If you go down Prager’s list, I think the anti-war right would line up with you and me and a lot of other posters on this board on 90% of the items. Sure, their rhetoric is intemperate, and their personal animosity towards the neocons can make them irrational. Asking which side they are on in the current civil war is a bit of hyperbole.

Yes - oddly enough I think Buchananites and the anti-war paleos are aligned with the peace-loving and all too infrequently bathing left. Of course this is only with regard to foreign policy. A curious union indeed.

I’d like to think that neo’s and paleo’s only diverge with regard to foriegn policy and were essentially in consensus with regard to social “conservatism”. However, I do not think this is accurate. It seems, for instance that neocons are in part aligned with the left regarding our border. I would cite, for example, National Review Online. They post precious little with regard to immigration reform. The only folks opposing illegal immigration are the paleos - and yes - roughly 70% of the American citizenry - not that their views should factor in - of course.

Yes, a bit of hyperbole, and I also meant it partly in jest, yet I think there’s enough substance there to justify saying it. I could construct a list almost as long as Prager’s showing the similarities between the anti-war right and the anti-war left. And the war IS the number one conflict between left and right at the moment, isn’t it?

There are, of course, many fundamental differences between paleocons and the left. Also, when I suggested the analogy, I said “perhaps.”

Regarding NR’s throwing in the towel on immigration, VDARE posted a graphic of a letter sent from Mr. Buckley to Jared Taylor where the former acknowledged that he had defaulted down the path to national suicide:

http://www.vdare.com/pb/buckley.htm

Mr. Buckley can say a great deal in 2 sentences. In the first — “I’ve given up.” In the second — “I’m thoroughly clueless about what’s actually happening.”

In response to my comment that “the war IS the number one conflict between left and right at the moment, isn’t it?”, a correspondent wrote:

“No, it is not1 The war is partly a neocon-manufactured line of division, which allows Goldberg, John Podhoretz, Bennett, Hannity, Muravchik, etc. to pull in the Lieberman Left for ‘moderate conservatism,” while marginalizing most of the real right.”

Here is my reply to him:

When I said “the war IS the number one conflict between left and right at the moment,” I meant the conventional, mainstream-conservative, understanding of the right that Prager was referring to. Even if there were no paleocons, there would still be this bitter left-right divide in America. However, you’re introducing a different point, and I also agree with you, that much of that left-right divide is an illusion, a neocon battle against the hard left that in fact opens the door to the somewhat softer left. This is what has bothered me about the contemporary mainstream right. Horowitz, for example, only opposes the hard left. But he supports homosexual liberation and barely blinked his eyes at the Grutter decision and Bush’s support for Grutter, and so on. So the neocon right tends to use the war on terror and the conflict with the hard left to prevent any right-wing opposition to liberalism.

But at the same time, to speak frankly, there are many things about the The American Conservative that are undistinguishable, not just from the anti-war left, but from the anti-American left. TAC has worthwhile articles in every issue, but at the animating core of the magazine there is a bigoted meanspiritedness and intellectual irresponsibility worthy of American-hating leftists. It makes me heart-sick to read it.

Clark Coleman is right; on most matters, the Buchananites would line up with Mr. Auster, however crazy they may sound on foreign policy issues. The notion that neocons are all insane on the immigration issue, however, is not quite correct. David Horowitz’s frontpage.com is clearly hard-line on immigration matters, although he usually sounds like a neocon, albeit he rejects the label. The neocons seem reluctant to attack him, and the emergence of figures like Horowitz seems to be a good sign.
Alan Levine

Mr. Auster’s statement that The American Conservative’s content is often indistinguishable from the anti-American Left is ridiculous. With all due respect to him, I think his judgment of this fledgling magazine is clouded by his disillusion with (and dislike of?) Patrick Buchanan. There is nothing anti-American about TAC, unless it has become anti-American to criticize the federal government when one disagrees with its actions and to criticize the trashier excesses of American popular culture. Mr. Auster has done both himself on many occasions, eloquently.

I not only read TAC, I occasionally write for it. Doing so, I have come to know its editors a bit. Surely they constitute the magazine’s “animating core.” To characterize them as bigoted, mean-spirited and intellectually irresponsible is unfair to them, and unworthy of Mr. Auster. HRS

I respect Mr. Sutherland’s views on this, and I’m sorry for having displeased him, but I stand by what I said. During a recent brief spell of jury duty and some train trips I’ve been reading through a bunch of back issues of TAC lately, and the dominant tone and method and content of the magazine is as I’ve described. I do not dismiss the magazine as a whole. There are always articles that are just good conservative articles, not sharing the mania that characterizes the core of the magazine. And by “core,” I don’t mean the editors personally, I mean a continuing thread that runs through each issue. Look at the embarrassing, second-lead article by Jack Strocci in the October 8 issue, which I quoted in a recent blog entry. The man is a pathetic, immature, incoherent crank; yet TAC published him, as they will publish anyone who opposes the war, no matter how bad or false or anti-American his arguments may be. By anti-American I mean, among other things, actually WISHING for our efforts to fail in Iraq; I mean creating an atmosphere that ENCOURAGES our enemies to attack our troops, because each U.S. casualty is taken by TAC (as it’s taken by the anti-American left) as the definitive sign that we should just pull out. Talk about irresponsible!

If I had the time, I would put together a catalogue of TAC quotes that would amply demonstrate my point. From time to time I’ve presented such material here. My favorite was their series of cover and inside cartoons showing Uncle Sam as a depraved murderer attacking and stabbing the globe. Talk about anti-American!

Mr. Sutherland may deny the anti-American expressions at TAC, calling them mere “criticism.” But, with all due respect, he has his own blinders on this issue.

Mr. Sutherland says it’s “ridiculous” to say that TAC often resembles the anti-American left. In fact, TAC has often featured authors who are on the anti-American left, the repulsive Norman Mailer for example, to whom they gave a cover and an enormous article to unfold his views and attempt to legitimize himself. I can’t remember names at the moment, but several of their contributors have been from the left.

Also, I received the following note from a paleocon who felt I had gone too far with this blog item, yet who also agrees with some of my points about TAC. He wrote:

“I too find a lot of the foreign policy stuff [at TAC] to be over the top. Scott McConnell seems to believe that by sounding like The Nation you can make the lefties into your friends. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.”

So, what do you say, Mr. Sutherland? Is it true or not that TAC often sounds—in its vitriolic tone, in its conclusory, negative remarks about America, and in its evident wish for America to be defeated in a foreign war—like The Nation?

TAC ran a very enlightening article on Reagan and immigration, Ronald Reagan’s Big Mistake by Otis L. Graham Jr, in the January 27, 2003 issue. The best article I’ve seen on this subject.

In the early 80’s there was a much better chance of immigration reform than now, but Reagan blinked. Many mainstream conservatives hoped the problem would go away if they ignored it. Wishful thinking never makes catastrophes go away.

Other good articles:
Burnham & the Bodysnatchers by Chilton Williamson, April 23, 2003
Mexico’s Northern Strategy by Howard Sutherland, March 10, 2003
South Gate: Mexico Comes to California by Roger D. McGrath, May 19, 2003

I agree that a cover article on Norman Mailer doesn’t belong in a conservative magazine. I will quote a Dead White Male named Benjamin Franklin, “If we do not hang together gentlemen, we will most certainly hang seperately.”

I confess I do not read The Nation, so I cannot answer the question.

If McConnell thinks there is any way for righties to convince the lefties to be their friends, he is wrong. But I don’t think that is what he is doing. As I understand it, TAC has always wanted not to limit itself to paleocons’ contributions, although we are a large part of it. It differs in that respect, among others, from Chronicles. TAC’s opposition to an Iraq war has been clear from the first, so it is not surprising that the magazine looks for people who share that view, yet may have views quite different from the editors’ on other topics. To give Mailer an interview is not an endorsement of everything he has said and written in the course of a long life. Taki supports and writes for TAC. Does anyone believe that implies editorial approbation of some of his more colorful extracurricular activities? The magazine is not so easy to pigeonhole.

Again, I don’t see what is wrong with a sometimes vitriolic tone in what is avowedly opinion journalism. Perhaps I don’t find TAC as vitriolic as Mr. Auster does. Years of exposure to the British press may have thickened my hide. TAC does criticize aspects of today’s America. That is this site’s stock in trade, it seems to me. I’m all for it, in both cases.

I don’t recall anything in TAC, including Mr. Strocchi’s article, that wished for America to be defeated in a foreign war, so that desire is not evident to me. Strocchi’s line that so angered Mr. Auster I read as regretting that U.S. forces killed Iraqis in an operation that has done America no good. One may disagree: Strocchi’s point was that he used to disagree. I have read several things in TAC wishing that America would avoid foreign wars that are not in our interest and remove its forces from places where they are not welcome and do not serve the national interest. That is not a Leftist anti-Americanism that wishes this country harm and longs for the deaths of her soldiers. Rather, it strikes me as pretty sound policy and far more in the American tradition as expressed in, say, Washington’s Farewell Address than the neo-Wilsonian interventionism that has led to our Iraq misadventure. HRS

I still remember watching the press conference where President Reagan answered this question:

—June 14, 1984

Q. “Mr. President, you and your campaign organization have spent a lot of time trying to increase your support among Hispanic voters, yet you continue to support the controversial immigration bill on the Hill now. Will that not hurt you with Hispanic voters in the fall?”

The President. “Well, I know that there are people — I can understand their concern and their fear. I think that if we take every precaution we can in that immigration bill to make sure that there is not discrimination simply based on the not wanting to bother as to whether an individual is legal or not, I think we can protect against that.

“BUT THE SIMPLE TRUTH IS THAT WE’VE LOST CONTROL OF OUR BORDERS, AND NO NATION CAN DO THAT AND SURVIVE. And I think the thing that they should be looking at, that should be of the greatest appeal to them is the very generous amnesty, that all the way up to 1982, we’re ready to give those people permanent residency.” [emphasis mine]

————-

In retrospect, and considering how much worse the problem has become, it is amazing how he could make a straightforward acknowledgement that this issue threatened nothing less than our national survival, yet handle it in such a nonchalant fashion.

And people thought the title of Mr. Auster’s book was an overstatement!

Alan Levine writes:
“The neocons seem reluctant to attack him, and the emergence of figures like Horowitz seems to be a good sign.”

I don’t know if it is “good”. It looks like the usual extension of the right hand in the old Hegelian Mambo. Common cause is a necessity in order to have a political movement at all, but some things simply can’t be compromised. The fact that Horowitz is viewed as being to the RIGHT of the neocons is pretty telling. If the notion is to craft a serious platform for compromise then the first order of business is to decide what can not be compromised.

In my view immigration restriction, anti-anti-racism, and traditional morality are not up for negotiation. Foreign policy in general is, but “do nothing about Christendom’s most fearsome traditional enemy Islam” is not. “Blame the Jews” also is not.

What it comes down to is, what exactly is negotiable?

Joel,

It is truly sad that President Reagan was able to see that, and yet didn’t really see it, as he took no serious action about it. As for legal immigration, as someone mentioned, early in his administration he briefly looked at it, and decided to do nothing about it, and that was that.

Reagan had genuine elements of greatness. But on his watch the suicide of America proceeded apace.

“TAC ran a very enlightening article on Reagan and immigration, Ronald Reagan’s Big Mistake by Otis L. Graham Jr, in the January 27, 2003 issue. The best article I’ve seen on this subject. “

That article looks interesting. How can I get a copy? I don’t see anywhere on amconmag.com to order back issues.

Anyway, I think we would have been FAR better off if we had restricted immigration in the eighties. I believe that the U.S. Hispanic population has doubled since the mid/late 1980s, and the poor immigrant population (the part I’m mainly worried about) has increased even faster than that. With radical cuts in immigration in the early/mid 1980s, I think we could have softened the economic downturn of the early 1990s, softened the current economic downturn, and possibly have averted California’s budget crisis, heavily driven by poor immigrants’ government dependence and socialist voting patterns. Note that the average real income in California DROPPED significantly between 1989 and 2000 (while it rose significantly elsewhere), and has only dropped even more since 2000—it may have dropped to 1970s levels now.

When are people going to get it through their heads that increasing the number of poor people HURTS the economy rather than helping it? How so many people have been deluded into the belief that importing poverty creates wealth confounds me. That’s not to mention the destructive multiculturalism and lingual divides that immigration, especially unskilled immigration, has brought.

As a subscriber and occasional contributor to TAC, It is simply absurd to say they are in anyway anti-American or resembles the left. Clearly the Left knows what side they are, (see David Corn in the Nation attacking TAC http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021111&s=corn ). You can also see my article on LewRockwell addressing the subject ( www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein4.html )

Simply because Buchanan agrees with the Left on one issue for different reasons, this does not mean he took the “leftist” position on the war. If anything the universalist, globalist pro-war faction is taking the leftist position.

And what’s wrong Clement Vallandigham anyway?

Matt W. wrote,

“When are people going to get it through their heads that increasing the number of poor people HURTS the economy rather than helping it? How so many people have been deluded into the belief that importing poverty creates wealth confounds me.”

Matt W., these influential people who are constantly exerting behind-the-scenes pressure on the Bush administration to transform the U.S. population into a third-world one by means of immigration aren’t interested in “helping the economy” or “creating wealth” generally. They’re only interested in getting richer purely on a personal basis, through the various direct and indirect economic interests they have in the hiring of low-wage peons in place of high-wage U.S. citizens for American industry.

I have to agree with Mr. Marcus Epstein on this issue regarding TAC, of which I am a subscriber. He is a student at a major American University like myself ( Auburn University) and a very impressive young conservative who writes fine work for www.lewrockwell.com and also TAC.

There is a much better work entitled “The Second Civil War” and it happened to be a movie produced for HBO back in 1997, staring Beau Bridges and the late Phil Hartman.

For those who aren’t aware of the movie, it deals with America in the not to distant future when multiculturalism and diversity have totally destroyed the nation. (Maybe not to distant)
The state of Idaho is one of the last remaining majority white states, and after a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, the President of the US wants to bring refugees to that state.

A second civil war ensues. All who read VFR should try and find this film, as I was able to locate a VHS copy on Amazon for roughly five bucks.

There is also a book that came out ca. 1997 entitled “Civil War II.” It is a series of predictions and warning signs - many of which have turned out to be shockingly on the mark.

The neocon position is to repeat after George Bush: “Diversity is our strength.” I guess they think of it as an incantation that will magically come into being if they repeat it often enough. (And they think we’re the religious wackos!)

Carl, that’s rather strange timing. I just ordered that book today, by Tom Chittum, on a friend’s recommendation. The background I was given was that Mr. Chittum served our country in several wars, including Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War, and also in the illegal assault on the Serbs.

In the matter of Yugoslavia et.al., he saw firsthand the dyamics that had come into play that ‘balkanized’ the region — the ethnic conflicts and the ‘multicultural’ factors.

When he retired back to America and began studying the situation here, he started to recognize the same dynamics at work, the results of which he had seen in Serbia. But unlike the typical, spoiled-brat American mentality of ‘it could never happen here,’ he believes it COULD happen here, and, barring a hard turnabout, WILL happen here.

The Path to National Suicide may well mark the way to Civil War II.

This is what I’ve heard at any rate, and I’ll be interested to read it.

I repeat. The article in TAC of 1-27-2003 on Reagan and the immigration issue is a must read. I got a copy of the first TAC issue from them a few months ago. You could email or contact them by phone in order to get a copy of this issue.

Reagan probably didn’t want to see what was happening. He had and continues to have a lot of company.

Seems like liberals think that a lie will become true if you simply wish strongly enough or if it seems “fair” that it should be true. “Diversity is our strength” for example. It seems like neocons think that a lie will become true if you just repeat it often enough. For exapmle “Saddam had weapons of mass destruction”.

Wagner wrote:

“It seems like neocons think that a lie will become true if you just repeat it often enough. For example, ‘Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.’”

This is a mindless comment, which could only be made by a person who has not followed the WMD debate and not followed the news.

Mr. Auster offers that I spake not true. I stand on my previous post. However Mr. Auster may insert “Iraq was an imminent threat” for “Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction” if he so pleases.

Thanks to Wagner for providing further confirmation of his ignorance of the issue on which he is offering his conclusory comments. Apparently Wagner landed on the planet earth yesterday, and is not aware that the ubiquitous charge that the Bush administration said the threat was “imminent” has been shown as completely false.

Yeah, but you know, Bush acted all nervous-like that one time when he didn’t use the word “imminent”, and then he winked, he did, I saw it! Then he stabs us all in the back later by refusing to retract what he didn’t say, you know, the liar! Its all about Israel, and Bush LIED about the oppressed palestinians during that one speech he didn’t give. You know, the Jewish Israel liar lobby told him to fool us all into thinking that an attack was imminent without saying it. They are so tricksy those zionists!

“Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists…. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

I took that from CNN’s transcript of Bush’s October 8th, 2002 speech.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/index.html

The one speech most cited trying to prove that the President called Iraq an ‘imminent threat’ was the West Point speech of 6/1/2002.

The President made this statement:

“Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat—most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack. We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means.”

Much is made then about the fact that the President clearly identified Iraq as a ‘rogue state’ — which he did, along with others. From there, the leap is made. Close, but no cigar!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html

His the final conclusion was” “[T]he United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.” The same terminology he used in 2002 U.N. speech: “Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

As for the Bush quote that Thrasy offers,

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

this has to be seen in the context of Bush’s many many statements, most importantly his 2003 SOU address, where he was most explicit that he was not speaking of an imminent threat, but that we could not wait while it became imminent. And also remember that the intelligence he was basing himself on by its very nature could not be conclusive. He was making the best judgment possible based on the best evidence available.

I think the antiwar people are quite literally nuts on this issue. Bush was conducting a debate over a period of a year, he had to repeat himself endlessly, even to the point where I couldn’t stand listening to it anymore, but, according to the anti-war party, if he showed any verbal variance in any of these endlessly repeated statements (and who among us could repeat exactly the same words over and over again without varying them a bit?), the antiwar nuts jump on him and call him a liar. It’s just ridiculous. Grow up, people. Bush conducted himself responsibly on this.

Matt wrote:

“Yeah, but you know, Bush acted all nervous-like that one time when he didn’t use the word “imminent”, and then he winked, he did, I saw it! Then he stabs us all in the back later by refusing to retract what he didn’t say, you know, the liar! Its all about Israel, and Bush LIED about the oppressed palestinians during that one speech he didn’t give.”

This reminds me of the scene in Catch-22 where Clevinger is being interrogated by a superior officer for supposedly having said that the officer couldn’t punish him for something. Clevinger insists that he didn’t say this, and the officer asks him, WHEN didn’t you say it? Clevinger is thrown by this line of questioning, but eventually he catches on and answers: “I ALWAYS didn’t say that you couldn’t punish me, sir.”

What do you think of the first Gulf War, Mr. Auster? Knowing what we do now. Clinton certainly chucked out H.W. Bush’s justification based on the sanctity of borders.

Before Hussein was our enemy, we never gave a second thought to the WMDs in his hands. And now that we know the danger of radical Islam, the type of secular leader that Hussein represented seems to be a pretty good bargain — especially if we are to give up on the idea of Middle-Eastern democracy. (I actually think democracy in the Middle-East is doable. I just do not think that America can stomach the sort of things it would take to do it. Or stay there a hundred and fifty years working at it.)

Here is part two of Prager’s list of fundamental differences between left and right in America:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20031021.shtml

You guys need to quit your scribling and whining and get a machine gun. The illiterate people who have recently assumed control of your economic future in America have great contempt and scorn for independent thinkers. In order to survive and thrive you’ll have to do what the hippies did in the sixties: Find a farm somewhere, and learn to work it. Buy (or steal) a horde of ammunition, and defend yourself from attack. Good luck. Ralph