On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 08:52:49 -0700 Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net>
writes:
> Vidal also has a cranky, paleo-con
> side. Wrote a Forward to a book of essays by Chronicles contributor,
> Bill
> Kauffman. http://www.rockfordinstitute.org/
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Bill+Kauffman+Gore+Vidal+
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Chronicles+Gore+Vidal+Fleming+&hl=en
> Michael Pugliese
> http://home.salamander.com/~wmcclain/kauffman.txt
> "AMERICA FIRST! Its History, Culture, and Politics" by Bill
> Kauffman, Prometheus Books 1995,
>
> This is a sympathetic history of pre-WWII populist isolationism
> written
> by a paleolibertarian intimate of the "Chronicles" crowd. He wraps
> up
> with an analysis of the movement's rebirth in the 1990s, as
> represented
> by Buchanan, Perot, Jerry Brown, et al.
>
> A very quick and facinating "read". The author is often quite funny,
> and
> is honest about the flaws of the characters involved.
>
> He lists the tenets of American "populism" as:
>
> (1) concentrated wealth and power are pernicious; widespread
> distribution is the proper condition
>
> (2) war and militarism are ruinous to the republic and to the
> character of the populace
>
> (3) ordinary people can be trusted to make their own decisions
>
> "Isolationism", in the tradition he writes about, means
> opposition to:
>
> (1) imperialism (should have left Puerto Rico and the
> Phillipines
> alone)
>
> (2) wars or interventions on behalf of internationalist
> principles
>
> (3) institutions or treaties that transfer US sovereignty to
> international or multinational bodies
>
Here is what Lenin had to say about the sort of anti-imperialism represented in our time by the "isolationists," (from his *Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism* <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch09.htm>
In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the "anti-imperialists", the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy who declared this war to be "criminal", regarded the annexation of foreign territories as a violation of the Constitution, declared that the treatment of Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipinos (the Americans promised him the independence of his country, but later landed troops and annexed it), was "jingo treachery", and quoted the words of Lincoln: "When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer self-government; it is despotism." [2] But as long, as all this criticism shrank from recognising the inseverable bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the foundations of capitalism, while it shrank from joining the forces engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development-it remained a "pious wish". This is also the main attitude taken by Hobson in his critique of imperialism. Hobson anticipated Kautsky in protesting against the "inevitability of imperialism" argument, and in urging the necessity of "increasing the consuming capacity" of the people (under capitalism!). The petty-bourgeois point of view in the critique of imperialism, the omnipotence of the banks, the financial oligarchy, etc., is adopted by the authors I have often quoted, such as Agahd, A. Lansburgh, L. Eschwege, and among the French writers Victor Berard, author of a superficial book entitled England and Imperialism which appeared in 1900. All these authors, who make no claim to be Marxists, contrast imperialism with free competition and democracy, condemn the Baghdad railway scheme, which is leading to conflicts and war, utter "pious wishes" for peace, etc. This applies also to the compiler of international stock and share issue statistics, A. Neymarck, who, after calculating the thousands of millions of francs representing "international" securities, exclaimed in 1912: "Is it possible to believe that peace may be disturbed ... that, in the face of these enormous figures, anyone would risk starting a war?"[3] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010924/518d481e/attachment.htm>