Monday, June 9, 2008

And now for color commentary we turn to Nazi apologist, Pat Buchanan


By now, most informed people know that Patrick Buchanan holds some pretty extreme views. Volumes of material (much of it penned by Buchanan; see citations below) attest to the fact that Buchanan is an anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobe and Nazi apologist. His most recent work,Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost the Empire and the West Lost the World,” has as its central thesis that had, we accommodated Hitler, as he sought to regain the lands “rightfully belonging to Germany,” or let him take Poland, we could have avoided the Second World War. Most reviewers of Buchanan’s opus have indulged in the “Great Man” machinations of Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt and other leaders of the time, which goes something like this: had Churchill not been such a drunk he might have seen reason and not proclaimed victory at all costs. Absent from most such commentary, is the degradation of the Weimar Republic into a monstrous set of codes and laws that would eventually lead to the horrors of the Holocaust. Whatever accommodation may have been accorded to Hitler in his nation-grabbing, it cannot be gainsaid that the Nazis would have exacted a horrific human toll on the nations that they controlled (as they, in fact, did). God have mercy on the Jews, Gypsies, leftists, mentally ill, homosexuals, dissidents and the rest of the human species that the Nazis considered disposable detritus in the countries that the West ceded to Hitler. No amount of appeasement would have salved this savagery.


So the question that comes to my mind, and I wonder why it doesn’t to others’ minds, is why is this racist, neo-Nazi given so much real estate in the mainstream media? (Buchanan already hangs with the retrograde racists and nativists that inhabit the VDare website: a gathering place for extremist nutwings.) I will grant that Buchanan is possessed of a considerably keener intellect than fellow travelers, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and the very mediocre, Glen Beck. (Although, these other nutwings are not pinch-hitting for Hitler.) But shouldn’t someone say, hey this Buchanan guy is way out of the mainstream, as in David Duke/Hal Turner territory, Holocaust denier terrain, and perhaps he should find an outlet that does not carry the imprimatur of Conventional Wisdom. He needs to crawl under the same rock that houses the KKK, the Order and the Aryan Brotherhood. We know that Fox News is merely a mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch’s right wing views, so his appearances come as no surprise. But in spite of his well-documented history of extremist views, Buchanan is featured in such mainstream, even liberal outlets, as MSNBC and PBS’ the McLaughlin Report. No such accommodation is made for left-wing commentators such as Alexander Cockburn or Noam Chomsky. One can only conclude that left-wingers must use their own channels while extreme right-wingers are always welcome in the corporate media. Self-evident perhaps but frightful nonetheless.

Citations

Books by Buchanan

Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World by Patrick J. Buchanan (Hardcover - May 27, 2008).

Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart by Patrick J. Buchanan (Hardcover - Nov 27, 2007).

The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to.. by Patrick J. Buchanan (Hardcover - April 1, 1998).

State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America by Patrick J. Buchanan (Hardcover - Aug 22, 2006).

Conservative votes, liberal victories: Why the right has failed by Patrick J Buchanan (Hardcover - 1975).

Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency by Patrick J. Buchanan (Paperback - April 21, 2005).


Citations:


Anti-Defamation League: Pat Buchanan: In His Own Words

As an author, media figure, and political commentator, Patrick Buchanan publicly espouses racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-immigrant views. At one time an influential staff member in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations, Buchanan has gone on to write a number of books and articles that focus on the decline of Western civilization due to what he refers to as the “invasion” of non-European immigrants in the United States and Europe. His books, along with his weekly appearances on NBC’s The McLaughlin Group, have given him substantial mainstream exposure. Buchanan has affiliated himself with extremists in the United States and abroad, including deceased racist Sam Francis and the leaders of the Vlaams Belang, a xenophobic, racist political party in Belgium.

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/buchanan_intro.asp

Pat Buchanan: Nazi Sympathizer*? , Posted by GayPatriotWest at 2:41 pm - May 22, 2008 ; Gay Patriot: the Internet home for the American gay conservative. http://www.gaypatriot.net/2008/05/22/pat-buchanan-nazi-sympathizer/

Pat Buchanan Is A Nazi Sympathizer, by @ 3:04 pm on May 20, 2008; Below the Beltway Blog. http://belowthebeltway.com/2008/05/20/pat-buchanan-is-a-nazi-sympathizer/.

“Anger on the Right: Pat Buchanan’s Venomous Crusade,” An ADL Special Research Report, Anti-Defamation League, 1991. http://www.adl.org/special_reports/pb_archive/pb_1991rpt.pdf


“Just Who and What is Patrick J. Buchanan?” by SJ Reidhead on Thu 10 Aug 2006 10:42 PM MDT, The Subway Canaries (a conservative blog). (many citations contained therein). http://subwaycanaries.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/8/10/2190994.html.


Pat Buchanan's Revisionist Fantasy,” Washington Post Review of “The Unnecessary War,” By Robert Dallek, Tuesday, October 19, 1999; Page A19. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-10/19/057r-101999-idx.html.


“Hawking Racism: Pat Buchanan's latest book is a white nationalist screed. But that hasn't stopped it from climbing the best-seller charts,” by Alexander Zaitchik, Southern Poverty Law Center HateWatch Intelligence Report, Winter 2006. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=718


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you really gotto get your facts straight...O'Reily, Hannity are NeoConservatives. Pat Buchanan is a 'PaleoConservative/Realist'...They disagree on a ton of issues...Sean Hannity and O'Reily support Israel vigorously and denounce everyone from Jimmy Carter to 1 billion Muslims as Anti Semites..But somehow you think they are Neo-Nazi's....And before ripping Pats book, why dont you do some research...The Allies consisted of Joseph Stalin and Russia and Mao Tse Tsung and China(together they slaughtered about 65 million people)...But to most people you are automatically an Anti Semite because you question the morality and wisdom of siding up to the two biggest murderers in World History. But I know, I know, they might have killed 65 million but they weren't anti semites.. As far as going to the ADL for references, what a joke! they advocate the Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians and recently fired an employee because he said there Was an Armenian Genocide! Apparently only Armenian Holocaust Deniers are allowed to work for the ADL....And the SPLC, they consider every single anti-Illegal Immigration group in the U.S. as a hate group/hate monger including even Lou Dobbs, who has a Mexican Wife for God Sake!

ragemail said...

Wow, Kev, you really had me worried for a moment there. I thought, maybe I had gotten a couple of my facts wrong about Buchanan and his neo-Nazi leanings. But I see that your difference with my posting is that I am not deeply steeped in the fine points of extreme right-wing ideology. Silly me, not knowing the difference between a “PaleoConservative” extreme right-winger and a “Paleo-Conservatie/Realist” extreme right-winger. It reminds me of the old Left’s mafia-like internecine battles between neo-Troskyst SWPrs and neo-Troskyst refomed SWPrs vs. neoTroskyst-Maoist SWPrs, ad nauseaum. As for history, you are not suggesting that we should have sided with Hitler and the other Fascist countries, are you?

As regards my sources on Buchanan’s extreme views, you will note that I cite not only the ADL and SPLC but also a number of conservative sources. As for Israel, the Palestinians and the ADL, I do not see Buchanan or any conservatives of any stripe signing up for tours of the West Bank or Gaza. The reason is obvious, Buchanan doesn’t give a rat’s A** about the Palentinians, but he can use them to leverage his patent anti-Semitism.

As for Lou Dobbs demagoguery, what does his wife have to do with his public xenophobic and hateful persona? The man (and I use that term liberally) preaches hatred every night. Who he bops, when he’s off the air, is of zero consequence.

Gary Baumgarten said...

Pat Buchanan will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com Wed June 18 at 5 PM New York time.

To talk to him go to www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the show