Privatize the Library of Congress!

Why not? How many people actually read all those books? Wouldn't they be better in the hands of collectors and people who really read and would appreciate them? This would be a way to cut the national deficit. Also, I think we should liquidate the holdings at the National Gallery while we're at it. Maybe I can get one of the Rothko's from the new exhibit for my house. Besides wasn't Rothko a pinko? A feeble April Fool's joke but given where the right is going you never know.

A personal note--Of all the people who have ever committed suicide, Mark Rothko is the one I wish had never done it. The cerebral and sublime pleasure his art has given me knows no bounds. We all owe his children an immense debt of gratitude for their tenancious fight to preserve his legacy against the vultures of art dealers over the years. Their prolonged legal case is almost as fascinating as their father's art. The National Gallery has an exhibit of his "black paintings", those intended for the Menil Chapel in Houston. And little did I know the post office has issued a series of stamps of abstract expressionist paintings including Jackson Pollack and Rothko.

For those interested in the resurgent militia movement and their links to the right, you can consult the Southern Poverty Law Center's frequent reports or read Leonard Zeskind's Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream ( Farrar Straus, 2009). Zeskind traces the history of the militia from its neo-nazi roots through its re-emergence through the Liberty Lobby, the Klan and the melding of the survivalist movement with the Christian identity crowd. After the militia movement was decimated after the Oklahoma City bombings, they re-emerged after 9/11 in the anti-immigration and people like the Minutemen and Partiot movement. And some of us get the thrill of them all converging on Washington and Virginia on April 19th, the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, for the celebration of the Second Amendment. What we just saw with the so-called Christian militia in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana is simply a continuation of this 35-year old history.

For years I thought the Southern Poverty Law Center and Morris Dees had simply run out of material. Created during the civil rights movement to monitor racist groups, particularly the KKK, they have re-emerged as a leading monitor of extreme right groups in this country and ,unfortunately, have had to diversify their analysis to cover a proliferation of these organizations. The other group that has refocused its attention of the rise of the extreme Right is the Anti-Defamation League, which has been alerting the public to the "infiltration" of the tea party "movement" by these white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Zeskind would probably add the neo-confederates to this pot.

The tolerance of these groups by people whom I always thought were "rational" conservatives is deeply disturbing. The militia defendents are called "activists" by the conservative media, not "terrorists" or "murderers". In the last week, a "white supremacist" was convicted of trying to assassinate President Obama. There have been several of these cases in the last year, but no denunciations from the conservatives.

The membrane between these extremists and so-called conservatives no longer exists in terms of their political vocabulary, although they differ in terms of actions. I have received e-mails describing the Oath-Keepers, an organization created by a Ron Paul follower and composed of serving police and military officers, as patriots. I would treat them as extremist cells within our law enforcement system and not reliable. The Oath Keepers will be here for the April rally along with the former head of the Alabama militia, who urged all citizens to vandalize Democratic party headquarters and offices of all congresspeople who voted for healthcare.

Sean Hannity today on his show called his audience "Timothy McVeigh" wannabes. The seamless line between the armed groups and the conservative echochamber raises real questions about the ultimate motives of both the conservative entertainment industry and their political practitioners. As a Washington Post columnist wrote this week,"the only threat of political violence these days comes from the Right, not the Left."

I was going to write today about what today's conservatives really believe. But I simply don't know. I knew they crossed a line when CPAC allowed the John Birch Society back as a sponsor after decades spent in the wilderness. Clearly, there are major national issues they need to be addressed in a serious manner.

I heard from one conservative about the David Frum affair. He severely criticized David Frum because he called out conservatives and this was unacceptable because it gave ammunition to the Left. He complained that this was the problem with some conservatives because they want acceptance from the Left. The other crime was Frum's chronic urge for celibrity status.

Another observation, which took me off guard, was "now we have a counter-culture" and the Left is getting the type of response from us that we used to get from them. From my perspective, the conservatives have cultural hegemony through the print and electronic media and their well-funded think tanks and front groups as well as their total domination of talk radio. But this comment revealed a psychological position, not a political one.

Throughout Obama's short presidency, I have been swamped with e-mails about his connection to this leftwing group and that personality. This stuff started in the beginning of last presidential campaign and I thought it was so off the wall considering he was a person who grew up after most of the Left had died down. Then I thought it was just the work of people like David Horowitz, who will spend all of his old age deeply resenting his days at Ramparts. But it goes to the heart of the conservative movement.

Now that the conservatives have been ousted from political power, except from our judicial system, there has re-emerged a deep inferiority complex that the older figures feel toward the Left. It comes out in odd places like Ross Douhat's column claiming that the sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church come from the permissive attitudes that existed in the 70s. or Johnny Yoo, "Torture" Lawyer, who said two days ago that when he teaches at Berkeley, he feels like West Berlin during the Cold War, surrounded by hippies. Neither one of them were even cognizant during those times. Others have raised with me the list of sleights they have experienced over the years from people whom they perceive as on the Left, people I just think are relatively liberal with no leftwing inclinations at all. This is a pervasive stance of young and older conservatives and apparently is accepted as a creed.

The older conservatives I can understand because they were underfunded when they began and existed as outsiders in the late 60s and early 70s. This period scarred them deeply and they feel they haven't gotten personal and professional recognition for what they have achieved. Many have written several books and hundreds of articles. At the same time, many I know have become rich and rich off conservative foundations, who personally pay them significant salaries. A university professor would kill for such a deal. The conservative movement has created a very stable welfare system for themselves. But none of them possess the self-reflection to realize this.

I get the distinct sense they are waiting to find their next vehicle to rise again to power like the California Kitchen cabinet did with Ronald Reagan. They are disgruntled with the Republican Party for failing the cause. They don't want to voice their disappointment with George W. Bush,even though privately they believe he was a disaster, and enjoy the Cheneys outbursts because they reflect an attack on the "politically correct". Now it seems it's political correctness to oppose torture, rendition and wiretapping. The more outrageous the proposition the better. That's why the Ronald Reagan they adopt now is not the President but the GE spokesman who attacked Medicare as socialized medicine. It's not the President who worked with Bill Bradley to save Social Security for a generation. Or the President who sought nuclear arms reduction agreements.

Conservatives also are turning rather abruptly against neo-conservatives for their embrace of Big Government Conservativism advocated by Bill Kristol. There is a splintering going on concerning foreign policy, many abandoning support for democracy programs abroad and reverting to the isolationism of the paleoconservatives. There seems to be a neutrality about the Iraq War issue and a disdain toward any talk of nation-building. They feel the later was just a sop to the Democrats.

Where they are today, I still don't know. Forget about the Left, I asked what they believed today. There was a general lament that the "intellectuals" like Irving Kristol and Bill Buckley were gone. This vacuum can become dangerous if they allow the extremes to fill the void. They would feel it is perposterous that the right posed any threat to the country.

Rage on the Right--New Report

The Southern Poverty Law Center has inherited a boom industry in analyzing right-wing hate groups. The SPLC reports that hate groups stayed at record levels--almost 1,000--despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Anti-immigration bigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And the so-called "Patriot " groups, who believe there is a federal government plot to impose "one-world government" on freedom-loving Americans, came back from the dead after years lingering in the shadows.

The Southern Poverty Law Center doesn't consider 'tea parties" and other groups as extremist but point to the fact they are shot through with "rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism". The report quotes Chip Berlet, an analyst of the American radical right, who wrote,"We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history. We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people angry, resentful and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion and gay marrriage."

The report says that signs of radicalization are everywhere. They note that CPAC invited back into the fold the John Birch Society, which believes (still does) Eisenhower was a Communist agent, and the Oath Keepers, a group of military and police officers who believe the government has secret plans to declare martial law and intern patriotic Americans in concentration camps. It also notes that 37 states are pandering to this crowd by introducing Tenth Amendment Resolutions". At the website " A well Regulated Militia" website, there is talk now of building clandestine safe houses and warnings how Tim McVeigh and Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph were betrayed as such safe houses.

The report was issued less than two weeks after Joseph Stack became a hero to the anti-government crowd by crashing a small plane into the IRS office. The SPLC report goes into the spate of violence by these characters ,including several assassination plots against President Obama.

Now are these groups part of the "civil society". Maybe they should get a NED grant. The neo-Nazi group disbanded because the leaders began killing each other.

The Second Wave--The Return of the Militias

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued its August update on the status of militias in the U.S. The report by Mark Potok reports that after a period when they faded ,weakened by systematic prosecutions and splits within ranks,the militias have re-emerged. Law enforcement agencies report they are seeing the most significant growth in 10-12 years and believe it's just a matter of time before we see threats and violence. The new twist to the Patriot movement is that because of immigration and a new black President they have become racialized. The SPLC also points out that so-called mainstream politicians and media figures have been helping spread Patriot and related propaganda from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps and wholly false claims about President Obama's country of birth.

Law enforcement authorities are concerned that militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and others of the radical right are now cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing. One law enforcement figure said:"All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence." In recent months,men with pro-militia views have committed a series of high-profile murders--including the billings of six law enforcement officers since April.

The killer of Dr. Tiller in Kansas was a man steeped in the ideology of the "sovereign citizens"movement. These citizens are people who subscribe to an exotic ideology, or constitutional theory, originated by Posse Comitatus in the 1980s. Whites are a higher kind of citizen--subject only to 'common law", not the dictates of the government--while blacks and others are mere "14th Amendment citizens" who must obey their government masters. Most of these people contend they do not have to pay taxes and are not subject to most laws. Dr.Tiller's killer picked up his ideology while being a member of the Montana Freeman. His wife said he had been in such debt that he gravitated to this ideology because he understodd he would not have to pay income taxes. He also had been previously stopped by police for having a sovereign citizen license plate.

Since February, the FBI have launched a national operation targeting white supremacists and the "militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups". These people engaged in what is called "paper terrorism" such as filing unjustified property liens and setting up pseudo-legal "common law courts" and "citizens grand juries". You might have seen the grand juries in action with Orly Taitz and the birther movement. In March, authorities raided a Las Vegas printing firm where meetings of the "Sovereign People's Court for the United States" were conducted in a mock courtroom. Seminars taught how to use phony documents and other illegal means to pay off creditors. Four people were arrested on money-laundering , tax and weapons charges.

Alot of the "sovereign "talk appears in alot of the propaganda of the tea baggers and on right-wing talk radio ,often without any awareness of its origins and the groups who created it. More worrisome according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is the emergence of the Oath Keepers, a military and police organization that was formed earlier this year and mustered on the Lexington Green. Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore when they were in the military or police. They claim they are faithful to the constitution , not to politicians.

The founder is Yale Law School Student Stewart Rhodes, a former aide to Ron Paul, who believes the day is coming that we will face a full-blown tyranny and that this can only occur if "our brothers in arms" go along." One of the Oath Keepers posted a video on the group's blog claiming he was an Afghanistan and Iraq vet and described President Obama as "an enemy of the state", adding," I would rather die than be a slave to my government."

One of the most interesting points of the SPLC report is that claim that Oath Keepers is making inroads in current law enforcement circles. The group reports that the leak of the Department of Homeland Security's report on right-wing terrorism was a sworn law enforcement agent in contact with the Oath Keepers.

The report points out that a truly remarkable aspect of the antigovernment movement is the extent that they are gaining support from elected officials and the mainsteam media. They point to the 10th Amendment movement where the re-assertion of states' rights has hit 36 states. We all saw Rick Perry of Texas flirt with secession, an idea first raised by the militia movement in the 1990s. Michele Bachman raised the specter of President Obama planning "reeducation camps for the young", a service program which ironically her son joined without telling her. Alabama representative Spencer Bachus warned of 17 socialists in Congress. And, of course, the insurrectionist leader himself, Glenn Beck calls Obama a fascist, a Nazi and a Marxist and widely publicized the militia movement's conspiracy theory that Obama has set up a country-wide network of FEMA camps to be used as concentration camps. The report also cites Lou Dobbs embrace of the Aztlan conspiracy, where Mexican illegals are being salted so that our Southwest will be taken back by Mexico, and as well as his support for the birthers.

During the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, conservative politicians claimed that the judge was linked to La Raza and hence a supporter of the Aztlan conspiracy. Sadly, La Raza had to respond that they did not support this concept. Colorado representative Tom Tancredo was the most visible spouting this view as he appeared on all major networks.

David Holthouse analyzes the morphing of the nativist vigilante groups adopting the ideas of the Patriot movement. Minuteman outposts along our southern border have been amplifying the broadcasts of ResistNet and other Patriot Network programs into their base camps. Undocumented illegal immigration sparked by the Original Minuteman Project of 2005 but now these organizations appear to be emerging as the new paramilitary wing of the resurgent Patriot Movement. While immigration flows have dropped dramatically across the border because of the deep recession, paramilitary exercises and rallies have increased. The Minutemen now believe there are larger problems beyond immigration, namely a potentitally totalitarian government, driven by an illegitimate president, bent on seizing all firearms, trampling the Constitution and imposing a fascist-socialist system on a docile population.

At Campo Minutemen, the fight song is the "Tea Party Anthem", which goes like this: "Mr. President! Your stimulus is sure to bust/It's a socialist scheme./The only thing it will do?Is kill the American Dream." This sentiment has led to Minutemen groups distributing a sovereign "citizen complaint petition" demanding Obama appear before an "American Grand Jury" to answer charges of treason. If the words are familiar, it's because you've seen them in the birther literature.

The Minuteman's defacto leader now is Jeff Schwik, the head of their San Diego Branch, a man known for his confrontational tactics and his hard-line views. In mid-April, he announced the formation of the Patriot Coalition, made up of 23 organizations, including Minuteman factios, tax-protest groups, pro-gun rights and two anti-immigration organizations. No longer were they just going to resist "the invasion from Mexico" but also the "socialist takeover" of America. The press release described their common cause under the motto "Secure Borders, Constitution and Rule of Law". It went on to say that "patriotic and Constitutional American grassroots groups" had come together to "fight the growing threats to our region and to the taxpaying American citizens." Schwik declared,"Revolution is brewing!".

To put the other pieces of the political puzzle together to include the Christian Idenity, neo-nazi movements and the white supremacists and the neo-confederates, I highly recommend Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream by Leonard Zeskind( Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2009, $37.50). This is an extraordinary piece of work that covers the white nationalist movement for the last three decades. The author has been a persistent student of the international racialist movement, including the field of Holocaust deniers. He wrote the book as a warning with the hopes the subject would remain obscure and not relevant to our present reality. Unfortunately, Zeskind outlines exactly how the themes of these movements have almost become acceptable to elements in Washington, particularly the conservative movement and elements within the Republican Party.

What I found particularly important in Zeskind's book is his analysis of the sociology of this movement--the fact there has been highly educated and accomplished people in its ranks and is predominantly not of the lower classes. What most observers and critics maintain is that these people are on the fringe--true--but they suggest somehow they are ignorant because of a lack of education. The problem is that they have considerable abilities and often high education levels and that's why they are dangerous.

In Your Guts, You Know They're Nuts

The CPAC frolics which will culminate in Rush Limbaugh receiving an award for preserving the Constitution gave me flashbacks to the last real conservative crack-up I first remember. William F. Buckley,Jr. gentrified conservatism by courageously at that time exiling the John Birch Society, the KKK and the isolationism of the American First Movement. It's hard to believe that the man who was to put us under United Nations rule at that time and was an appeaser was none other than Dwight David Eisenhower. Perhaps, it's no mistake that the whole Eisenhower family backed Barack Obama--they have long memories.

Barry Goldwater won the hearts and minds of conservatives with his orneriness and blunt speaking. But, dear Barry was also a founding member of the NAACP in Arizona and was more a libertarian than the social conservatives of today. Yet the monumental landslide loss in 1964 should have indicated the limits of the appeal of unvarnished conservatism to the public.

Today, Ronald Reagan would be hard-pressed to win the leadership of the GOP because as Governor of California he did raise taxes and vote for abortion rights, something conveniently forgotten in the hagiography of his Presidency.

Conservatives and the party they finally seized are faced with the same swill of neo-confederates, white supremacists and separatists that plagued them in the 1950s. It's hard to imagine today's situation where the "birthers" actually seek out approval of Pravda as they do.
The Senator from the state with the most secessionist groups and a high level of white supremacist organizations--DeMint from South Carolina--claims the enemy is the Left--presumably the 68.5 million voters for Barack Obama.

Since the election, almost all the conservative and Republican pundits have been chanting the litany that America is a center-right country. This was echoed again yesterday at CPAC when speakers claimed the majority backed their views. This assumes that ideology will always trump competence, which the last Administration sadly lacked. And curiously, these same people studiously ignore the American people's support of the president's economic programs and his huge popularity as opposed to the conservative Republican leadership in Congress. The politically astute would normally pause and try to analyze this discrepancy.

The blatant appeals to racism and nationalism by the McCain campaign thankfully failed but they have continued through the first weeks of the Obama Administration. We should recall that for the first time in my life a presidential candidate campaigned against the "socialism" of his rival, something the average voter didn't quite perceive. One would have to assume by the results of the last election that "socialism" won, since it was put up to a popular vote.

If you want to drill down and find out where the most noxious rumors about Obama come from, you should examine the hate websites. Last week the Southern Poverty Law Center posted an interactive map of hate groups in the United States. Now there are some 926 such groups ranging from the Nazis to the Nation of Islam, almost a 50% increase since 2000. They usually generate some of the Obama rumors that then get filtered into more conservative websites like the Free Republic and become somewhat accepted within that political culture.

If some adult figures don't step in and call a halt to this courting of the most noxious types in our society,so-called conservatism will become a seditious affair. So far, no respectable leader has called these groups out on their nonsense and tried to steer the debate back to Planet Earth. And, frankly, I believe it is because the Republican leaders now want to see the political possibilities in this route. The same crowd that generated the whole Clinton scandals believe this type of behavior will pay off dividends in the future. In fact, those who believe the "birthers" are stark raving bonkers believe " we should create innuendo after innuendo so that Obama's credibility is damaged." And, yes, it is as cynical as that.

The most curious new addition to the conservative enemy list is FDR. This would be understandable to the geriatric set but makes no sense to Generation X'ers. The embrace of attacks on FDR--which I find disconcerting and irrevelant--are aimed at preserving the Bush entitlements to the rich and corporations. Grass-roots conservatives are not invoking the demons from the FDR period but more the fiscal conservatives linked to Wall Street and the corporate media. Since both New Gingrich and Ronald Reagan once embraced FDR, it's hard to find where the traction is among younger types. For the rich Republicans the anti-FDR scree is a call to dismantle social security and Medicaid--a position not held by the majority or even a significant minority of Americans.

As Glenn Beck lamented, "America is addicted to Government." or as Michelle Bachman said, "What would our founders think of taxation with representation"--you can't make that up. Where is the next William F.Buckley, Jr. when the conservatives need him?