Pulling Threads

The launch of Diana West’s new book has awakened some of the controversies that surrounded her previous one. In the essay below, JLH talks about both books as they relate to the current Constitutional crisis in the United States.

Pulling Threads

by JLH

News has come to us (that is the journalistic, not the imperial “us”) that David Horowitz has turned on his long-time friend and ally, Ron Radosh, denouncing him for the leftist he is/has returned to be. Horowitz is known — and respected by many — as a conservative author, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, editor of FrontPage Magazine, director of Discover the Networks, a website that tracks individuals and groups on the political left, and founder of Students for Academic Freedom. Some may ask “Why?” While others may ask “Why now?” Has Radosh, like Trotsky, become a dissenter — in this case not from Stalinist Communism, but from the neoconservative creed supposedly followed by both of these friends since their disaffection from the philosophies of the Communist Left? Or has he simply been hiding out in the shadow of his illustrious friend?

I will propose a solution to this conundrum, but it requires some background. Some regular readers of GoV may recall that, in October of 2014, I wrote an essay called, “It depends on what the meaning of IS is”. The essay was written in defense of Diana West’s American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character . It proposed, among other things, that the Horowitz-Radosh-led attacks were inspired by an adulation of FDR and a feeling of ownership in the interpretation of his story.

As Thomas Paine said in Common Sense: “…a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom.”

This was proven true in the reception of Betrayal, which was characterized by two opposing schools of thought. One, led by Horowitz and Radosh, attacked the book for its portrayal of members of FDR’s inner circle. Since material for factual arguments against West’s thesis was sparse (not to say absent), the politics of personal destruction were required. On the other side, West and a small group of impressive defenders fought back. It was spleen and invention versus hard facts. Hostilities decreased very gradually after some intense exchanges, and the trenches grew quiet, except for an occasional salvo from Radosh or some other diehard warrior. It seemed to me that Horowitz went back to what he had been doing before, as a credentialed neoconservative. Radosh never quite gave up.

Then came the shock. Diana West — one of a minority of true reporters in a sea of what the Baron and Dymphna refer to as “jornolists” — wrote a follow-up to her historic exposure of useful idiots and actual traitors around FDR and the shaping of his post-war, Soviet-friendly foreign policy. Unlike the historic exposures in Betrayal, the events in The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy are present, here and now. The copious footnotes rival those in Betrayal in frequency — an average of three to a page — but, because of the contemporaneity of the events, a majority of them are from online sources.

What is the “red thread”? In this case, it is the thread unwinding from the fabric of the Deep State’s war against Donald Trump and, let’s face it, against our constitutional state. West, like one of the fateful Norns of Norse myth, has tugged on this thread, showing a continuum of thought and ideology from then until now. Did you read Betrayal and ask yourself, “How could such a horror come about in the constitutional republic of America, which was indeed at the time fighting to preserve the world from the totalitarian regimes of Germany and Japan? How could it be that there were voices within our government that abhorred the Nazi threat and yet adored the Soviet promise? Did everyone forget or overlook the simple fact that ‘Nazi’ was the first two syllables of the title ‘national socialist’ — the same ‘socialist’ which appeared in the name of the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)?”

Diana West committed the unpardonable sin of identifying the quislings who had helped to guide American policy. The attempt at her auto da fé fizzled, because it did not ignite the spectators as expected. Now — it seems almost suddenly — we are again faced with this phenomenon. Ancient folks like me actually lived through the events in Betrayal, and most of us, like our younger compatriots, were gobsmacked by the unavoidable conclusions to be drawn from it. And here we are again, confronted with the unavoidable conclusion reached by Marcellus in Hamlet: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” And it has been for some time. What was old is new again… or still.

Fans of British comedy may remember “Yes, Minister”, a series in which a recently appointed, well-intentioned, but somewhat gormless minister tangles every week with the bureaucrat whose task is supposedly to guide him through the tricky waters of entrenched custom. Inevitably, the minister’s plans founder on the shoals of stratagem and obstinacy, when they threaten some hallowed practice or privilege. We might even apply this as an analogy to our present situation, in which it appears that the unelected tail has been wagging the governmental dog.

Unfortunately, this light-hearted interpretation is only superficially accurate. There are certainly a number of people embedded in our national bureaucracy who feel entitled to the continuation of their privilege and power. But the connecting thread of this widespread and malign conspiracy is, as Diana West has revealed, not the green of money, nor the purple of power, but the red of ideological obsession. Her cataloguing of the players in the more than two-year attempted coup includes their socialist and/or communist histories and connections. Ron Radosh is worth one or two mentions. David Horowitz and his father Philip — although not major players — figure more prominently in the narrative. How errant would it be to speculate that Horowitz has not looked back happily on his part in the journalistic civil war over Betrayal? And has perhaps decided to refurbish his neocon bona fides by attacking his old compadre’s return to the New Left? Especially, since the red thread has shockingly stretched from the 1940s to now. It might be a good time to be “right” again.

As the afterword of The Red Thread says: “The anti-Trump conspiracy is not about Republicans and Democrats. It is not about the ebb and flow of political power, lawfully and peacefully transferred. It is about globalists and internationalists, just as the president says. They are locked in the old and continuous Communist/anti-Communist struggle, and fighting to the end, whether We, the anti Communists, recognize it or not.”

Some of us, like West, will fight on. Too many of us will accept whatever resolution comes from this stage of the battle, when we should be as ruthless and determined as the other side. We need to confront the doubters and those who have anti-constitutional impulses about what this country should be or become, and show them the same mercy they have showed us.

For links to previous articles about the controversy over American Betrayal, see the Diana West Archives.

18 thoughts on “Pulling Threads

      • I think you mean,”I had oughtta knowed”!

        All nitpicking aside, Dympha’s writing is superb. And yes, I once caught a “grammatical” of hers. As Winston Churchill put it when some bureaucrat corrected his grammar for a dangling preposition, “This is just the kind of stupid interference up with which I shall not put!”

  1. Gramsci’s “Long March Through the Institutions” was a smashing success. For example, currently in the news, DemSoc presidential candidate Buttigieg’s father was an adoring disciple of Gramsci, as his son also appears to be.

    The institutions that were conquered from within even include the CIA (1976 Communist voter Brennan) and FBI (Comey > Niebuhr).

    West does a masterful job of revealing the red roots of most of the key players in the deep state coup against Trump. Most of them were committed communists/socialists through their university days, but afterwards, they hid their red devotion and went into stealth mode, using the existing red net to advance through the already ideologically infected federal bureaucracy.

    https://gab.com/media/image/bq-5ca9faab4b3e3.jpeg

    • I don’t know the histories of the individuals concerned, but it is not unusual for people who are socialists or communists when young, perhaps out of idealism, to moderate their views after they gain some experience of life, or maybe as they realise that politics, as someone said, is the art of the possible.

      • I think you’re naive. You should read Red Thread, it’s only 100 well footnoted pages. Comey, for example, used Reinhold Niebuhr as his social media (Twitter) name until recently, and calls RN the greatest influence on his life. RN was a pseudo-preacher who was an apologist for communism. To RN, Christ was just an early Marxist, and communism is just Christianity adapted for the modern era. And of course, you have to break some eggs to create utopia… Really, read the book. It’s very convincing.

        • Thanks Matt (and Dymphna). I Googled Red Thread, but couldn’t find the book in the first few pages (though I did find an ad for condoms!) Do you have a link, please?

          I still maintain that many people who start out on the Left moderate their views later.

        • I agree with Matt. I’ve read West’s America Betrayal, and just this morning finished Red Thread. It is a gem, and we’re very lucky to have Diana West. She puts all the ‘court’ historians to shame.

          As former intelligence executive Dr. John Dziak wrote at the end of his Testimonial in Red Thread,, “Diana West is a one-person intelligence agency.” Distinguishing her from the rogue operatives : her primary commitment is to Truth, and the Constitution.

          The Jesuits are said to have said “Give us a boy at the age of seven, and he is ours for life.” Whether or not they did say that, Hitler and others believed the idea, and put it into practice.

          While it’s true many folks, with age and experience, outgrow the infatuations of their youth, many do not … if the seeds of Truth don’t fall on fertile ground. And especially if their teachers see them as fodder to be brainwashed, rather than as unique individuals, created in the image and likeness of God.

          The corruption of our education system (thank you, John Dewey, Columbia Teachers’ College, et al) means we now have not one, but millions of Manchurian Candidates. It’s no longer necessary for ‘agents’ to secretly communicate with the Comintern … they think, independently, in perfect sync with it.

          • You’ve put your finger on it. The thing is, even when people outgrow an infatuation, there can still be sentimental and nostalgic feelings which can be an ongoing source of (at best) confusion.

            Horowitz’s Radical Son has been (inaccurately) compared to Whittaker Chambers’ Witness. The crisis in which Chambers left Communism was a deeply religious one; he correctly wrote that “…every sincere break with Communism is a religious experience.” Horowitz is an agnostic.

  2. This is a horse of a different color, i.e., those who hid their allegiance to Marxism even as they rose through the ranks. So now it is no longer permitted to point out someone’s cultural marxist beliefs. To do so is churlish and you will be silenced by all those who think correctly.

    Besides, it is no longer in doubt that John Brennan covertly converted to Islam whilst in Riyadh. The fact that this was done on the down low and yet is never mentioned in his Wiki page speaks volumes about Wikipedia’s political leanings. [They do mention his vote for the Communist Party but slough it off].

    Obama’s marxist leanings made Brennan a natural ally during BHO’s terms in office; it also makes sense of his fierce opposition and collaboration against Trump.

    These folks who tried to bring down Trump kept their youthful beliefs intact all the way into their angry dotage.

      • I’ve never forgotten Andy Bostom’s 2011 encomium to Whittaker Chambers . He begins by quoting WC’s own words:

        Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901-July 9, 1961)

        Freedom is a need of the soul, and nothing else. It is in striving toward God that the soul strives continually after a condition of freedom. God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor. External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.

        Emphasis in the original, here:

        https://www.andrewbostom.org/2011/07/whittaker-chambers-communism-and-islam/

    • “Besides, it is no longer in doubt that John Brennan covertly converted to Islam whilst in Riyadh.”

      I would not say there is no doubt. I’ve seen the video where Brennan slips asnd refers to Islam as “we”. I’ve seen the assertions by John Guandolo, as well as second-hand witnessing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA4gl-SQ17c

      But Brennan is an extraordinarily-incompetent intelligence official. We don’t know if he knowingly or unknowingly participated in a Muslim conversion rite, which can be misleadingly brief. We don’t know what, if any, loyalty to Islam he carried with him.

      Further, the fact that Brennan is a Marxist seems to cast doubt on the certainty of his conversion. Marxism and Islam, like Democracy and Islam, are not compatible. Both are all-demanding gods and neither tolerates a competitor.

  3. “Marxism and Islam, like Democracy and Islam, are not compatible. Both are all-demanding gods and neither tolerates a competitor.”
    I think you are wrong. My best guess is that Europe will be dominated by an “Islamo-Socialist” tyranny in 30 years. The Socialists will convert (to save their necks) and claim that Mohammed and Marx were working toward the same ends, and “Islamo-Socialism” is the final synthesis of their two creeds, with Islam paramount.

    • And why not? the Socialists are globalists who want peace. Islam is the Religion of Peace™ and it’s globalist so it’s all good. As Iowahawk pointed out in the Tale of the Asse-Hatte it’s the Christian thing to do, too (for certain values of Christian, anyway.)

      75 And so it went, the pilgryms all
      76 Complaynynge of the Muslim thrall;
      77 To eaches same the Bishop lectured
      78 About the cultur fabrick textured
      79 With rainbow threyds from everie nation
      80 With rainbow laws for all situations.
      81 “But Father Rowan, we bathyr nae one
      82 We onlye want to hav our funne!”
      83 “But the Musselman is sure to see
      84 Thy funne as Western hegemony.
      85 ‘Tis not Cristian for Cristians to cause
      86 The Moor to live by Cristendom’s laws
      87 Whan he has hise sovereyn culture
      88 Crist bade us put ours in sepulture.
      89 To be divyne we must first be diverse
      90 So cheer thee well, thynges could be wors
      91 Sharia is Englishe as tea and scones,
      92 So everybody muste get stoned.”

      But 30 years to Eurabia? That long?

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