[lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading

Jesse Lemisch utopia1 at attglobal.net
Tue Oct 10 13:23:17 PDT 2006


Well, I don't recall -- I'm sure Chip will -- whether it was Democratic or Republican elites, tho of course Harry Truman's 1946 Loyalty order is more or less a beginning. As in so many things, once Dems legitimize something, they are outdone and sometimes felled by the other guys.

The notion of Norman Thomas lecturing a socialist party picnic in Milwaukee (Madison) on the dangers of Communism, and Bomber Joe belatedly picking up the idea, is a tableau to be remembered, complicating views of repression as rising from rightwing grass roots.

Similarly, on the international level, Clinton's inane 1998 wag-the-dog missile bombings of irrelevant targets lay out a model for Bush in Iraq.

Jesse Lemisch

----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 4:03 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading


> Which elites, exactly? The Fortune 500, or ball-bearing manufacturers
> in Wisconsin?
>
> Doug
>
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 3:32 PM, Chip Berlet wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Matt and I adopt Rogin's position in our book (with cites).
> >
> > See also this resource:
> > http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/populism.html
> >
> > Chip Berlet
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Jesse Lemisch
> > Sent: Tue 10/10/2006 3:32 PM
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth
> > Reading butNotfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind
> >
> >
> >
> > Has anyone on this thread cited Michael Rogin's McCarthy and the
> > Intellectuals, a rigorous study by an unfortunately prematurely dead
> > Berkeley political scientist. This takes apart Hofstadter et al and
> > shows
> > that McCarthyism commenced in elites rather than from the grass
> > roots. And
> > James Weinstein and a collaborator had a classic article on how slow
> > McCarthy was to pick up anti-Communism, becoming alerted to the
> > issue in
> > part by Norman Thomas.
> >
> > Jesse Lemisch
> > -----
> >
> > <winmail.dat>
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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