> 2. According to David Brock's _Blinded by the Right_,
> Grover Norquist takes Gramsci and Lenin very seriously.
> The point isn't to scream that the right uses Gramsci and
> Lenin or for the left (such as it is) to re-claim these
> figures as our own, but to realize that in these writings
> a prominent Repug strategist has found something THAT WORKS. OK then--
> what works against these techniques?
> Maybe only the same techniques, applied more ferociously.
> If so, then have at it.
Have not read the Brock yet (love good dish, so I will) but, in another book on the Right-Wing by WaPo reporter, Nina Easton, "Gang of Five, " Norquist is among those covered. Hear him relate his male bonding in the bush w/ Jonas Savimbi.(Did he ever ask about Savimbi's early maoist committments? Savimbi did meet some CCP cadre.) Norquist has a poster of Lenin in his office.
Norquist, btw, has been thge subject of alot of rightist cadre discontent, esp. by such as David Keene of the American Conservative Union and Frank Gaffney of the hard right think-tank, CSP, over his connection w/ and arranging an invite to the White House by Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure, Prof. Sami al-Arian, indicted last yr. by the DoJ. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/03/05/al_arian/index_np.html GOP jihad: Norquist-Al Arian-Rove connection damages president's tough-on- terror image By Joe Conason, Salon.com, 6 March 2003
"What does seem obvious in the aftermath of the Florida professor's indictment, however, is that top Republican strategists sought the support of Al-Arian's voting bloc in 2000 -- and that his bust is stoking internal warfare among conservatives, with implications for 2004."
"While this remarkable story has been touched upon in the mainstream media - - notably in Newsweek and the Washington Post -- the main actors, besides Al-Arian himself, have so far avoided the consequences. As I've mentioned before, the chief sponsor of Muslim influence in the Republican Party over the past few years has been Grover Norquist, the peripatetic lobbyist/activist associated with Americans for Tax Reform...
Frank Gaffney's crew on al-Arian and Norquist.
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=static&page=islamists
> ...Fight on the Right: "Muslim outreach" and a feud between activists
By Byron York, National Review, 19 March 2003
"...the argument between Norquist and Gaffney is about much more than two men, or even the conservative movement. At its heart, it is about the Bush White House and whether its contacts with some Muslim groups might someday make the administration vulnerable to charges that it cultivated close relations with groups tied to radical Islam — even as it conducted a war on terror around the world..."
"The GOP's Muslim connections attracted relatively little attention in the pre-September 11 world. But after 9/11, when the White House began a very public effort to reach out to Muslims, its choices of Muslim contacts — made with input from, among others, the Islamic Institute — became quite controversial...
Conservatives are uneasy at the way Grover Norquist curries support from the Muslim community By Mary Jacoby, St. Petersburg Times, 11 March 2003
"As part of Norquist's well publicized strategy to mine the Muslim community for GOP votes, Al-Arian had campaigned for Bush in 2000, posed for a photo with the candidate at Plant City's Strawberry Festival and boasted publicly that Muslims in Florida may have tipped the close presidential election to Bush."
"Now, Al-Arian was visiting the Islamic Institute, a Muslim outreach group cofounded by Norquist and housed within his office suite..
And, Doug has said baby face Ralph Reed has read lots of Gramsci. Even Rush mentions him in one of his books.
-- Michael Pugliese