You Nazty Wingnuts!

(And I also posted here.)

Conservative godfather Norman Podhoretz wrote the following in his Murdoch Street Journal column today (con-vee-niently timed for the release of his new book)…

What I am saying is that if anything bears eloquent testimony to the infinitely precious virtues of the traditional American system, it is the Jewish experience in this country. Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

See, Podhoretz is a shade too dignified (just a shade) to come right out and start tossing around the typical conservative labels towards Democrats/liberals/progressives/whatever (“giving the 9/11 hijackers tea and sympathy,” as Turd Blossom once said, or the evergreen “hating America,” “hating freedom,” “unwilling to fight because ‘freedom isn’t free’”…funny, actually, when you read this, though Podhoretz himself served for two years...yep, you know at least as many of those insults as I do, I’m sure).

Also, if Jews generally are supposed to be so damn liberal, then explain the influence of AIPAC on Bushco if you can, Mr. Podhoretz (or this, and I'm happy to report that the sign is now gone...or, more famously, this).

And in a New York Times Magazine interview last Sunday also tied into promoting the book, Podhoretz told us the following…

Q: Why is it such a puzzle to you? Anti-Semitism and the Nazi Party were invented by the political right.

A: It’s a little more complicated than that, but the rise of Hitler was certainly the culmination of a long history of hostility on the right. But there’s been a complete reversal of roles. Whereas the right was once full of anti-Semites, since the Six-Day War of 1967, the right — and especially the religious right — has become more pro-Israel, and the left — as exemplified by intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal and a magazine like The Nation — has become more hostile.

And Michael Scheuer wrote the following about another recent Podhoretz book (Scheuer has issues, I’ll admit, but what he says about Podhoretz fits everything else I’ve read)…

By using the term Islamofascist (Podhoretz) seeks only to block any debate on the neoconservative agenda by ensuring that its critics are identified as pro-fascist, therefore anti-American, therefore pro-Nazi, and therefore anti-Semitic. Other notable men have described this tactic as the Big Lie, and it is a neocon specialty and trademark.

To illustrate the impact of this line of thinking by Podhoretz, I believe we only need to see how it is disseminated to the right wing “shock troops” who propagate it every possible way that they can (and why is it that Glenn Beck immediately appears when I search for related content on this – here, he claimed that stem cell research would create a new “master race,” and here, he claimed that Al Gore is trying to revive the “Hitler Youth” – didn’t know he had time for that between inventing the Internet and getting rich off the global warming “hoax”…OK, snark mode off).

However, history tells us here that that noted “liberal” Henry Ford was an early supporter of Hitler; we also learn the following…

During World War I, Ford wrote a series of viciously anti-Semitic articles for The Dearborn Independent, which he then published in book form as a hate-filled diatribe against Jews called "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem," which basically blamed Jews for all of the problems of the world. The International Jew is still reprinted and used and much admired by neo-Nazis and White Supremacists even today.

Also, this tells us that the following firms did business with Hitler: Du Pont, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Ford Motors, General Electric, and AIG (before they very nearly wrecked perhaps the world's greatest capitalist economy last year), as well as a certain Prescott Bush, whose family would bring us two presidents of course.

And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that these individuals and companies were (and are), for the most part, intellectual “fellow travelers” of Podhoretz (with Dubya awarding Podhoretz the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004).

And how deep do these sympathies run among right wingers? Well, this tells us that Tony Zirkle, who sought the Republican nomination for Ohio’s Second U.S. Congressional District, once addressed the American Nazi Party on Hitler’s 119th birthday, and this tells us of conservative radio host Mark Shannon, who referred to Iraq war veteran R.J. Harris as a “shaven-headed Nazi.”

So assuming Podhoretz possessed even an ounce of self-reflection (a stretch, I’ll admit), I think it would be wise for him to reconsider his use of language against those with whom he disagrees before he tries to lecture us about “the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.”

But then again, if he did that, he probably wouldn’t sell any more books, would he?

Update 9/11/09: Another "N-word" smear is here (and I know what a wanker Mark Williams is from his appearances on the late, lamented radio station WWDB in these parts).