On Oct 10, 2006, at 5:23 PM, Jesse Lemisch wrote:
> What those of us arguing
> against Hofstadter are saying -- and I just don't think Doug is
> listening --
> is that there was and is no truth to the idea of H and of so many
> others
> that popular movements are necessarily fascist,
Let me try this again. I've just read five (5) of his books, and I didn't encounter anything like that. Could you please provide some cites for this rather extreme claim?
> and that's what's there in
> his argument for the continuity between a supposed right-wing
> Populism and a
> supposed grassroots McCarthyism. I hope that Doug might reconsider his
> romanticization of bad guys like Hofstadter and envision the
> possibility of
> a left-wing populism.
He's not a bad guy. Christ. We live in a country with a deep-seated competitive, individualist culture. It is not fertile ground for collectivist movements. Hell, it's not even all that friendly to unions. It's not just elites who shove this down the throats of the masses. Read Liza's book and the quotes from Wal-Mart workers in it. And they're women, who are generally less individualistic than men.
Doug