WHY THE 60s?

Rich Lowry has up an interesting essay in which he contrasts American "liberalism" of the present day with American liberalism in the era up to JFK. The two were of course very different and Lowry sees the death of Kennedy in 1963 as the watershed. At that time the American Left suddenly became anti-American and sympathetic to the Communist bloc and the Kennedy assassination was to blame.

Lowry is however resting far too much on a single event. It is good to see ANYBODY showing an awareness of how radically American Leftism has changed over time but Lowry fails to root his critique deeply enough. He shows no awareness that the pre-WWII American Left was characterized by much that it accuses conservatives of today. It was super-patriotic, interventionist in foreign policy, believed in eugenics and thought blacks and Jews to be obviously inferior. The pre-WWII American Left were less extreme than Hitler but not by much. You can find documentation of all that here.

Hitler's excesses, however, discredited all those ideas I have just mentioned and the Left needed new foci. But most Leftists could not abandon overnight ideas that they had so long and so vigorously advocated. They could not suddenly go from being super-patriots to being internationalists, for instance. And JFK, for one, did not even try. Anyone today who said: "Ask not what your coutry can do for you but ask what you can do for your country" would be regarded as quaint at best by today's Left -- if not "Fascist".

So it actually took the rise of a new generation without any memory of prewar committments and ideology for the Left we know today to arise. And the coming of age of that generation we now know as "The 60s". And that generation rebelled in such a vigorous and attention-getting way that the older quasi-Fascist Left rapidly and gladly changed its tune -- though a few migrated to conservatism.

Meanwhile, conservatives kept on with the moderate attitudes that had always characterized them. They remained patriotic but had no desire for war and conquest. They remained broadly tolerant but not mindlessly so and they remained allergic to tyranny.

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Traitorous British politician: "Britain's seat at the UN Security Council will eventually be handed to the European Union, Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, has suggested. The former diplomat was brought in by Gordon Brown to help to overhaul foreign policy was already under fire for suggesting that Britain and America would no longer be "joined at the hip". He faces fresh controversy after it emerged that last October, when he was Deputy General Secretary of the UN, he spoke approvingly of growing EU representation on a visit to Brussels last October. According to a report by the EU Observer, he told Brussels diplomats that the EU was heading toward one single seat within the UN institutions. He said: "I think it will go in stages. We are going to see a growing spread of it institution by institution. It is not going to happen with a flash and a bang." He added that he hoped that it would happen "as quickly as possible. I'm a huge fan of it."

The Goose Creek bomb scare: "Michelle Malkin has several links to info on the investigation of two "Middle Eastern" men whose car was pulled over in South Carolina and found to contain suspicious material. Some have suggested that the stop may have been prompted by a report from other law enforcement sources and was not a routine stop. Goose Creek is the site of a naval facility that among other things services nuclear submarines. It is near Charleston. It also houses the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig, a military prison where enemy combatants have been held, according to AP. If this was an attempted jail break for jihadis, it gives yet another reason to keep most of them at Gitmo."

Maintenance material may have caused Minnesota bridge collapse : "Trucks carrying tens of thousands of pounds of crushed stone were parked on the Interstate 35W bridge, and more stone was sitting on the deck when the bridge collapsed, investigators said Sunday, raising suspicions that the added weight of materials intended for repairs may have played a role in the bridge failure."

Perceptions of Iraq War Are Starting to Shift: "It's not often that an opinion article shakes up Washington and changes the way a major issue is viewed. But that happened last week, when The New York Times printed an opinion article by Brookings Institution analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack on the progress of the surge strategy in Iraq. Yes, progress. O'Hanlon and Pollack supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- Pollack even wrote a book urging the overthrow of Saddam Hussein -- but they have sharply criticized military operations there in the ensuing years. "As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq," they wrote, "we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory,' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."

The Kos Konvention and the Leftward lurch of the Dems: "So, why is the influence and power that the Daily Kos wields in the Democratic Party so significant? Because many of the writers at the Daily Kos are extremists who promote a virulent hatred of the military, conspiracy theories, and in some cases, even violence and Fascist tactics against the people who disagree with them. That means when someone like Harry Reid writes a diary on the Daily Kos or when Hillary Clinton goes to the Yearly Kos convention, it indicates that they're comfortable associating with people who hold those sort of radical views."

Pelosi repudiated: "I have no idea if the upgrade of the FISA law is good or bad. I suspect good, since Congress gave the new law only 6 months to prove itself or die. But the bill does one thing: Its passage rebukes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Plurality Leader Harry Reid. In the House, 41 Democrats abandoned their speaker to pass the FISA upgrade. Only 2 Republicans crossed over in a 227-183 humiliation of the speaker."

Landmines discovered in Canadian creek: "The big question about two live landmines found in a countryside culvert running under Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges, Ontario yesterday is who put them there? Appearing to be attached to timers, the landmines were likely of the type used to blow up tanks, according to Strathroy-Caradoc police. Police yesterday swarmed a country creek where children cool off in heat waves like the one this week as Canadian Forces explosives experts detonated the landmines. The creek would be a huge draw for children in the weatherman's extreme heat alert on Ontario's Simcoe Day long weekend.... Since the creek is a popular family gathering place, police suspect the mines were put there to deliberately maim and kill. "The senseless loss of life or grievous bodily harm that could have taken place at this creek-it's reprehensible," Strathroy-Caradoc police Sgt. Mike Overdulve said. There was no need for speculation on the potential for devastation from the two landmines after a military team detonated both from a safe distance. The force of the blast ripped bark and limbs from a tree and sprayed water so high it could be seen by observers a kilometer away."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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