaper is just the “young militant” press outlet of the establishment with the same boring arguments everyone else makes—Iceland’s own Rolling Stone. Every single person I spoke to, when they found out I was an America, expressed hope that Obama would somehow resolve the situation in the world economy. The Left stands not just to benefit, but to gain the entire benefit from the crisis.

The Left also will benefit because in any crisis situation, they have a revolutionary gestalt lacking on the right. On the following Tuesday, crowds gathered in the Austurvollur Square in front of the Althing. They surged to get into the building, and the police beat them back, arresting 15. Why 15? The police could not control the situation if they had arrested more—they didn’t have the numbers. Only a few hours later, several of these same fifteen had rejoined the crowd, hammering on pans and joining in the chant. The crowd was much more ideologically unified than at the rally. This was a march of the Left. Red flags, black flags, and even East German flags made an appearance. A placard with the picture of a giant pig wearing an Independence Party pin translated to the retro-Soviet label “Enemy of the People.”

At any American protest, the fist of the state is as apparent as it is on midnight of Fat Tuesday. The police, in militaristic garb, herd you into an approved zone and they will arrest you if you wander in the wrong place or make an aggressive action. In Iceland, the crowds kicked and hit the shields of the cops with impunity. One protester simply strolled up to a police officer, shoved a camera in his face, pushed past his shield to do so, and snapped a picture. The police officer lazily brushed him aside. I couldn’t help but reflect that the protester would have been cracked across the skull with a billy club in the Land of the Free.

Seeing that the police had essentially ceded the ground to the mob, the crowd grew more aggressive. An impressive bonfire was created by the front door of the Althing, as pallets, branches, tires, and what seemed like every bench in central Reykjavik was cast into the flames. At a certain point in the evening, the protest becomes less about the government and more about the joy of smashing things and insulting cops with impunity. Occasionally, fireworks would be launched into the error to the jubilation of the crowd and the confusion of tourists staying in the nearby Hotel Borg. Others would be detonated at ground level and sound like bombs going off, the louder booms bringing roars of approval from the protestors. Of course, once you have destroyed all of the park benches and are out of fireworks, the next logical step is rip down the Christmas tree in the square. This is surprisingly difficult to do, and it took a determined crowd the better part of 15 minutes before the War on Christmas was brought to a successful conclusion. The police stood by helplessly as the would-be revolutionaries carried the tree in triumph and cast it to the flames, the red flag fluttering triumphantly over the entire sad affair.

Letting the crowd have a bonfire was a Macaca-level strategic error on the part of the police. A cold night of chanting slogans at a now empty building was turned into a festive atmosphere. Somehow, from some source, various people kept appearing with huge pieces of lumber to throw on the fire. Various black bloc types danced around the fire to the primitive beats in a savage manner. It somewhat reminded me of the dance scene in Matrix: Reloaded. The frat boy in me gulped down my Viking beer and rejoiced in the pointless destruction, praying to Odin for the protests to escalate. The reactionary in me reacted they way I did when I saw Reloaded—if this is humanity, I’m siding with the machines! Like a dumb College Republican, I kept waiting for the police to beat down these hippies waving East German flags. But the order never came.

An American black bloc or even a semi competent SDS chapter could have burned the Althing down on a lark. The police were completely overwhelmed and outnumbered, and it was quite clear they had no experience in dealing with this kind of civil unrest. The last riot in Iceland that necessitated tear gas was in 1949 when a melee broke out between conservatives and Communists protesting NATO. There were no Independence Party paramilitaries defending the Althing this time, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who admitted to being associated with the center-right. With public anger at the level it was, the police had to make the strategic choice not to antagonize the crowd. If V was at the Tuesday night protests as well, he was happy, as the government was very afraid of its people. The protests continued until about four in the morning.

By Wednesday morning, the Althing was immaculate, the paint bombs and food strains of the prior evening washed away. Even in the midst of a crippling financial collapse, Iceland is an efficient country. The repairs were pointless however, as the protests escalated. Waking to the footage of the Christmas tree burning the night before, the emboldened protesters confronted then Prime Minister Geir Haarde. He was forced to make an ignominious retreat from his own people as eggs smashed against his windshield. We then marched to the Government House, where the Prime Minister has his offices. An unfortunate worker or police officer—I don’t know which—poked his head out the window and quickly drew the curtains as he was greeted by a barrage of eggs. One protester scored a direct hit with a container of food that broke the top window. Snowballs, eggs, and paint bombs bombarded the house as the police formed an uncertain defensive line in front of the front door and accepted their culinary bombardment. Their clothes were still stained white from the paint bombs the day before. Tourists fresh from the information center gawked at chanting mob as seemingly every car that passed honked in support.

When darkness fell, we found the crowds had come back to the Althing. The police tried to prevent the error of the night before by using a fire extinguisher. Unfortunately for them, the undaunted protesters simply started a new fire, and restarted the old one when the police retreated. Now, we had two fires. The crowd was much more aggressive then the night before, but oddly self regulating. When a protester sprayed gasoline on one of the bonfires, a stream shot onto the wall of the Althing, setting it aflame. The police did not react and the protesters simply walked up to the wall, put the fire out, and continued chanting. While a few kids chanted “Burn motherfucker burn” (in English), most people were content to simply bang their pans and chant.

Being part of a mob, even when you don’t speak the primary language or support the cause, is undeniably fun. We owned the streets. At some point, without any particular signal, the crowd left the Althing and marched down the main road filled with bars and shops. We marched to the national theater, where a meeting of the Social Democratic Alliance was taking place. The center-left party was the other part of the governing coalition with the Independence Party and the crowd was pressuring them to sever the coalition and destroy the government. While some of the crowd pushed into the building, most stood outside, gathered around a flaming trash can with various objects thrown on top.

Next door to the theater, three flag poles stood. In short succession, the flag of the Soviet Union and two black flags of anarchy were raised. The inherent contradiction bothers no one; the crowd cheered. And the cheers grew when news came that the Reykjavik branch of the Alliance Party had voted to dissolve the coalition. With the mission accomplished, the crowd trooped back to the Althing.

While most did the usual chanting and dancing, a large section of the crowd surged towards the side entrance of the Althing and attempted to break in. After being repulsed, the some in the crowd took up cobblestones and began throwing them at the police. A do-gooder stood up and angrily told the crowd to stop and then righteously instructed them to sit in front of the police. If they had possessed flowers, I’m sure they would have started handing them to the police. Here, however, the police foolishly decided to escalate. A squad clad in gas masks moved into the center of the square and were promptly greeted by fireworks thrown at their feet. In response, out came the smoke grenades, and then out came the gas, landing a few feet from me. As I had originally thought it was a smoke grenade, I had the dubious honor of being the first American, if not the first person period, to be tear gassed in Iceland in sixty years.

It is impossible for any government in these conditions to avoid looking like fascists. Protests are Fourth Generation Warfare in miniature—the moral advantage is always to the unarmed protesters, even if they are throwing cobblestones and breaking windows. Under the circumstances, the gas was pointless and didn’t stop anything anyway, as the crowd simply moved to the government house. A mob throwing rocks at the police for the fun of it turns into peaceful protesters ruthlessly driven off by the armed fist of the state using weapons that have not been seen in Iceland for more than half a century. While the police blocked off the main square, yet another bonfire was put in front of the government house, a window was smashed, and the chants continued in a new location.

Six policemen moved out cautiously to set up a perimeter in front of the house. The crowd, furious at the gassing, avenged itself by throwing huge cobblestones. One enormous chunk smashed a policeman in the leg. Angry and clearly hurt, he broke formation and chased the perpetuator but was turned back by a crowd that taunted him and struck him with fists and makeshift clubs. Returning to his comrades, who were obviously terrified, I thought for the first time we might actually see real violence. And then, predictably, more do-gooders showed up with peace signs and paeans to nonviolence. The protests were mostly limited to chanting for the rest of the night, with the protesters largely regulating themselves even after being gassed.

The Icelandic government fell less than a week later, the first to fall to the international financial crisis, and certainly not the last. The government formed was a left-wing Popular Front style government of the center left and the far left.

Several lessons suggest themselves.

Make no mistake; it is capitalism that will take the blame for this crisis. Crying that we do not have “true capitalism” is as questionable as those coffee house philosophers telling you that the Soviet Union was not “true communism.” Both claims might be correct, but that is irrelevant. America alone has some minor constituency with the Ron Paul revolutionaries and Young Americans for Liberty that can claim to be true believers in a system that has never been implemented. To the average person however, and certainly overseas, the sudden collapse of jobs and savings because of the incomprehensible machinations of shadowy bankers will lead to greater demands for state security, regardless of the actual causes of the crisis. The battle cry of the Reykjavik riots was not “Smash the State,” or “Down with the Government”—it was “Incompetent Government” – a demand for a more efficient technocracy.

A second depressing conclusion is that absent a right wing alternative, the only response to every leftist failure will be more leftism. Several libertarians are congratulating themselves on noting that Obamanomics will fail just as the New Deal did. Of course, FDR was still elected four times and is remembered as one of the greatest presidents in American history. Similarly, while the new Icelandic regime will busy itself in income redistribution and social scheming, the center-right is limited to a defense of a system that is widely seen to be failing. If the center-left can not fix the crisis, the crowds may come back, confront the “fascist” police yet again, and help create an even more extreme alternative. If Iceland’s decline continues, the Left-Greens stand to benefit far more than the Liberal Party or certainly the altogether discredited Independence party. The Left is the establishment and its own alternative.

Third, the crisis will provide the cover for the leftists to carry out their irreversible agenda of social transformation. Both the left-wing parties will push for liberalizing labor laws for immigrants, an ominous sign for a tiny nation of about 300,000. The fall of the Independence Party also removes a major obstacle for the admission of Iceland to the EU, which though not on the table immediately, may look increasingly desirable if the krona remains weak. This will create great pressure on Iceland to accept mass immigration and other restrictions on sovereignty which could easily destroy the country and current a permanent constituency for socialism. Because the country is so small, leftists only need to open the floodgates once to ensure their permanent majority. An economic crisis, unless the left moves towards outright communism, will pass in time, as will Obama, reality shows, and the Republic itself. A sweeping demographic change is forever. As a paleoconservrvative (or maybe post-paleo), I will confirm Ryan McMacken’s charge that I have greater faith in the capacity of this Nordic people to thrive even under socialism than for lasseiz-faire capitalism to create a paradise after the international community decides Iceland is the ideal place to settle tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The capitalist system around the world is in crisis and in Iceland, there does not seem to be an alternative except the vague leftist Zeitgeist that never seems to lose its appeal. Nor is there one worldwide. The nationalist Right does not seem likely to triumph in Iceland or in Europe, and in America, it simply doesn’t exist. Campaigning on libertarianism in Iceland or anywhere in Europe for that matter seems laughable. The Left, for all its failures, has a universal creed of emancipation and egalitarianism, and an idealism that can always inspire in times of crisis. Most worryingly, social democracy does not suffer from its failures but is pushed constantly towards greater extremism and statism. If this was in the spirit of the streets in Iceland, the spectre will certainly not avoid America.

Is there a right wing alternative to capitalism? If not, is there a way to build a movement behind real capitalism as enduring as that behind the fighting spirit of the Left? These are the questions that need to confronted by those of us on the Right today, if we are to build a fighting faith that resist the End of History represented by social democracy. Iceland holds a warning, but no answers.

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Anti-Fascist Airplane!

2008-10-06T13:36:00Z

The Two Minutes of Hate began in Ballston before the movie even began, when the previews of Oliver Stone’s W. hit the screen. My brief speculation as to the political leanings of the crowd dissipated, as the Republican faithful screamed in rage at Stone’s biopic. “Judas,” “Traitor,” and the ultimate insult from any National Review conservative, “Fascist,” echoed through the theater. At least in Arlington, VA, there are still some people who want to defend George W. Bush.

But of course, this is why we were at the movies this night, not to be entertained, but to strike a blow against the Left. As even the movie posters proclaimed, David Zucker’s An American Carol commands us to “Laugh Like Your Country Depends On It” and show those leftists what for.

The clumsy plot centers around the Scrooge stand in Michael Malone (hint, hint) director of the award-winning documentary Die American Pigs, who has launched an effort to ban the “oppressive” Fourth of July. Three ghosts of the American past, George Patton, George Washington, and for some reason, Trace Adkins, try to show the fanatical leftist that he should love America and Support Our Troops. By the end of the movie, they have succeeded—mostly, because they prove that the United States is the most left-wing country in history.

The heart of Zucker’s case against Malone seems to be that the American Left is insufficiently anti-fascist. Malone is compared to the director of Triumph of the Will, winning an award at a Hollywood banquet where celebrities happily watch a video tribute for Leni Riefenstahl featuring a smiling Führer. This makes sense of course, as we learn in a graveyard scene that Moore shares Hitler’s birthday of 4/20. Jimmy Carter is randomly savaged for calling Israel as an “apartheid state” (which, of course, it is, not that there’s anything wrong with that) and arranging a surrender to “terrorists” on the U.S.S. Missouri. (Which terrorists we surrender to is of course unexplained, because it would be impossible even if we wanted to).

Kelsey Grammer’s George S. Patton repeatedly slaps Malone and occupies himself by glowering in rage, which is historically believable. He also takes Malone to a fictional slave-owning America where the Civil War never happened and pays reverent tribute to Abraham Lincoln, threatening to shoot Malone for questioning the Great Emancipator’s sexuality. These anecdotes are less believable, as the real Patton was a Virginian proud of his Confederate forebears, who grew up with pictures of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in his house, and called blacks intellectually incapable of operating armor.

I briefly perked up when there was a 1940 flashback scene of protesters calling Franklin Roosevelt a “war monger,” but unfortunately, David Zucker has not discovered Justin Raimondo and this is somehow meant to insult left wingers. Any real Hollywood left wingers were probably too busy making Song of Russia and Mission to Moscow to bother protesting FDR, although Patton himself seemed to want to forgo de-Nazification to form a Western alliance against Bolshevism. Or am I thinking of the fascist propaganda I learned at University? The reconstruction of the American Right as solely defined by war—any war, for any reason, whatsoever—reaches it’s logical conclusion with Carol’s John F. Kennedy subbing for Jacob Marley, stunningly portrayed as a militarist canoodling with Bill O’ Reilly.

From the opening song of “Sweet Home Alabama,” to Trace Adkins’s patriotic country concert, to scenes of American soldiers praying to Jesus before charging heroically into battle, An American Carol is a cinematic Sarah Palin—a cheap attempt to channel the justified resentments of patriotic Americans against treasonous leftists into supporting an agenda of social liberalism, politically correct history, and war for war’s sake. At no point is the American identity defined as anything other than unconditional support for the federal government, anyone in uniform, or any version of American history that doesn’t consist of fighting one evil fascist threat or another.
But, as Michael Moore asked when queried about the movie on “Larry King,” is it funny? As could be expected from David Zucker, it has its moments. The comedic timing is sure, and there are enough sight gags that it’s not as painful as one might have feared. It is not another “½ Hour News Hour.” Watching Dennis Hopper, late of George Romero’s Land of the Dead, blaze away with a shotgun at ACLU lawyers portrayed as zombies (“They’re not human, they’re the ACLU!”) while joyfully chirping “Try it, it’s fun!” was an appreciated inside gag. A clueless Malone celebrating the “island paradise” Cuba while civilians are graphically slaughtered by Communists in the background led to roars of laughter. A musical number lampooning elderly professors indoctrinating students and giving extra credit to those who are “poor, black, or gay” was funny and edgy enough that liberal movie reviewers are already complaining about insensitivity. Finally, a hypothetical documentary by “Rosie O’ Connell” about nuns and Episcopalians suicide bombing everyone in sight was something that tops almost anything seen on SNL since “Dick in a Box.”

As a movie though, it fell flat unless you saw this as an exercise in identity politics. A conservative can watch “The Colbert Report” and laugh, even when we are being scourged. A liberal can not find anything funny or redeeming about this movie, any more than a conservative can think Jon Stewart is anything other than a less funny Keith Olbermann. It is funny in the same way that a “Vote Democrat, it’s easier than thinking” bumper sticker is funny, which is to say that it has nothing to do with humor but indulging in satisfying scorn of The Other.

The laughter of the crowd, which seemed both forced and savage, the blunt name calling that passed for comedy, even the act of showing up in the first place, was simply a way to sneer at the Left without having to think about it. The inevitable comparisons to Bill Mahrer’s Religulous will only encourage it.

And yet as a Red State Fascist, I couldn’t help but laugh, and laugh hysterically and hatefully at several parts. The sheer loathing for the pampered pinks of Hollywood made it impossible to resist indulging, as intellectually vacuous and politically pointless as the whole sad spectacle was. .
Near the end of the movie, Trace Adkins unconsciously echoes Sen. George Allen, pointing to country music-loving serviceman (instead of Macacas) and shouting triumphantly, “Welcome to the real America!” What’s left of that real America, if rallied behind the radicalism implicit in that battle cry, could blow apart the leftist hegemony and give the Mahrers, Moores, and O’Donnell’s something more to fear than George W. Bush. But Hollywood need not lose any sleep. An American Carol and the reaction to it show that the neoconservative safety valve is firmly functioning. While conservatives may think the leftists are traitors, most of us won’t do anything about it except vote for McCain, salute the federal banner, and hope you will support the troops just like us. Carol’s audience is still serving as cannon fodder for the neoconservatives that mock the real nation and the history that used to define our country–and it’s loving every minute of it.

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Libertarianism Shrugged

2008-09-24T19:01:00Z

My friend Dave Weigel has a revealing post at Reason’s “Hit & Run” blog about Ron Paul’s long-overdue endorsement of Chuck Baldwin. Weigel refers the scornful commentators at “Hit & Run” to some “unfiltered Chuck” detailing his opposition to the North American Union, multiculturalism, and abortion. In a second post, he quotes Chuck as stating,

This MTV generation has lost its innocence and virtue, and girls seem to be the ones leading the way. Furthermore, the days are gone when we could depend on mothers and fathers to jealously guard the purity of their own daughters. Today, it seems fashionable for girls to dress and behave like prostitutes. The more flesh that is exposed, the more everyone (including the girl’s parents) seems to like it. Whereas girls were once the prey, they are now the predators. The damning influence of pop culture icons such as Brittany (sic) Spears and Madonna has created an entire generation of girl predators.

Weigel fears that all this provides ample grounds for the “Kirchiking” of the candidate of the Revolution.

Of course, Barack Obama has also spoken about how the president should use the bully pulpit of the presidency to condemn the decline of the culture. In June 2008 he stated, “I am not someone who believes in censorship, but I think there’s nothing wrong with speaking out against things that are teaching our kids the wrong lessons.”

A casual glance at what passes on prime time television or the news reports about female teachers sexually assaulting students suggest that Obama and Baldwin are not completely out of their minds to urge restraint. And the fact that Baldwin spelled Britney Spears’s name wrong makes this non-Christian even more eager to vote for Pastor Chuck.

What is most revealing about Weigel’s post is its gratuitous marginalization of those advocating for traditional culture, including many libertarians. Baldwin calls for no censorship in this excerpt, nor in the larger column of which it is a part. In fact, he’s not calling for any policies at all except maintaining the current age of consent. It is simply a call for restraint–and yet this is what Weigel believes is an unacceptable passage that will destroy Baldwin.

Millions of parents around the country would disagree.

Weigel’s point is also wrong. Even if we should care that leftists at The New Republic are disappointed, Barr also seems a bit more likely to be Kirchiked than Baldwin. Barr spoke at a conference of the Council of Conservative Citizens in 1998, and then frantically retreated when he received criticism, claiming he had no idea what the group was about. His defense was actually semi-plausible, but that would certainly not stop the criticism. He defended National Alliance member Chester Doles, in his professional capacity of a lawyer, true, but not something that would stop a dedicated smear artist. Barr also championed unfashionable causes in Congress: He introduced the Defense of Marriage Act and tried to ban Wicca in the military, and reopen an investigation on Waco.

However, Barr is not getting the point and stutter treatment because he tacked sharply to the cultural left in order to get the Libertarian nomination.

He has a weak immigration policy, angrily denounced alleged hordes of racists supporting his campaign, has flip flopped on drug legalization and gay marriage, and champions the left-wing of the Paul movement.

Libertarianism has historically been placed on the right because it is a movement of resistance by a traditional society against the encroachments of the left-wing managerial state forcing egalitarianism, secularization, and social control down the throats of an unwilling populace. In practical terms, it was right-wing populist, supporting the closing of public schools (even if it was in response to desegregation), opposing the Civil Rights Act, and advocating abolishing the welfare state that the Left demands as an act of racial justice.

For those of us that have grown up after the New Left, however, the traditional society no longer exists. And in the absence of any culture worth defending, conservative institutions, and real, existing self-governance by small communities, much of modern libertarianism is essentially a series of creative rationales for why the latest leftist victory is actually a triumph for the Right, or why the latest encroachment by the multicultural state is actually an expansion of freedom. Hence, many of Paul’s young acolytes, rather than become the hardcore of right-wing resistance, might actually become a force against conservatism by criticizing the neocons from the left.

Of course, without the rejection of multiculturalism and mass immigration, there is a greater chance that Barack Obama will oppose affirmative action or that Nick Gillepsie will get a decent haircut than the federal budget will be cut 1%. By diverting people who are angry at the system into pointless debates about the nature of abstract rights, libertarianism becomes a comfortable safety valve for the existing system and reinforcement to cultural leftists, rather than fuel for the populist anti-system and overtly right-wing rebellion we so desperately need.

Paul’s movement threatens to fulfill Tucker Carlson’s characterization of how most leftist actually view him—as an eccentric aberration that they can agree with on the war and drugs and ignore on other issues without cost.

Obviously, Paul could not endorse John McCain, with his calls for amnesty, war without end, and a “national greatness” conservatism that is designed to destroy the actually existing American nation. But the split between the two factions of his movement made it impossible for him to endorse either Barr or Baldwin. While any “Left/Right” coalition movement is ultimately doomed to fail for reasons I described in my last article, one could at least try to form a tactical alliance to dismantle the two party system and the bipartisan collaboration on issues like the Federal Reserve. Though perhaps impossible, this attempt is at least justifiable, if only to provide some breathing room for emergence of the real Right, for a real effort to change the country’s financial system—for any real alternative of any kind.

At the same time, the Campaign for Liberty and Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic were designed to highlight their continuing relevance within the Republican Party. The Campaign for Liberty only endorses people who aren’t running against sitting Republicans and isn’t funding anyone. This strategic schizophrenia is a weakness, but a forgivable one. In the absence of any chance of starting a new party, it could be argued that there has to be some kind of a presence within the major parties in case there is an opening for people like BJ Lawson or Bob Conley. At the same time, the third party threat keeps these voters from being taken for granted. The real issue is whether the Campaign for Liberty can to link all these distinct subcultures.

Paul should not have waited until September to make his endorsement. That said, Paul himself is a product of the paleoconservative and paleolibertarian Right and most of his following was not. His long-term political strategy is incoherent and incompetently executed, but at the same time, short of staying in the race himself, there is nothing he could have done that would have pleased everyone. By forcing Barr to definitively break with Paul, resisting any surrender to the GOP, and endorsing Baldwin, Paul may have clearly defined his legacy as a revitalized right-wing populist movement, rather than one of harmless “liberaltarians.”

Perhaps, the best thing Ron Paul could have done for his 1.2 million voters was wait until September to make an endorsement, endorse four third party candidates, then change his mind and endorse Chuck Baldwin.

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The Edge We’re On: Contemporary Populism and Its Discontents

2008-09-11T04:11:39Z

Under Consideration: David Sirota, The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington, Crown (2008), 400 pages.

David Sirota begins his tour of American populism by telling about how he hung around with leftists, got drunk, daydreamed for a while, and then threw up. Sirota’s The Uprising has ambitious aims—a no holds barred, behind-the-scenes look at the anti-Establishment movements of Left and Right grouped under the catchall term “populist.” Such movements and organizations include antiwar groups, Democratic politicians, progressive third parties, Lou Dobbs, the Minutemen, shareholder activists, and union organizers. Sirota deserves credit for capturing the vague Zeitgeist of these disparate actors and uniting them into a more or less coherent narrative. But in the end, the real story behind contemporary American populism is not the one Sirota wants to tell.

Hunter Thompson wannabe Matt Taibbi laughably hails Sirota as “the most important progressive voice we have in this country.” The self-importance of a Thompson (and to a far lesser extent Taibbi) is forgivable because their hijinks usually advance the narrative in some way. Sirota’s book, in contrast, reads like the ramblings of a mediocre blogger, which of course he is. Even in the midst of his adventures, which are really just conversations with various people, he can’t refrain from telling us about old jobs, the food he’s eating, or what he thinks about someone’s clothes. But unlike gonzo journalism, Sirota keeps the focus on himself rather than his subjects (refraining from informing us about his cat or how he couldn’t get a prom date). Instead of a hard-hitting account of grassroots politics, we get the flowery musings of a leftist activist.

Mercifully, Sirota is an activist, not just a hack, and some of these musings almost save the book. Saul Alinsky is a dominating presence, and Sirota does not idly boast that his copy of Rules for Radicals is dogeared. He has a keen eye for the smallest details, as he effortlessly links the lengthy, confusing slogans of antiwar protesters to their outdated strategy. His dismantling of what he refers to as “The Protest Industry”—those who believe participation in the flawed system is immoral—is perfect. He elegantly outlines the factors that have undermined the effectiveness of public protest, explains the self-perpetuating ghettoization of leftist activism, and suggests alternative strategies. He also dismantles The Players, the political insiders that use media driven campaigns to exploit the Iraq War and elect Democrats to office. Sirota explains the futility of such a strategy and how issu-based campaigning within a party is not only principled but effective.

Sirota is similarly sure footed when discussing the Working Families Party or the various politicians he profiles. He somewhat idealizes them but asks difficult questions and calls them out on platitudes. Though a Democrat, Sirota has no illusions about the cowardice of the Democratic Senate puffing about non-binding resolutions. Sirota is absolutely at his best when describing the theory and execution of shareholder activism, as practiced by a margarita drinking, swearing nun named Sister Pat who apparently has the job of protesting global warming at meetings of ExxonMobil. (Something tells me there is also a book to be written here about the vocations crisis in Holy Mother Church.)

The problem is that the purpose of the book is not tactics, and while Sirota’s various observations are educational, not enough actually happens to justify his narrative approach. More crucially, his self-centeredness results in a fatally limited and conventional perspective when it comes to profiling right wing populism. Pitchfork Pat, the man who literally portrayed himself as leading a mob of torch waving peasants gets one lonely mention when Sirota notes in passing that Pat Buchanan opposed trade with China “out of pure xenophobia.” This may pass over at Daily Kos, but seems a little thin when we are paying $25.95.

Sirota’s chapter on the Minutemen is especially painful. Somehow, he characterizes the Minutemen as a militia. Militias, of course, were anti-state groups dedicated to destroying the power of the federal government. Sirota, in contrast, finds boring flag-wavers who spout the usual “I’m not a racist” and “I support legal immigration” platitudes and characterize their efforts not as direct action, but as a protest to beg the government to come save them. Even when faced with such a timid rationale, Sirota can’t seem to stop fixating on the guns, which seems unusual for a guy supposedly from Montana.

Though he is quick to characterize the Minutemen as fearful, Sirota constantly writes like he is going to soil himself when he meets conservatives. His is a dark and sinister world of white supremacists and right wing puppet masters plotting in the shadows and hiding behind every rock. Human Events, with its elderly congressmen writing about tax cuts, becomes a “fringe right” publication. The John Birch Society is one of America’s “oldest white supremacist groups” that makes Sirota’s “stomach turn.” As not even the SPLC makes this accusation, this was news to me, as I suppose it is also news to the black members of the JBS’s Speakers Bureau. The earnest pro-lifers of Chuck Baldwin’s Constitution Party are also “close to an official political wing of the militia movement.” Sirota is blind to the systematic excommunication of right-wing populist dissenters such as Buchanan and Peter Brimelow and contempt for restrictionists such as Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs in the party of Bush, Rove, and McCain. If Sirota sounds like he needs a change of shorts if he met Jack Kemp, one can only imagine what he would do if he met Taki.

More significantly, such ignorance totals his theories about the nature of American populism. Sirota characterizes the political operatives who captured the
Republican nomination for Barry Goldwater and set up the Beltway conservative movement as the political entrepreneurs of the Right’s own “Protest Industry.“Likening politicos and establishment politicians working within the GOP to radicals working outside the system is shockingly stupid and only makes sense if Bill Kristol is a right-wing extremist. Even forgiving that, it is foolish to compare the conservative movement to ineffective protesters when the emerging progressive infrastructure has explicitly modeled itself on the Beltway Right that Sirota keeps telling us is so effective (if only). Nonetheless, Sirota assures us that the real explanation for right wing populism is fear.

The only other conceivable explanation, of course, is ignorance. Republican plutocrats wearing top hats are still fooling the beleaguered proletariat into voting against their interests. Though Sirota succeeds in showing that the American working and middle class is being destroyed by a corporate/government alliance, he does not tell us how American workers have anything to gain from being dispossessed by Mexicans or ruled by leftists who think they are all dangerous extremists. How or why those same evil capitalists tend to fund the leftist groups and support the open-borders movement is also never addressed.

Even Sirota’s tired Marxism is inconsistent and overcome by his Pavlovian leftist instincts. Insofar as Sirota attempts to analyze the economic issues created by globalization and free trade, he casually cuts through complicated discussions of labor economics, comparative advantage, and international law by arguing essentially, “make wages higher.” Those who oppose this are wingnuts, cynical opportunists, or evil. However, when it comes to Mexican immigration, Sirota adopts the furrowed brows of the Great and the Good and earnestly tries to lecture Minutemen that they should try to lobby for economic justice in Mexico rather than trying to protect the border. When a Minuteman points out that the flood of illegal immigration is actually preventing Mexican reforms from taking place, Sirota tells us, well, Mother Jones says that would be bad for Mexico and it is all too complicated for them–or us–to understand. However, when the issue is the perfidy of H1-b visas, Sirota suddenly transforms into Joe Guzzardi of Vdare.com. Since he is talking with a card carrying Communist Party member though, it is a simple issue again. One can only wonder what Sirota would do if he met some right wingers who oppose H1-bs. If he didn’t tell them that it was their fault for not providing enough food stamps in the Punjab or funding for Head Start in the slums of Delhi, he might just compromise and tell us it’s all very complex.

Such blindness means that Sirota’s book ironically torpedoes the idea that there is a right wing/left wing populist alliance forming on issues like trade, immigration, or the war. Justin Raimondo has written that “a Left-Right alliance of viscerally antiwar liberals and nationalist ‘America First’ conservatives will naturally evolve over time.” Sirota’s book suggests that Paul Gottfried is closer to the truth. Leftists are not delighted to discover antiwar or anti-free trade conservatives who hate the neocons as much as they do. If anything, we’re regarded as more evil or even more dangerous for supporting the right policies for immoral reasons. The populist Right is Right, the populist Left is Left, and never the twain shall meet. This book, and the uprising itself, is one big missed opportunity.

Kevin DeAnna is Deputy Field Director for the Leadership Institute and President of Youth for Western Civilization.

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Rules for Radicals

2008-07-11T23:26:01Z

I reported to registration to receive my official totebag, T shirt, and condoms. In the bustle, I was only able to grab three packs, but luckily, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and NARAL were handing out prophylactics in the display area (unfortunately labeled “Screw the Drug War”). The Campus Progress National Conference had begun.

Campus Progress is the Left’s answer to conservative youth organizations like the Young America’s Foundation, but the clash could not have been greater between the hipster progressive activists at DC’s Omni Shoreham on Tuesday and the suit-and-tie-clad young politicos of CPAC that swarmed the hotel a few months ago.

CPAC certainly didn’t feature acts like Yellow Rage, a spoken word duo that rose to prominence on Def Poetry Jam. Their show included enough tales of white oppression to earn them a place on the list of “Stuff White People Like.” And in the process, they thoroughly discredited the stereotype that Asian women are classy and submissive.

New Republic editor James Kirchick made an appearance during the panel on gay rights—his Barack Obama-style flag pin being the only American flag at the entire conference. At CP, Kirchick was the official representative of right-wing extremism in that he argued that gays should become “normal” by gaining entry to bourgeoisie institutions such as marriage and the family and disowning terms like “queer.” This prompted cries of disapproval. Richard Kim of The Nation argued the queer agenda should be about pan-sexual liberation, including liberalizing divorce laws and pushing for acceptance of alternative family models beyond squares like Kirchick and his hypothetical partner. A matronly trans-queer named Mason rumbled in a deep baritone that before openly becoming “trans,” he had “no identity.”

Various groups displayed their wares in the hallway (besides condoms). The Young Democratic Socialists handed out a flyer featuring Martin Luther King stating, “We are saying that something is wrong with capitalism, there must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism”—which would shock my movement colleagues who tell me every January that MLK was a conservative Republican.

The fact that an organization that has hosted senators, presidents, and the current Democratic nominee shares space with racists, communists, and homosexual activists that consider gay marriage to be reactionary is newsworthy. As Campus Progress also recruits and advertises at the even more radical National Conference on Organized Resistance, which openly promotes force against military recruitment centers, the links between Democratic Party leaders and violent extremists goes well beyond Obama living in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayers. Campus Progress’s magazine’s feature on the “Lessons of the Weather Underground” is no aberration.

But then, let’s get beyond the usual guilt-by-association/point-and-stutter game.

It is to Campus Progress that U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison can speak, in his own words, “vanguard to vanguard.” The tendency of attendees to speak of overthrowing the “system” and in the next sentence talking about the upcoming Obama Administration is exactly how activists should think. While participating in Democratic campaigns, Campus Progress and the activists that work with it are building a force independent of partisan efforts—but not irrelevant to it. They understand that the role of activists is to push politicians towards an independently defined agenda rather than serving as cannon fodder.

Hence, a common concern of many activists was how to avoid being “co-opted” by the Democratic establishment—even if that establishment is headed by the most liberal candidate in American history. Similarly, a comment during the civil rights panel about how any movement needs a “militant resistance” was met not with nervous glances but agreement to what all perceived to be an obvious point.

Building on this, the Campus Progress Action Campaign of the Year Award was given to “Students for Environmental & Social Justice” at the University of Montana because of a direct action campaign which included occupying the university president’s office. The presenter gushed that group members “were even arrested,” promoting a huge ovation. Even the spoken word pieces show awareness that culture is the pivot for political movements, not elections.

In contrast, the majority of young CPAC attendees believed the purpose of political action was wearing a suit and preparing for a career. It is the difference between activists and politicos. Many Beltway conservatives are not activists and despise those who engage in protests or think of political alternatives beyond voting for Team Red. A mainstream conservative organization awarding young activists for direct action is simply unconceivable. Conservative organizations systematically funnel them into the dead end of Republican business as usual. Culture is largely ignored. The result is a youth “movement” that is actually less committed and effective than the older conservative grassroots. Campus Progress is building activists and the campus Right is building politicians and politicos.

There was plenty of stuff at this conference most Democrats would not want to be associated with, but it doesn’t matter. It will cost them nothing, because unlike those in what Sam Francis called “the movement that doesn’t move,” establishment liberals will not go out of their way to disown their more radical supporters.

The young Right has more to learn from the upstarts at Campus Progress than the other way around.

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