Help Our Republic
Gerde, Jerry
The Alternative January, 1971 Slumming On The Rigbt The Politics of Unreason by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab Harper and Row $12.50 This review of Messrs. Lipset and Raab's new study...
...Ray Henry Schmidt...
...It was kind of your doctors to allow you to write...
...The history of our recent Ninety-First Congress suggests the tactic has survived to this day...
...Citing only anti-Catholicism and nativism as the thematic reservoirs of the post-Civil War period, they utterly ignore the Ku Klux Klan which they treat only in its twentieth century renaissance Obviously this highminded organization is one of right-wing extremism's greatest glories and its exclusion is both inexplicable and unfair...
...In the 1840's and 1850's status anxiety combined with adventurism and ignorance to inspire organizations like the Native Americans and eventually launched the candidly named Know-Nothings...
...The basic problem with The Politics of Unreason is that behaviorists have not been able to segregate the impulses of the obsessed rightist from those of the obsessed leftist...
...From the book's own evidence it is difficult to see how the average Coughlinite could get much exercised over any status whatsoever...
...Plunkitt: I am a Senator in the United States Senate from South Dakota (a state just east of Wyoming) and would very much so like to be President of the United States of America just like Presidents Kennedy and Johnson...
...On the other side of the ledge I must enter my finding that the book is flawed by conceptual and grammatical slovenliness...
...In those days extremists did not see spectral figures lurking about the President's palace or fashioning concentration camps for pop patriots, rather they shivered over Mr...
...The enemies of the Republic were now sending hordes of immigrant Catholics who prayed wrong, lived wrong and--by the way--voted wrong...
...Morse's thesis was sanctified by the eastern intellectuals...
...Opening with a closely reasoned, tightly written essay describing the lineaments of political extremism left and right, The Politics of Unreason bubbles on with some amusing and informative chapters chronicling moronic moments of extremism throughout the American pageantry Unfortunately after the first half of the book a wave of statistics and behavioral axioms begins to crest sweeping the last quarter of the book's narrative into a turgid and chaotic swash of nonsense about the Birch Society and the Wallace campaign that crashes ashore with a final chapter, "Extremists and Extremism," which I found positively unintelligible...
...This time without courtesy, he rejected my offering and cavalierly waved me towards the zip "superbook" chained to the wall behind me...
...With growing sheepishness and unable to meet my eyes, the employee fumbled for awhile through the Handbook and finally pushed it to me--as he also turned away--the Handbook opened to a page that read simply: "Zip code numbers are mandatory on 2nd and 4th Class mail, and are optional on 1st and 3rd Class mail...
...America's first fling at extremism occurred shortly after the raucous birth of the Republic...
...I am withholding further advice until you reveal to me your position on civil service reform and establishment of a commission to study mercury in tuna...
...Somehow I just do not feel this is what the authors had in mind With the most admirable intentions the authors have ascribed simply too much sophistication to bigotry and brutishness...
...Another lingering characteristic originating with the Anti-Masons was their adherence to evanescing social and philosophical positions...
...As to your immediate problem, I notice that you are on the Democratic Party Reform Commissif' Retire from that commission by 7 January If the American people ever hear that you had anything to do with reform your reputation will be tainted indelibly...
...B) a propensity to violate the norms of pluralistic politics and democratic procedure--as with nonviolent protests like poverty marches and sit-ins...
...the authors could have presented us with such an engaging tale of nonsense...
...Help Our Republic To the Editor Is it possible for a young man who cares about his Country to find an institution more solid, an institution more dependable, an institution more symbolic of what is strong and good about our Nation than the U.S...
...Upon challenge from me as to the authority, he brusquely directed the postal employee to read to me the rule from the Postal Handbook--and then Mr...
...I am surprised that they still allow you the use of sharp instruments...
...Weishaupt's deceased organization as a ferocious menace to their runt republic...
...What is more important, you will be able to cast a man like Justice Douglas in just the right perspective when next he is discussed at your encounter group...
...Jerry W. Gerde 18 The Alternative January, 1971 Unfortunately as the authors lead us into the reconstruction period their narrative begins to take on a blowziness which eventually sinks the entire book...
...C) ascription of simple causes to complex problems--as with those who cite poverty as the cause of violence...
...The Alternative January, 1971 Slumming On The Rigbt The Politics of Unreason by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab Harper and Row $12.50 This review of Messrs...
...Appealing to Mr...
...Apprehension over the fate of the American way of life continued to spread until by 1820 the anti-clerical Illuminati was recognized as the real power behind a clandestine alliance of the papist Society of United Irishmen and the Masons--an agglutination which for a certitude must have witnessed the liveliest doctrinal controversies...
...Now, the distinguished Dr...
...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana, 47401, Continental U.S.A...
...Could it be that ideological simpletons at both ends of the spectrum are susceptible to primitive monomanias...
...The truth probably rests somewhere in the middle...
...Political campaigners were not above betaking of the extremists' conscientious citizenship and the authors assert that political parties characteristically pirated the more glamorous elements of an extremist group's program, leaving it to the administration of malefactors and incompetents...
...o R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...This is not to say that I oppugn the authors' judgments but rather, given the present structure of its narrative, I found their judgments fogbound...
...Some were ancient Federalists, others felt themselves vanishing beneath the avalanche of European immigration, and still others were ill-advised opportunists eagerly mounting the "wave of the future...
...Dear Senator: In my first book, Plunkitt of Tammany flail, I devoted much time to discussion of the American democratic system I suggest you read it, paying especial attention to my remarks on honest and dishonest graft...
...Dear Mr...
...My anger at this peice of personal fraud was exceeded only by my shock at the official deceitfulness practiced without apparent concern by the very postmaster himself, Mr...
...George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, has just completed a penetrating study of the last Congolese election...
...Post Office...
...Taking the authors' characteristics of right-wing kookery and pinning them to the activity of contemporary politicians, we arrived at astonishing conclusions The authors claim extreme right-wing characteristics are the following: A) reaction to status displacement--as with the slippage of intellectuals in a technetronic age...
...Plunkitt has agreed to, through this column, advise American statesmen in this time of, troubles...
...This cavalier attention to a truly energetic right-wing group has shocked my Liberal advisors and sown in them the conviction that The Politics of Unreason was written as a thinly veiled apology for Ku Kluxery-a wild allegation, and one that I cannot swallow...
...And as they enter upon their discussions of the Birch Society and the Wallace campaign, confusions multiply...
...It is titled Escape...
...Now the fever set in, and on 4 July 1798 Dr...
...Plunkitt: I am retiring from the Senate after serving our nation for twenty years both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate...
...Certainly antiCatholic organizations like the American Protective Association are entitled to deep respect for their achievement in educating the majority of decent Americans of 1870 to rate the papacy "alongside Chile, Italy, and Great Britain as one of the powers against which an inflamed populace prepared to do battle...
...with newly opened eyes, if a government official would attempt to mislead me, an idealistic young man, on such a small matter, to what comparatively greater magnitude am I being deceived by our Bureaucracy on matters of real importance...
...Even then the authors would be on sounder ground only if they avoided drawing elaborate behavioral blueprints of the political zany and contented themselves with writing a history of those groups defiant of democratic process or flagrantly abusive of democratic mores...
...For years, I have matter-of-factly taken the Post Office somewhat for granted as a dependable island in the confusing sea of governmental chicanery whose deceiving temple has been increasing in recent years With this background, I walked into our local Post Office last week to mail a Third Class parcel of printed material, and was advised by the postman at the window that he could not accept my offering without a zip code number on it...
...Is it possible that extremism of the left and of the right embrace more similarities than taxonomists of ideological exoticism are wont to admit...
...McGovern aging Keynesian economists, New Dealers and New Frontiersmen who reign in editorial offices and university faculties Thus we concluded that the true nightriders in the land have been such men as Senator Fulbright, John Kenneth Galbraith, the late Martin Luther King, James Reston and ineluctably Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab...
...These organizations naturally included members who were aware of the activities of the Illuminati and the Masons, but an even graver threat now arose...
...If their grievances are rightist their programs are often leftist...
...After Dwight's pronunciamiento no moral man could remain deaf to the problem of the Illuminati, and concerned citizens began to organize...
...Schmidt slipped out of view behind the stacks of shelves...
...Lipset's past dissections, a right-wing extremist...
...When the authors bring up monism as the litmus test of a right-wing extremist all they are doing is describing extremism, for monism defines extremism only...
...I recently met with the jolly boys of the Saturday Evening Club and endeavored to identify those American magnificoes who are the real right-wing nuts...
...Troubled by the intrigues of the Illuminati, President Timothy Dwight of Yale College unbosomed himself with the passion, eloquence and credibility which has become a hallmark with Yale Presidents, seeping right down to our era in the semi-lucid utterances of the distinguished Kingman Brewster...
...A New Demand Response System...
...Published in August, it focuses on the unique position of minority groups in the Congolese electoral process...
...Regarding your question, I suggest that after twenty years in Washington you turn yourself in to the authorities.- -GWP...
...In the 1820's the upper-class busybodies espoused a flyblown antielitism entrancing their 17 lower-class votaries and obsessing them with the most imbecilic notions...
...The book should have considered both species of extremism...
...Nonetheless I unhesitatingly recommend the first half of the book, for in our present era of teeming political exoticism even the intelligent observer must occasionally be reminded of those perimeters of political decorum that in civilized times circumscribe democratic process...
...Their assertion that "backlash against change" or "status displacement" breeds right-wing extremism is satisfying only temporarily, for in the Coughlin movement, the modern Klan, the Black Legion, the Silver Shirts and other rightwing extremist movements of this century, too many exceptions have appeared to establish any comprehensive rule...
...Over and over I thought as I left the P.O...
...I cannot express my disappointment adequately upon discovering this deceit by an offical in a position of real responsibility on a matter of comparative unimportance...
...God help our Republic ! Very truly yours...
...The whole incident could not have appeared more remote to 1798's Middle Americano until one Jedidiah Morse, D. D. stepped to the pulpit and identified Mr...
...The extremist movements of this century are dizzily eclectic...
...What do you suggest I do...
...My mounting anger was checked at that point by the apparently routine appearance of our local (and long time) postmaster in the cage area behind the impolite employee...
...The unusual antics characterizing the extremist often issue from simple perversity, and his moments of celebrity or popularity are more the product of man's propensity for foolishness than the aftermath of any dark yearnings Finally the authors have pursued the taxonomy of right-wing nuisances at the expense of sound reporting Numerous errors appear in the text like the reference to the Ohio Congressman, John Ashbrook, as James Ashbrook and the slandering of Gerald L. K. Smith's virtuous little band, the Christian Nationalist Crusade, as the Christian Crusade This is all a terrible shame...
...D) adherence to a conspiracy theory--as with those who gurgle about the military-industrial complex, institutionalized racism, war profiteers, etc., and E) concern about preservatism--as with those The Bootblack Stand Dr...
...Adam Weishaupt, the Bavarian kook, who in 1776 had founded a kind of anti-clerical think-tank, the Illuminati, which by 1785 had disintegrated from both its own balminess and the inducements of the Elector of Bavaria...
...it can be purchased in all bookstores...
...Ray Henry Schmidt by name, I requested his assistance...
...For instance...
...Inasmuch as antiSemitism and nativism are today considered characteristics of the right and part of the right's more sordid patrimony to America, the appearance of these repulsive mental seizures demands more serious thought Could it be that bigotry and elitism exist independent of one's political leanings...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, c/ o The Establishment, R.R...
...A friend told me about you after reading the National Insider...
...It seems to me that I am ideally suited to be on such a commission, for I have always had an interest in astronomy.---GWP Dear Mr...
...How do you suggest I seek that high Office...
...The Anti-Masons featured several ingredients which consistently appeared in later extremist treats--most importantly the inevitable nexus between bossy, upperclass moralizers and the mob of lowerclass hinds who carry their posters...
...After hearing my rapid explanation of the controversy, he solemnly assured me that I was mistaken and that a zip code was mandatory for Third Class mail...
...By the end of the 1820's the Masons had actually become such a threat that certain men of vision organized a political party, the Anti-Masons, to protect America from imminent doom...
...Very truly yours, Senator Geo...
...In failing to resolve these matters the authors preordained the eventual collapse of their study...
...But they wither into insignificance when compared to the Klan's commitment, idealism and actionoriented programs Quite aside from the authors' peculiar evasions on the Klan,, their cursory and indecisive treatment of the confluence of nativism and anti-Semitism with the Free Silver movement, the Populist movement and the Grangers marks the incipient decline of the book...
...Lipset and Raab's new study of right-wing excess will possibly astound and probably embarrass them, for I find the book instructive, useful and even amusing--in spite of the doleful truth that I am, according to Mr...
...By meditating on the authors' standards of extremism and reading their chronicle of America's matchless heritage of kookery, you will prepare yourself for fuller enjoyment of such vestiges of vaudeville as today survive in evening news broadcasts...
...Cordially Senator Stephen Young Dear Senator Young: How nice to hear from you...
...Based on my long held assumption that zip code numbers were mandatory only for Second and fourth Class mail, I verbalized that fact and reoffered my package to him...
Vol. 4 • January 1971 • No. 3
