Populism? (was Re: poll on civil liberties)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Sep 24 07:23:14 PDT 2001


budge wrote:


>Gore Vidal is also a populist although his impulse is
>obviously 'left', not 'right'.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Years ago, the white supremacist Tom Metzger was offering a Gore Vidal video for sale via his Aryan Update phone hotline. Metzger's endorsement doesn't make Vidal a Nazi, of course, but clearly Mr White Ayran Resistance (WAR) found some affinity there.

A few weeks ago I retrieved Vidal's article from the Marc 22, 1986, issue of The Nation, "The Empre Lovers Strike Back." It's a rather hideous piece. It attacks Norman Podhoretz & Midge Decter, who god knows deserve plenty of criticism - but Vidal really crosses the line into anti-Semitism. Podhoretz' "first loyalty would always be to Israel." "But then, like most of our Israeli fifth columnists, Midge isn't much interested in what the goyim were up to before Ellis Island." "I've got to tell you I don't much like your country, which is Israel."

And then there was his later piece in the Nation, which I've got down at the office, proposing a grand white folks alliance with the USSR against the Asian threat.

Doug



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