The Totalitarian Impulse

As mentioned here Tuesday night, an article by Clare Lopez was published earlier that day at the Gatestone Institute’s website and then immediately removed. Since Ms. Lopez had referred favorably in her article to Diana West’s book American Betrayal, and since Ms. West recently had anathema pronounced against her for that same book, it seemed that there might be a connection between the two events.

And indeed there was. Our suspicions were correct.

I just received this information from a source close to Clare Lopez:

In late August 2013, Clare Lopez, then a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, submitted an article for publication at the Gatestone Institute’s website. It was entitled “Recognizing the Wrong People”, and drew on the U.S. government’s 1933 formal diplomatic recognition of the USSR as described in Diana West’s book American Betrayal to form an analogy with the U.S.’s present day recognition and/or support of other fundamentally-anti-American entities, such as the AQ/MB-dominated rebel and opposition forces in places like Egypt, Libya, and Syria.

As with all of Ms. Lopez’ previous articles, this one was well-received by Gatestone’s editor, Nina Rosenwald, who praised it as “so far-sighted.” The article was duly published the morning of Tuesday 3 September 2013 at Gatestone and was sent out to an email list of subscribers. Sometime shortly after that, however, it was pulled from the website, with no notice or explanation.

Word spread quickly as regular Gatestone readers realized something odd had happened.

The real shock came the following morning, though, on September 4, when Ms. Lopez received an email from Nina Rosenwald notifying her that her relationship with the Gatestone Institute had been terminated at the request of the Gatestone Board of Directors. On September 5, Ms. Rosenwald confirmed in an email sent to Ms. Lopez and others what some had already suspected, that her firing was due to her “choice of books to promote…,” a clear reference to Ms. Lopez’ citation of historical events from Ms. West’s book. Although Ms. Lopez also had cited about the same 1933 events to a second book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest, for some reason, that reference did not seem to pose any issues for the Board. Only Ms. West’s book about the very same events seemed to irritate the Board, whose recently-appointed Chairman is former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

It would seem that the legacy of Stalin lives on. The anti-anti-communist movement is alive and well in 21st century America, and so are the vicious public smear tactics of personal vilification to which Diana West has been subjected.

For shame, for shame.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Clare Lopez has not yet been entirely airbrushed out of existence at the Gatestone Institute. Her author archive is still available at the website, and below is a screen cap of her bio, in case it disappears down the same memory hole as did her article (or Mark Tapson’s favorable review of American Betrayal at FPM, for that matter):

(Click to enlarge)

A text version of the bio:

Clare M. Lopez
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Gatestone Institute

Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on national defense, Islam, Iran, and counterterrorism issues. Currently a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, the Center for Security Policy and the Clarion Fund and vice president of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.

Already an advisor to EMP Act America, in February 2012 Ms. Lopez was named a member of the Congressional Task Force on National and Homeland Security, which focuses on the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) threat to the nation. She is deputy director of the U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team for the Military Department of the South Carolina National Guard and serves as a member of the Boards of Advisors/Directors for the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, the Clarion Fund, the Institute of World Affairs, the Intelligence Analysis and Research program at her undergraduate alma mater, Notre Dame College of Ohio, and United West. She has been a Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer on counterterrorism, national defense, and international relations at Georgetown University. Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center, The Rise of the Iran Lobby and co-author/editor of the Center’s Team B II study, “Shariah: The Threat to America”.

Ms. Lopez received a B.A. in Communications and French from Notre Dame College of Ohio and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She completed Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia before declining a commission, in favor of joining the CIA.

So these are the credentials of the woman who was fired for writing favorably about a book that someone else disapproves of. A scholar of her quality and expertise had to be suppressed, not just by having her article pulled, but by losing her status as a senior fellow.

Well…

Gatestone is a private foundation. It is fully within its rights to exercise editorial discretion and terminate any of its fellows as it sees fit. Front Page Magazine may also claim the same prerogatives vis-à-vis its own articles.

Still, one cannot help but observe the sheer juvenility of such behavior. These people are intelligent, well-educated adults — what prompts their descent into junior-high style bullying? Not just incompetence, but maliciousness. What’s going on here?

The impulse to suppress what someone else has to say, using any and all tactics available, is a totalitarian one.

The ferocious personal attacks on Diana West emerged from numerous quarters at more or less the same time, which suggested a concerted effort to apply Saul Alinsky’s Rule #12 — referred to in another context as “the politics of personal destruction”.

It seems that no matter how far to the “right” an old Stalinist moves, he still carries his own private Lubyanka around with him, ready to be dusted off and reoccupied whenever the occasion warrants.

Previous posts about the controversy over American Betrayal by Diana West:

2013   Aug   11   Diana West: On the Question of “Scholarship”
        13   Yet Another Circular Conservative Firing Squad
        14   Cordon Sanitaire: FAIL
        15   On Reading the Book
        16   Banishing the Cathars
        18   Form and Substance
        22   “It’s All in Plain Sight”
        30   When Should a Book Not Be Written?
    Sep   3   Recognizing the Wrong People
 

67 thoughts on “The Totalitarian Impulse

  1. West’s great book almost certainly exposed a few names connected to the
    communist infiltration of the US. Probably somebody’s father. The book lays
    bare a lot of subversive elements, someone is getting nervous. GOOD !!!

  2. Pingback: GATESTONE INSTITUTE FIRES CLARE LOPEZ FOR FAVORABLY MENTIONING ‘AMERICAN BETRAYAL’……. |

    • Bloodlands is outstanding and chilling history. The recounting of the sickening realities of Ukrainian famine of 1931-1932 and Soviet Communist inhumanity is chilling. The fact that we know so little of it makes Diana West’s point.

  3. The termination of Ms Lopez by the Gatestone Institute for the political malfeasance of “promoting” Diana West’s book just beggars belief. I hope for its sake that Gatestone obtained legal advice before taking the actions it did because there is a legal remedy for the reputational damage so inflicted upon Ms Lopez and I’d be delighted to represent her for a nominal fee plus expenses.

    Worse, personally for me at least, is learning that John Bolton is the chairman of that institute. To say this is dismaying is an understatement. It has ruined my evening knowing that such a great man is associated with such acts.

    It is pertinent to remember, especially for Mesdames West and Lopez, just how widely and deeply vilified Robert Conquest was for decades. The man stood alone subjected to a torrent of personal abuse, denigration and delegitimisation. The Great Terror was criticised because Conquest was a “poet” not an “historian”*! He was dismissed as a “CIA stooge”, etc, etc.

    Conquest had the last laugh. When asked to revise “The Great Terror” by his publishers in light of newly accessible documentation from former Soviet archives, the publishers wanted a suffix added to the original title. According to British novelist Martin Amis, Conquest suggested that the suffix should be “I told you so, you f***ing fools!”. The publishers ran with the somewhat less controversial suffix: “A reassessment”.

    * I just love the notion that to make a contribution to historiography one has to have a PhD in history and hold an academic appointment as an historian. Almost as risible as the notion that to be a journalist one needs a degree in “Journalism” or “Communications”. I like my doctors and dentists to have degrees in the relevant fields and I’m more comfortable with bridges which were designed by people with qualifications in civil or structural engineering than those without such qualifications, but history and journalism require merely literacy.

  4. Diana West seems to have touched a rather raw nerve in the political establishment of the USA. I requested her book from my local book store and received American Betrayal by Joe Dow Whistle Blower. I thought at first this must be a joke until I started to read it. I finally received a copy of Diana West’s book and started to read that as well, I am half way through both books and they are frighteningly running together. It seems that the infiltration of people in institutions to serve as control over public activities has been totally achieved and no amount of whistle blowing is going to stop them running the US into the ground. Now with the Muslim threat of take over, the attack on family values and the basic bed rock of marriage by the mentally ill, some who would marry there pet whatever if they could, we can see what agenda the left have in store for the world at large. Socialist, National Socialist, Communist, Social Democrats they are the same dog but with a different collar. Thank goodness the Russians who know a lot about this have put there foot down on spreading perversion, who knows they may even be in the long term a social and political example to follow.

  5. Pingback: The Totalitarian Impulse | Vlad Tepes

  6. That rather tarnishes the Gatestone Institute as not being a true source as they are politically compromised now.
    Shame as I thought Bolton has brought some good commentary to issues of the day to the general Public.
    Thanks for the heads up on the Gatestone Institute, I will make a note that they aren’t A2 material until shown otherwise.

  7. Yesterday, I was reading through the response at Amazon to American Betrayal. I was pleased. The overwhelming majority, 102 readers, give her book 5 stars. The number giving her book 1 star is only 24. It speaks much about the validity of West’s case.
    Maybe Gatestone, Horowitz et al think they’re on the right side of this, but given the response to the book and the good reviews it has garnered, I’d say history is on West’s side so far.
    I don’t see how the termination of Lopez and the denigration of American Betrayal are defensible.

    • goethechosemercy–

      For a few years now I have been a fan of Amazon’s Review sections for products because I must do a lot of my shopping online due to fibromyalgia. Thus I have the dubious distinction of being an aficionado of those places.

      There are only 14 one star reviews, not 24.( Or are you in the UK? I would imagine their review section is separate). In the US Amazon, it’s definitely 14 and while the positive reviews have continued to rise, the cellar hasn’t changed its numbers at all.

      that page is like an xray view of this beat down of Diana West. I will probably do a post on it. A post-mortem

      • Gosh, I think I just may have read it wrong. I’m glad the Amazon page is of interest to you.
        I’m not arguing that the truth is democratically elected, but when so many people are willing to give the highest review possible to a book that has been vilified by a few powerful people, something of a totalitarian nature is going on. It’s like Horowitz et al think of themselves as a kind of vanguard. They’re not.

  8. Pingback: The Urge to Purge: Strange Events Inspired by Diana West Controversy : The Other McCain

  9. Now that Bolton has joined the coverup, is there ANYBODY of note we can trust? It seems that virtually ALL of our history from WWI on has been either affected or controlled by an enemy bent on Democracy’s destruction from within.
    I guess I’ll just hunker down with my M14 and perish surrounded by lots of expended 7.62 NATO brass.

    • I know that Bolton talks the talk, but I’ve never thought of him as a courageous man. He is certainly not ESW, Geert Wilders or Tommy Robinson. He is not in the same league with Robert Spencer or David Wood, though he is called a “scholar.”

      • Bolton is an extremely bright man who made it from the lower middle class in Baltimore right to the top. I have never thought of him as a neocon, but as a conservative. I will have to re-assess that.

        When the p.c. leftists piled on Clarence Thomas during the Supreme Court nomination, Bolton stood fast with him. He’s done other courageous things too. In the time he was at the United Nations he was brilliant.

        I wish a decent person would occupy the White House and appoint Bolton Secretary of State. He has said it would take a generation to clean out those Augean stables but he’d be willing to start.

        I’ll wait to see what he does at Gatestone. I know he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Maybe he stepped into a stable that needs cleaning?

        • At the UN Bolton was, indeed, brilliant. That is why I am so dismayed that an institute he chairs has done what it has done.

          • We have to recognize that the profound nature of the revelations in Diana West’s book fundamentally challenge the essential legitimacy of the U.S. government. It’s all one with the silence of the “conservative” political establishment about the issue of massive vote fraud being used to rig elections. For someone committed to preserving the system at any cost, there is nothing worse than a credible charge which implies the system itself not only shouldn’t be preserved as it currently exists but is irrevocably corrupted and has to be completely abolished.

            I have to admit, I myself didn’t like “incendiary” rhetoric from the right back when there was any hope that the U.S. government could be preserved and eventually salvaged (I still clung to remnants of such hopes as little as a decade ago). For me, the issue is that it is no longer mathematically possible for the U.S. to stabilize its currency while paying off the national debt, both of which are absolute prerequisites to maintaining the current system of international trade on which Americans depend for their standard of living. As it is, at some point enough of the oil producing nations are going to refuse to honor the system of using dollars for all oil transactions, at which point the dollar will become subject to international market forces and, without the special considerations of “reserve currency status”, the dollar is essentially worthless.

            The sudden loss of 40% of the oil our economy requires to function will be absolutely devastating, most significantly to the trucking industry, which is the primary means by which food is transported into the urban centers of America. The trucking industry is highly sensitive to instability in the domestic price of oil, and the cessation of oil imports combined with a loss of confidence in the dollar will cause fuel price instability beyond anything that America has ever seen. Urban centers are highly sensitive to having nothing to eat, and the violence which will occur will be massive and will escalate uncontrollably until the cities run out of people to do the fighting. Police and military forces will have to contend with the realization that their pensions are effectively worthless, which is going to have a dramatic effect on their willingness to lay down their lives fighting to help the government regain control.

            Particularly as those areas which have abundant food supplies are also going to be the most abundant in private firearms ownership and clear fields of overlapping defensive fire, making the process of forcibly confiscating food from those that have it…difficult.

            With these facts in mind, I am not disposed to discount West’s book simply because the fact it contains critically undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. government. But if not for the absolute inevitability of the dissolution of the Federal authority, I would still be inclined to agree with the assertion that Diana West should not have written this book. I should not have resorted to public falsehoods in an attempt to silence her, but I would have been hesitant to promote it.

            Not everyone accepts that the breakdown of the U.S. government’s authority a foregone conclusion. And I think that it is possible that some people fail to see how utterly impossible it is to restore a sense of legitimacy to the existing government institutions if we accept the assertions of “American Betrayal” (and the form and course of this controversy seems to prove that those assertions are not easily refuted).

            In the end, I do not believe that we can trust anyone who depends for their livelihood on the continued authority of the U.S. government to be ready to acknowledge the real truth of its economic bankruptcy or its moral and political illegitimacy. If they were really willing to accept either, let alone both, they would be in some other occupation.

  10. How many empires were lost because of the intrigues and squabbles of their ruling class? It’s really quite depressing to see that this is still going on.

    And yet we can’t stop it, can we? The only way to stop it is to purge disagreement, and that just ends us right back in the same problem.

  11. The way I see it, the only reason that both Ms. West and Ms. Lopez treated in the same manner within a couple of weeks of each other is that they are likely quite right in their assertions. Facts and truth are the only real enemies of the Left, and from what I have seen, many “conservative” groups are either influenced by, or perform acts of “…calm, dishonorable, vile, submission” to, the ruling elite. They will publish good points of view, but the stuff that provides the big picture is suppressed with the more brave writers sacked and treated in the same manner as extremists.

  12. “The Totalitarian Impulse” is an excellent title to begin scrutinizing all the ways the Statists operate.

    Let me suggest something worth thinking about. Let me suggest not to be too shocked over men like John Bolton. Men who appeared to be reliable Rightists. The man who fought for his appointment to the U.N. was himself soft on many aspects of Statism. That same Prez was not beneath calling conservatives xenophobes and worse because they wanted the border protected by him.

    Why do I bring that paradox to light? Because of the totalitarian impulse. Who did Big Brother demonize constantly? Goldstein. And who was it Orwell revealed had written Goldstein’s book? Why O’Brien. The totalitarian impules INCLUDES providing voices who speak the truth so that those hungry for the truth will feel they have a leader or leaders to depend upon. And then have their hopes dashed time and again.

    Your aim is to help prevent that from happening. Nobody wants to find themselves in Room 101 before they find out that their leaders were creations of the State.

    I noticed someone in the comments mentioned Jim DeMint, a former conservative stalwart in the Senate where he is really needed today, now heading the hoary Heritage Foundation. Heritage so far has not yet gone negative on West and Lopez. But will they defend them as you have? There will be other opportunities to test our “leaders.” I suspect only new leadership will provide us any real respites from the ever-expanding State, leaders that the State want to suppress by giving us ones of its choosing. I’m simply not so jaded as to write them all off. But I am being watchful as I recommend to everyone else.

    One more thing. Be careful of being overjoyed if any former object of demonization is rehabilitated by the original institutions or its affiliates. O’Brien is never too busy.

    • You ought to reassess your opinion of the Heritage Foundation. They recently fired Jason Richman, one of the few who write the truth about our Suicide-by-Migra, because someone brought to their attention that his PhD dissertation at Harvard was about the deleterious effects of immigration of low-IQ people — which in our social reality means predominantly brown people. Gewalt! Racism! Riot Act!

      We have our totems and taboos no less than any naked cargo cult primitives do, and just as detached from reality as theirs are. Problem is that rationality and empiricism are the hallmarks of our civilization; when they are suppressed we slide back closer to the level of the cargo cult people. And maybe that’s the hidden agenda.

      • “And maybe that’s the hidden agenda.”

        OMG, you mean progressivism is really regressivism? That postmodernism means “get past this desire for modernity and live simply?” /s[arcasm tag for the needy]

        What’s the probability of your maybe? Mine is well in excess of 50%? While I’m no fan of the Precautionary Principle, because the preponderance of evidence says death cultism in high places is much greater than 80%, I think those who believe in defending innocent human life will be invoking shortly it.

        Oh, about your advice that I reassess my evaluation of Heritage. Did you think it very high?

        When I used the adjective hoary, that implied that they could be past their use-by date.

        • Any agenda that elevates equality over liberty is a regressive, fanatically reactionary agenda. It’s not about living simply and being the noble savage but about equalizing “white privilege” and expiation for whitey’s manifold sins. It’s a takedown — takedown of the culture (think rap, tattoos, hi-schools that graduate functional illiterates full of self-esteem, Miley Cyrus), takedown of the economic/industrial robustness, takedown of military might (by wasting it on matters outside of the natiuonal interest), etc., etc.
          I got a whiff of your scepticism on Heritage too. I just looked at the Hudson Institute — another “heritage”-minded affair but really just a neocon activism nexus.

          • There certainly is a certain longing for “the noble savage” implicit in the desire for equality as such. I have to say that the current state of genetic science casts a significant doubt on whether the proposition “all men are created equal” can really be taken as having anything other than a purely theological meaning. But there is no doubt that the framers of the Declaration of Independence rejected imposition of an artificial equality on men who had, by their own will, chosen different outcomes in life.

            There is only one real equality, and that is the equality of the mass grave, unmarked and forgotten in desolation.

            Still, I have to say that there is value in the theory that everyone really is somehow created equal and that every difference accumulated later in life is the result of a choice, whether their own or that of another person. This value is in clarifying legal accountability for the different outcomes which we actually must acknowledge in any human population. A Christian must accept that sometimes the answer to the question “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” will be “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” But I see no reason that legal theorists cannot assign responsibility entirely to human individuals for human purposes, as long as they don’t intend to be working divine miracles left and right.

            That is to say, I see it as essential that we treat individual people as fully accountable for their own actions and the direct consequences, despite our awareness that this may not always be the case.

      • And Jason Richwine was also left to swing in the wind when he was outed and ousted by Heritage.

        I don’t know if that happened after De Mint came on board or not. If it was afterwardsthen the usual p.c. soul-shrinking that is a side-effect of too many years in politics was in play.

        If anyone knows of a website which has published on this shameful episode, please leave us a link or send it to our email.

        NOTE: You can find our email by clicking on the underlined words “Email us” in the upper left hand corner on our home page. Or should I say “extreme left corner”? Has a certain ring to it…

  13. This is outrageous, and strange.

    Only two explanations seem logical, though neither one can be redeemed from outlandish implications that beggar plausibility.

    The first is that ex-Communist anti-Communists Horowitz and Radosh have serious brain damage rendering them a) incapable of processing elementary data (as amply and clearly demonstrated by the detailed refutations by Diana West (even in her abbreviated “coming attraction” presaging a major rebuttal soon to come) and M. Stanton Evans of Radosh’s attempts at criticism); and b) susceptible to irrational spasms of emotion further incapacitating their already seriously compromised ratiocination in this regard.

    The second is that ex-Communist anti-Communists Horowitz and Radosh are not really ex- and nor anti-Communist, but continue to further the Communist Revolution, in latter years under deep cover pretending to have earned anti-Communist bonafides — i.e., they are doing Stealth Communism in the guise of fighting Communism. Part of their nefarious motives involve a mistaken, but powerfully dreamy belief that the Communist world revolution can be strengthened through a synergy with Islamic Jihad (and here too, then, a pretense to being anti-Islam on the surface would mask an ulterior opposite agenda, reflected by the occasionally glinting traces of tips of an iceberg in the form of curiously soft embrace of various “Reformist Muslims”, not to mention Radosh’s essay lecturing his fellow “conservatives” about how Islam isn’t all that bad).

    Neither scenario, as I said, is fully satisfactory; but leave an unpleasant aftertaste in the mind considering them. But unfortunately, they seem to be a Scylla and Charybdis, forcing us to be ruthlessly Sherlock-Holmesian. The only question is, which of the two choices is the accurately “impossible”…?

    • I understand your rational, logical thinking but human behavior is more varied, even in this case.

      I think that Horowitz has worked very hard to come to an more-or-less influence position–a position from which he can influence not only people on the right but even some in the center–wherever that is now–and perhaps even a few on the left who respect him even if they disagree with him. And so he is able to get his message across. The drip of water on the stone you know.

      This influence would be eroded and probably destroyed if it could be charged that he saw “communists under every bed.” He would be ridiculed and dismissed, even by those in the center. He does not want to risk that. His “mission” so to speak would be rendered ineffective.

      And so he is morbidly cautious about every last detail with respect to West’s disclosures.

      I write this as a firm supporter of Diana West and as one who thinks there is absolutely no justification for the ad hominem attacks against her and for her work being excluded.

      I agree that this is not a complete explanation, but it does fit the facts. Horowitz has admitted this in different words.

      • Independent,

        Your argument doesn’t explain how Horowitz could defend Radosh’s strangely inept review of West’s book, nor why he chose him in the first place after M. Stanton Evans effectively eviscerated him in 2008 over another strangely inept review. Radosh’s two reviews are so monstrously inept, they force the reasonable thinker to the two choices I outlined above.

        • I agree it doesn’t, but then I said it was not a complete explanation. I too have been puzzling over this.

          But every explanation seems either incomplete or bizarre. I agree with the Baron. They are afraid of something–what I don’t know.

          The writers on Horowitz’s site have done some good work in exposing and publicizing the Islamic threat.

        • Hesperado: I can’t remember who mentioned it but iirc, Radosh asked to perform that brutal surgery. It is my understanding that he hates, loathes and despises Evans and Ms. West admires Evans, so there you go. Sufficient cause for his meltdown, in which he accused her of things she’d never written, assigned to her quotes that aren’t in her book , etc.

          Did his extreme reaction affect his reasoning? Perhaps. Perhaps he’s always been an Excitable Boy.

          What I object to, as a moral principle, is ever removing something already posted and essentially burying it without explanation. If one decides the post is incorrect, then amend it with an update and a link to newer information.

          These people are acting fearfully. What are they afraid of that they so forcefully go after her? Someone said that Horowitz still operates under Alinsky’s rules, and perhaps he does. Certainly this behavior is evidence of that. Violation of Rule #12 – I think the commenter Pascal said that.

          #12 is something Obama used in every one of his own political campaigns – i.e., personal destruction. We may never know what he “had” on Hillary Clinton that made it politic for her to concede the Democrat nomination to him, but it must have been a doozy. Her consolation prize was, of course, SecState.

          BTW, and not exactly OT, this afternoon I just happened to run across an excellent piece of your own work:

          Deconstructing the Myth of Milosevic and the Serbs

          Very nice, Hesperado.

          I’m going to look at the others you’ve linked also.

          Meanwhile, you’ve sent me off on a tangent of John Simon. It will take me a while to forgive *that* – a half hour I can’t afford 😉

          • Thanks Dymphna. I’d forgotten all about that essay, and your reminder came just in time, since a long-time commenter on Jihad Watch who is otherwise a “friend” of the Counter-Jihad, today blurted out a criticism of Serbia one doesn’t expect to see within the Counter-Jihad:

            “Serbia also has blood on its hands (just ask a Slovenian, Croatian, et al.)”

            (which he uses as a truism upon which to build the usual blather that affects a judicious balance but which ends up throwing Serbia to the wolves).

            You might be interested in taking a look at John Simon’s blog. When he’s not talking about theology (he’s an atheist) or mentioning Islam, he’s quite witty.

            http://uncensoredsimon.blogspot.com/

            I’ve tried to take him to task about Islam in private emails, and his frequent formulations which sound a bit too politically correct (e.g., equating Islamic and Christian “fanaticism”), and surprisingly, he seems rather open-minded about learning; though one senses a force field beyond which he will not go in that regard.

          • I would say that they fear the logical implications of Diana West’s irrefutable documentation in “American Betrayal” of the degree to which the U.S. government establishment was influenced by Soviet agents during a critical formative period of the current shape of Federal policy and scope.

            If what West has uncovered is true (and there is no credible refutation of the evidence at this point), then the current U.S. government is illegitimate. Not wayward, or incompetent, or corrupt, or engaged in criminality, but completely without legal authority. The modification of the government was not an accident of historical necessity or popular will, but simple treason against America. West may have chosen the title more for dramatic flair, but it is a concise summation of the overall implication. The continued existence of the U.S. government in its present form is nothing more or less than the greatest act of treason in the history of our nation.

            It is not at all incredible to assert that this would be as dramatic a revelation as finding out that every member of the government was really an alien lizard-person which liked feasting on human babies…except that such an assertion would be easily refuted and what West has documented in “American Betrayal” is evidently irrefutable.

            If Diana West had written a book called “Attack of the Alien Lizard-men”, I think that the response would have been…different. More dignified and restrained, more honestly sorrowful. Because there would be no danger of anyone believing it.

            Ultimately, once we process the full implications of “American Betrayal”, there can be only one rational response, the complete overthrow of the current U.S. Federal government. I believe that Horowitz sees this, and thus regards West’s book as a dangerous call for revolution. Exactly why any particular person would be against the overthrow of our current illegitimate government can vary. Some might be cautious of the dangers of a violent revolution (and I am among them even though I perceive such violence as inevitable, whether or not it leads to revolution), others might want to maintain the status quo because they fundamentally approve of the direction it is taking us. There can be many opinions in between.

            In short, I think that Horowitz is probably right to be afraid. The implications of “American Betrayal” are terrifying to anyone that doesn’t love the idea of an unprecedented internecine war in America. For all of that, I don’t believe that hiding our heads in the sand is a useful response. Those who would have peace must prepare for war.

  14. There’s been talk in the past few years of turning Alinksy’s tactics back upon the leftists. Apparently some of the people giving that advice are finding it more fun to use those tactics against people on the right who step outside the little box of acceptable thought.

    For this behavior to be employed by the same folks who have built careers decrying the left’s speech-police and thought-control is astounding, shocking, shameful. Haven’t they been telling us, over and over, that the best response to incorrect speech is more speech? that if you disagree with people, you don’t just try to silence them, but instead offer your own reasoned arguments — not strings of ad hominems, or arguments against something your opponent never said?

    There’s a website (or two) that’s no longer getting traffic from me because I’m appalled by the totalitarian hypocrisy.

  15. This book separates conservatives from neoconservatives. Both Horowitz and Bolton are neoconservatives. They are not much better than the [epithets for hard-leftists and appeasers of Islam]. Pity.

    • Except that they don’t advocate appeasement of Islam. Quite the contrary.

      Horowitz and Bolton have done more to publicize the danger of Islam than anyone commenting on this thread with the possible exceptions of Dymphna and Takuan. Give credit where credit is due.

      We may excoriate Horowitz and possibly Bolton for the extraordinary anathema pronounced upon Ms. West’s book, but fair is fair.

      Our enemies (the politcal left and the Muslims) exaggerate all the time.

      We do not need to do so. We do not need to copy our enemies in this regard.

      It muddles our thinking and does not help our cause.

      • You didn’t read me carefully. I said that Horowitz and his Frongpage.com site (and his busy beaver, Jamie Glazov) while on the surface earning the bonafides of the Counter-Jihad, nevertheless show many signs of supporting and maintaining the meme of the “Moderate Muslim” and the “Reformist Muslim”. This is a way that “giveth with the large print” and “taketh away with the small print”. Whether he consciously intends this is the question. There is no question that this meme only ends up reinforcing the same myopia and madness which continue to hold the entire West in their thrall, preventing it from waking up and recovering its former rationality about this very old and perennial enemy.

        So once again we are faced with two explanations: either Horowitz is an idiot about Islam, or he’s a Communist doing his part to pave the way for the destruction of the West with the help of Muslims who need the West to be naive enough to allow millions of “Moderates” and “Seculars” and “Reformists” and “Lax Muslims” and “Muslims Ignorant of Their Own Islam” to infiltrate into nearly every institution of the West, the necessary precondition for coordinated terror attacks using ingenious methods of mass murder, including various flavors of WMDs.

        Prior to this latest inexplicable episode with West, I simply assumed Horowitz was an asymptotic who hasn’t been able to rid his system of the PC MC virus, a hangover of his Leftist ideals still informing his ethical narcissism. Now, I’m not so sure.

        • Aside from an essay in which he lectures fellow “conservatives” on how Islam may not be all that bad, I now learn that Ronald Radosh is taking the wrong side (i.e., Obama’s side) on Syria:

          REALLY RON? RADOSH ON WHY WE SHOULD SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT’S WAR IN SYRIA….SEE NOTE PLEASE

          Posted By Ruth King on September 5th, 2013

          Why Conservatives Should Rally for the President’s Resolution

          http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/09/04/why-conservatives-should-rally-for-the-presidents-resolution-and-work-to-defeat-the-forces-of-the-new-isolationists-left-and-right/?print=1

        • Hesperado,

          I read your commentary well enough. GoV occasionally publishes an article or speech by a “reformist Muslim.” The commentators critique it of course. Most recently, on August 27th, GoV showed a speech by Iman Ahmed Akkari to the International Free Press Society. Lars Hedegaard remarked that he thinks the iman (former iman?) is genuine in his reformist views.

          I write as someone who does not think that Islam can reform itself and still remain Islam. Because we know that all it takes for some “moderate” Muslim to become radicalized is a devout reading of the foundational religious texts of Islam.

          Nevertheless, if some Muslims want to attempt some reformation, who am I–or you for that matter–to pronounce anathema upon them and their speeches and writing and condemn any website, e.g., FrontPageMag, Gates of Vienna, for including them?

          I think we have to be careful about engaging in the very behavior we condemn in others.

    • Oznoto, I have been thinking of the same theory that Betrayal is a true marker between Conservative & NeoCons aka Trotsky-ites. These latter types are very, very dangerous and need to be outed. See who signed the letter sent to Obama to encourage an attack on Syria and you will see the whose who of NeoCon insiders.

  16. I knew nothing about Gatestone. Found a detailed description, albeit from a hostile source, here: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/gatestone_institute
    It’s very clear to me now that Gatestone is a super-neocon establishment. And neocons, albeit alert to the danger of Islam, are not our friends.

    My “our” refers to people who love America, love Western civilization, and have the brains and the emotional fortitude to read history as it unfolds before their eyes without any looking glass tinted by ideology. Yes, it includes “Islamophobia,” but that is only one of a dozen elements of a sociocultural common denominator most of which the neocons do not share.

    West and Lopez in their statements declared themselves outside of the neocon dogma, hence they had to go. If someone finds the term “neocon” confusing, I recommend the insights of Paul Gottfried.

  17. For a long time i was America’s biggest friend in Europe. Still gratefull for all those lives lost back in those days.

    I had a hard time when America attacked Serbia. My dear Americans- the people i admire- fighting along side with these islamic terrorist from the UCK. But. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.

    On september 11 my hart bleeds. And i sometimes cry for the lives lost. And the anger about the enemies amongst our midst is unbearable.

    I supported – with doubts- America when it went to war on Iraq in 2003.

    And here we are.2013. I no longer stand beside America. I see a tyrant in the White house! A tyrant who was elected by a part of the American people. A majority of Americans elected this warmongering red line baby.

    And now i see all this smear directed at mr.West. I see people like Alinsky steering this Barack muslim brotherhood member Obama. I see the never elected gunboat hero Kerry blowing his war whistle. I see this Hanoi Hilton cowboy playing poker and stating: ramadan= christmas. I know the NSA is reading this.

    I can no longer support a nation with these kind of semi elected “leaders”. I can no longer tolerate this evil stupidity. With pain in my hart i tell you Americans. You have lost me! You have offended your biggest friend in Europe once to many. My stance might be a small drop in the bigger scale of things. Nothing really serious to be concerned about.

    I never thought there would come a day when i would say: i am on the Russian side. Damn demorats (sic)! They have betrayed that shining city on the hill and nobody did something about it.

    Shame on America. You have lost me.

    • I agree with much of what you say. Have never been a “my country right or wrong” type.

      Here is some information on the Balkans from the 1389 blog:

      The Balkans for Dummies

      My problem with Iraq was that we were messed over by a number of other countries – Turkey for one – and permitted too much ugly stuff to go on because we’ve got dhimmified PC useful idjits at the top.

      For the same reason we need to get out of Afghanistan. Years ago.

      It’s not so much that we have a tyrant in the White House. It’s that he has no experience, no coherent foreign policy, and he’s a city of one.

      He has closed the White House to the public to spite Congress.

      He has undermined the Constitution (a document he doesn’t like) and started wars needlessly – even a few against American citizens.

      He rules by diktat. Often his executive directives are issued on Friday, very late afternoon, when the press has left for the weekend. By Monday it’s old news and these lazy folk don’t do weekend work – which he is well aware of.

      Documenting his broken promises (start with transparency, which he wisely avoids mentioning now) would take a long, long time.

      Our president is our shame. Even though I never voted for him, he is the albatross hanging ’round every citizens’ neck.

      He is on record as wanting to bankrupt some of the fossil fuel industries. If that means it takes a huge bite out of a paycheck to pay for his new age “fuels” – enh. He doesn’t care and he doesn’t care that we know he doesn’t care.

      I am not on the Russian “side”. Russia doesn’t care about anyone, not even Russians. I remain on the side of sovereignty and equal opportunity for those willing to work for themselves…right now that’s not America but it could be.

      • The election of Obama is not a anomaly. His election reflects what America, and the West, is becoming. Many seem to think that we just need to restore the American Constitutional Republic, but that is an illusion. The US is now in its late empire stage. There is no previous example in history of restoration of the earlier republican stage of a civilization. And consider this: the coming psychological and economic deflation that will follow the implosion of the US empire will be from heights greater that ever before; the fall (reversal) will be all the greater.

        Am I happy to think this; No, I hate it. I love Western Civilization, but the West itself is determined to commit suicide. I keep hoping that Takuan Seiyo, who shows us what is happening, will show us the way back. There might be just the slightest miniscule chance with Mark Levin’s amendments to the Constitution.

    • I remember when Madeleine Albright justified the bombing of Belgrade on grounds that it would be good for international relations if America took the side of Muslims in their war with Christians. That’s the kind of imbecility (and/or treachery) that’s running this country nowadays. It’s clearly gotten worse with the Obama-Jarrett-Brennan cabal. And too many Republicans who sometimes sound reasonable seem mainly concerned with protecting their own careers. It’s tragic, and frightening.

  18. …M. Stanton Evans, Lawrence Auster, John Derbyshire, Jason Richwine, Diana West, Claire Lopez…

    The list will no doubt continue.

    • Steve Sailer, a brilliant man writing proscribed things about intelligence, IQ, sociobiology etc., has been reduced to writing for a few websites that pay something to their writers but largely preach to their small gallery, with no no impact on the national consciousness.

      I had an article of mine published and yanked one hour later at a now-defunct “conservative”website. I was being ironic about Saint MLK and explicit about black crime and truculence; the website’s owner had a professional job in the public sector — I could not fault him for fearing for his livelihood. On another occasion, The New English Review discontinued publication of my “The Bee and Lamb” after the first three chapters, citing risks of losing major donors. Again, I could not fault the publishers for minding their own survival — but thought sadly about how similar the atmosphere was under the real commies, behind the Iron Curtain, where I spent my childhood.

      There are dozens of other cases, including impeccably empiricists academics with tenure who live under a virtual omerta and have suffered in some cases physical attacks because they have touched the sacred tribal taboos of rece, gender and ethnic culture differences. Try the accounts that J. Philippe Rushton and Linda Gottfredson have written of their respective persecutions.

  19. Dear Dymphna,

    Offcourse i am being hard on those 50 million who did vote for the other guy. But now i am not so fond about the republicans either. Whats wrong with this John McCain? Whats wrong with this house of “representatives leader “? You want examples? No real conservative can ever deal with a demorat. Not after the IRS ( and ongoing) teaparty scandal. And i dont see this John McCain [orifice] defending his fellow Republicans. I see him joining that ugly bunch…Good thing this pokerplayer never made it as president.

    Demorats are just that. Rats.Infected by socialism/communism..

    Dymphna. These demorats call everybody who dont agree with them a fascist or a racist. Fascists or racists must be exterminated.. Its “legal”to kill people like that. “Everybody knows” that.. There is something really wrong in their communication. For a long time i did not react to that kind of insults..Not no more! They are the socialists. Just like the National Socialistic German working party. They are the enemies among our ranks.

    These people (Demorats) are the ones being racists/fascists (lets give that job to a minority) I am no longer buying that [odious substance]. As a matter of fact. I dont want to be in the same room as the racist and terrorist Allinsky.

    You Americans have to find a way to restore that great constitution! And enforce it! The best document/set of laws ever written.

    All enemies..Foreign or domestic, Are those dead words? 😉

    I am done with these racists/fascists! Period.

    • As a rat and a scavenger, I have to take exception to your characterization of Democrats as having any of the noble qualities of resourceful self-reliance that are embodied and even exemplified by rats.

      The U.S. Federal government is on its way out. It is not only completely illegitimate and unconstitutional, it is utterly financially bankrupt and unsalvageable. There is absolutely no possibility of reforming it, and no point either, since the only thing propping up its authority is the ability to issue unlimited amounts of fiat currency. The E.U. currently has a greater claim to legitimate authority and financial solvency.

      Americans can and must become involved in ensuring that their individual states are prepared to whether the inevitable breakdown of the Federal authority just as Europeans must look to the integrity of their own nations rather than waste time trying to somehow “repair” the E.U., the main difference being that the E.U. was untenable from the beginning while the U.S. Constitution will be viable as the blueprint for a new Union of the States after the current unconstitutional government has been relegated to the dustbin. Another difference is that it is a realistic option for Americans to move to a state where the chances of independently maintaining civilization in the wake of a total breakdown of the Federal government are better than average. While some Europeans do have such options, overall most will have to stay with the nation they’ve got rather than trying to move to another.

      There are no states where the fight to preserve civilization against the dying ravages of the Federal monstrosity will be easy, everyone who is aware of what is coming must work to spread the word and to push for full preparedness. Those who are moving should be sure to move into a neighborhood where it is possible to have a significant supply of stored food and water (along with any other absolute necessities of life), the means of growing more locally, and the personally owned armaments necessary to defend property and life against any potential outbreaks of savagery in the wake of the global financial collapse. I’m sure that sounds even crazier to many Europeans than it does to the majority of Americans. But I’ll say this, Muslims are able to make and maintain modern military armaments while living in caves, if you would resist them than you had better be able to do the same.

      • I agree that any restoration of the American Constitutional Republic will only go forward in the States. Have you considered Mark Levin’s proposal for constitutional amendments? It might be the only chance we have, and I admit it is a slim one.

        • My problem with calling for a Constitutional Convention at this point is that it can in principle accomplish nothing more than to reiterate that the Federal government should be adhering to the Constitution.

          It is basically like responding to an active shooter in a school by going to great risk and effort to take a picture of the “Gun Free Zone” sign in front of the school and show that to the shooter in the expectation that, confronted with this evidence that mercilessly gunning down school children is against the law, the shooter will simply stop.

          Those violating their oaths of office already know that they are violating the Constitution (which is already the Supreme law of the United States). They must be removed directly, as one would deal with any other psychopathic criminal.

          It will certainly be necessary for those states which survive the coming collapse to call a new Constitutional Convention to reestablish the United States. I should prefer something based on the original Constitution with integration of the first fifteen amendments and some other key provisions (making membership in the Militia the basis of the right to vote, for example).

  20. Maybe they just don’t like – I mean really don’t like – being reminded that their first love was no better than Islam at its worst excesses, or Nazi-ism either. Maybe their first love is still tugging on their heart strings?

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