----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 10:21 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Mackerras's Law ("traditors")
: Jim Farmelant wrote:
:
: >I guess when Doug says that we should take
: >the right wing seriously, he thinking back to
: >his days at Yale when he and fellow members
: >of the Party of the Right, would sit around reading
: >the collected works of Bill Buckley and Russell Kirk,
: >and ponder the relationship of conservatism to
: >the libertarian thought of people like Hayek
: >or Rand. The problem is that all that has only
: >a tangential relationship with actually existing
: >right wing politics in the US today. To understand
: >that, one is better off looking at Rush Limbaugh
: >and Ann Coulter. Not very appetizing IMO.
:
: There's a lot of stuff between Coulter and Kirk - e.g., the contents
: of National Review and The Weekly Standard. Sure the Coulter stuff
: reflects a lot of the right's popular appeal - I happened to catch a
: bit of Michael Savage's radio show in a cab the other day, an
: appalling blast of pure hate - but the more polite stuff has an
: appeal too. And when I say we should take the right more seriously
: I'm saying that we should try to understand the appeal of the ideas
: (whether Coulter or Kirk), the various sects and schisms on the
: right, the sociology of the production and reception of the ideas,
: etc. A lot of people on the left just dismiss it all as stupidity and
: bigotry; sure, there's a lot of that, but it's worth understanding
: the content of stupidity & bigotry, no?
:
: Doug
if that's the case, why did you threaten to throw me off the list?
R