Josh Trevino demonstrates why historical memory is a useful thing in "The Enemy Within":
"There was once a movement, born of desperation and a sense of embattlement at being on the losing side of historical forces. This movement saw itself as the inheritor and the guarantor of true American tradition and identity, and it sought to restore those things to their rightful primacy in national life. But because the movement did feel embattled, and because it did view itself as the victim of powerful forces, it chose to not merely fight its foes, but emulate them. It saw the prime virtue of its enemies as their ability to win, and if they could just crack the code — if it could grasp the very methodology of victory — then they would turn the tables, and victory would be theirs.
The history of the John Birch Society is a colorful one, and it is easily-forgotten today what a powerful force it once seemed...."
It's the headlining piece for a new magazine called The Critical.
There are some apt parallels there, for sure.
The JBS was unable to connect politically in an effective way because the conspiracies they conjured up to explain their dissatisfaction were so vast that they made meaningful action seem impossible and absurd. Trapped in a nightmare world overrun with Communists and Rockefellers, where even Dwight D. Eisenhower was a pinko, the cynicism tends to drown out the idealism.
There was some validity to their feeling of alienation. A liberal establishment ruled the media, a counter-culture was deliberately horrifying middle America, Johnson and Nixon were screwing around in Vietnam, and the Russians were cheating at chess. And so on and so on. They felt voiceless and ignored, and they were.
In the end, the JBS was not felled by Communists, or even mealy-mouthed liberals. It was done in by Ronald Reagan, who reduced their entire paranoid metaphysics to a smoking ruin by getting himself elected president.
Didn't the Birchers want the US out of the UN?
Maybe they were on to something.
I’m not sure I agree with that. IMO there are usually lots of good reason and bad reasons for doing or not doing something. The problem with aligning yourselves with those who offer mainly bad reasons (e.g. the UN is part of a global conspiracy) is that those advocating good reasons get tarred by association.
As much as you try to perfume a stinky position, the stink remains beneath. Good reasons are always going to end up identified with bad reasons, if the bad reasons stink enough.
But the UN is part of a global conspiracy of dictators to maintain their power.
John's comment applies rather more to the myriad of liberals who fetishize the UN because the only enemies they can imagine are conservatives in the USA. As he so trenchantly puts it:
"As much as you try to perfume a stinky position, the stink remains beneath. Good reasons are always going to end up identified with bad reasons, if the bad reasons stink enough."
They do, and they will, as the first Great War of the 21st century crashes down upon us... with the willing assistance and incubation of none other than the UN and its child-selling cronies.
New magazine, maybe, but Trevino's article or the basic idea underlying it has been around (on his website) for a few months at least. It drives the moonbats, well, batty, and that in itself is worthwhile.
A little over a week ago while shooting pool I overheard someone complaining about all the chlorine (paraphrased sample, 'it's a deadly poison man, and they put it in the water, they make you bathe in it man, that's why I collect rainwater...) in the water here in Santa Monica. He then went on to talk about flouridation. General Jack D. Ripper would have been proud.
This post got me thinking about that, at first I figured him for a Bircher type wingnut, but then as the discussion turned he sounded more like a nutroots wingnut.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that there is no difference.