[lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading but Notfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Tue Oct 10 18:43:14 PDT 2006


On 10/10/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 8:21 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > It's odd to be arguing against a movement -- in this case, an
> > anti-Semitic and anti-finance populist movement -- that does not exist
> > here now.
>
> Who's arguing against a movement? It's a comment on a system of
> thought. You do see traces of anti-Semitism in populist movements all
> over the place, not just the U.S. It's hard to deny it. Your Persian
> Prince is an exemplar, in fact.

Are we now holding 19th-century American populists for a 21st-century Iranian political leader, whose Holocaust skepticism appears to be motivated by anti-Israeli sentiments rather than the politics of money?

Hofstadter's critics say that 19th-century populists in America weren't more anti-Semitic than their contemporaries, so it's wrong to hold them in particular responsible for subsequent anti-Semitism here.

Are they not essentially correct in their judgment, regardless of any merits -- there are some -- in other observations Hofstadter made?

Besides, there have been, and there still are, many populist movements in the world: e.g., the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, MAS in Bolivia, the PT, the MST, etc. in Brazil, etc. Are they all anti-Semitic? I think not. That populism necessarily is or tends toward anti-Semitism is a charge without evidence.

If you have a criticism of populism per se, with or without anti-Semitism, it would be better to take populism at its best in your estimation and criticize it.

Then again, though, in the case of the USA, arguments for or against populism today are entirely theoretical, for there isn't a populist movement here. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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