Neoconservatism

High-Voltage Hate: Hypocrisy on Free Speech in Britain

/1 Comment/in , /by

Enlightenment Values

If you’ve ever handled a slug, you’ll know that you have to wipe  your hands afterwards. It would be wrong to compare the British anti-fascist Denis MacShane with a slug – he’s not a hermaphrodite or a mollusc, after all – but contact with Denis has similar effects. You’ll have things to clean up afterwards. I wrote about this former Labour Member of Parliament in the article “Rotten in Rotherham”, where I noted two important but apparently contradictory facts:

1) He oversaw a parliamentary report into antisemitism that suggested it be made a criminal offence to read hate-inciting material on the internet.

2) He wrote a comradely review of You Can’t Read This Book, Nick Cohen’s book on free speech and claimed to stand with Voltaire and other “giants of the Enlightenment” for free speech and against censorship.

I concluded that he was lying about his solidarity with Voltaire. But there’s more to be said. MacShane wasn’t only lying: he was revealing either his complete ignorance or his impudent chutzpah. Here again is the suggestion in the MacShane-helmed Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism (2006):

The former Home Office Minister Paul Goggins MP gave evidence of a model which could possibly be applied to racist material on the internet. In the case of child pornography it is now an offence to download images from the internet, and it may be possible to develop a similar law in regard to material which could incite racial or religious hatred. (Report, para. 186, pg. 37)

Here again is MacShane’s praise of Voltaire in his review of Nick Cohen’s You Can’t Read This Book (2012):

Surely there is no greater badge of honour than to stand with the giants of the 18th century, who insisted rationality should be given equal status to superstition. … The right of men (always men) dressed in long robes to censor words and thought is increasing, not diminishing. In the end, Cohen rightly argues, we have to assert the Enlightenment values of both Voltaire and Mill as they argued for free speech. (You Can’t Read This Book, The Observer, Sunday, 12th February, 2012) Read more

Jonah Goldberg and Harold Meyerson on the election: It’s all good

/216 Comments/in , , , /by

Two op-eds in the LATimes illustrate two Jewish reactions to the election. Although they supposedly are on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, they have much in common.

On one hand is Jonah Goldberg, editor of National ReviewOnline. Goldberg is a neocon—a faux conservative who recently was noted as supporting the firing of John Derbyshire for telling the truth about race. Goldberg has also attacked Peter Brimelow for what he described as “the narrow and nasty emphasis on what … Brimelow calls America’s ‘specific ethnic core'” (“Peter Brimelow (“a once-respected conservative voice”) on Goldberg of National Review (a once-conservative, now respected, magazine“). Brimelow’s main point is that Goldberg has been an enthusiastic supporter of displacement-level non-White immigration and is horrified at the thought of an identity politics for White people (for other groups, it’s just fine).

So it’s not surprising that Goldberg is not particularly upset by the election (“The right isn’t waving a white flag“). Goldberg claims that conservatism will come back, as it has before. Not one mention of the demographics of the vote or what that portends for the GOP or what the GOP ought to do about it. Read more

Sheldon Adelson: Israel and Immigration

/134 Comments/in , , /by

VDARE.com’s Patrick Cleburne has a nice article on Sheldon Adelson (“Has Romney Sold Immigration Policy To Sheldon Adelson?“), the billionaire who has emerged as the largest single donor in the current presidential campaign, promising up to $100 million for the Republicans. After supporting Gingrich in the primaries, Adelson has thrown his considerable weight behind Romney. We all know what that money buys: fealty to Israel. Throughout the campaign, Romney and Gingrich competed on who would be more slavish to Israel; Gingrich must have seemed slightly more reliable to Adelson, but Adelson must have been impressed with Romney as well.

There is no question about Adelson’s support for the most racialist and nationalist elements in Israel. Adelson owns an Israeli newspaper that supports PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard right Likud government. And there can be little question of where his loyalties lie. He has stated that he wishes he would have served in the Israeli military rather than in the US Army, and that he wants his son to grow up to “be a sniper for the IDF.”

All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart. … All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart,” he said toward the end of his talk.

I was surprised to read that Senator John McCain, referring explicitly to Adelson, complained that foreign money is entering the US presidential election race. This seemed too good to be true, and it was. It turns out that he was only making the point that a lot of Adelson’s money comes from his casino operations in Macau. What McCain should have been saying loud and clear is that Adelson is for all practical purposes a citizen of Israel with no demonstrated loyalty to the US and that he should not be allowed to influence the US political process.

But he won’t.  Read more

Bill Kristol and Jeremy Ben-Ami on Israel

/131 Comments/in /by

Philip Weiss has a nice column on the debate between Bill Kristol and Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street held at a synagogue in New York (“Bill Kristol celebrates Republican Party purge of ‘old fashioned Arabists’ Scowcroft, Baker and Bush I.”) The headline reflects Kristol’s power in the Republican Party—openly saying that the neocons purged those who were not sufficiently aware that the capital of the United States is Tel Aviv, to paraphrase Russell Kirk.

It’s nice of Kristol to acknowledge this—it reflects a well-deserved sense of invulnerability. What’s next? Acknowledging the indispensable neocon role of in promoting the war with Iraq?

But we have known about the purging of traditional conservatives from the GOP for a long time. Sam Francis’s statement from 2004 says it all: Read more

A Closer Look at What Happened to Pat Buchanan, Part 1

/166 Comments/in , , , /by

Pat Buchanan has not appeared on MSNBC since October, when he began promoting his book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? He expressed concern about “the end of white America” and the shrinking of the “European and Christian core of our country.” In January 2012 MSNBC’s president Phil Griffin said, “The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.”

Following his dismissal from MSNBC, Buchanan named what he regards as the provocateurs of his downfall (see “The New Blacklist”). Buchanan blames “an incessant clamor from the left,” itemizing the Black-advocacy group Color of Change, Media Matters, and an unnamed LGBT group. After them, at the end of the list, Buchanan adds, “On Nov. 2, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who has sought to have me censored for 22 years, piled on.” Likewise  Congressman Tom Tancredo: “MSNBC’s decision to dismiss Pat Buchanan shows the depths to which the mainstream media has caved to far-left pressure groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Council of La Raza, Color of Change and Media Matters. There can be no doubt that these smear operations were responsible for Buchanan’s dismissal.”

I disagree with this, the prevalent view. I argue that what many people think were the causes of Pat Buchanan’s dismissal probably were not. What really hurt Buchanan was probably not the horde of angry enemies circling the walls of MSNBC and blowing trumpets, not the ADL, not Media Matters, not even Color of Change or the LGBT group. While the public is disposed to equate making noise with exerting influence, the decision of an executive in an office need not have been influenced by any of that in the slightest. I suggest that the decision to fire Buchanan from MSNBC may have been based on a consideration that is relatively or even completely obscure to the general public. Read more

The U.S. Military Buildup in the Persian Gulf: Neocon Policies Are Alive and Well

/28 Comments/in /by

Although the neocons certainly oppose the withdrawal from Iraq, there are certainly some consolations. As Glenn Greenwald points out at Salon,

The U.S. has Iran completely encircled. It has over 100,000 troops in the nation on Iran’s eastern border (Afghanistan, where, just incidentally, the U.S. continued through this year to turn over detainees to a prison notorious for torture) and has occupied the nation on Iran’s western border (Iraq) for eight years, and will continue to maintain a “small army” of private contractors and CIA officials after it “withdraws.” The U.S. continuously flies drone aircraft over and drops bombs on the nation on Iran’s southeastern border (Pakistan). Its NATO ally (Turkey) is situated on Iran’s northwestern border. The U.S. has troops stationed in multiple countries just a few hundred miles across the Persian Gulf from Iran, virtually all of which are client states. The U.S. has its Fifth Fleet stationed in a country less than 500 miles from Iran (Bahrain) containing“US warships and contingents of U.S. Marines.” And the U.S. routinely arms Iran’s two most virulent rivals (Israel and Saudi Arabia) with sophisticated weaponry.

Greenwald rightly points to  the ludicrousness of Hilary Clinton’s statement:

“We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region, which is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region, which holds such promise and should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Tajikistan after the president’s announcement.

Apparently, the U.S. doesn’t count as outside interference, perhaps because the Obama administration considers the entire area to be American territory. Read more

The Neocon’s Defeat in Iraq: On to Iran

/307 Comments/in , /by

The Obama Administration’s announcement of a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq is a stunning defeat for the neocons. The neocon plan was an indefinite military presence in Iraq on the model of the continuing American military bases in Japan and Germany after WWII. Obviously, Iran is a big winner, at least for now, with an ally in the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq.

Of great interest is whether Iraq will maintain the democratic institutions established by the Americans. In the long run, I suspect that from the viewpoint of the neocons, the operation certainly bought time — the time needed for Iraq to rebuild and once again pose a danger to Israeli interests. Read more