Pat Buchanan and the Menace of Anti- Anti-Semitism
Posted by M. C. on November 4, 2022
A free and diverse society requires candor and vigorous debate, which is what we had in the United States until left-Puritanism did its work.
Hence, it is no accident that the ADL picked the occasion of Buchanan’s hard-hitting critiques of the war hawks to unleash its dossier, to issue and widely circulate a press release smearing Buchanan as anti-Semitic, which was then used as fodder for an extraordinarily extensive press campaign against Buchanan.
In August 1990, Pat Buchanan voiced opposition to potential war in Iraq, arguing that any sort of military conflict went against the interests of American citizens. “There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East,” said Buchanan, “the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States.”
In response, Buchanan was harshly scolded in the majority of major American media outlets. Writing in the New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal repeatedly accused Buchanan of “anti-Semitism,” and denounced “his venom about Jews.” Evoking the specter of the Holocaust, Rosenthal went on to say “I apologize for not confronting the ugliness sooner. The man reaches millions.” The result of Rosenthal’s article was a coordinated campaign to have Buchanan’s newspaper column dropped around the country.
The following article by Murray Rothbard, published in December 1990, looks at the history of the ADL – aka, “the Smear Bund” – of attacking opponents of American military adventurism in the Middle East and the threat posed of censoring debate.
As Murray notes, “A free and diverse society requires candor and vigorous debate, which is what we had in the United States until left-Puritanism did its work.”
I have it on good authority that Barbara Branden is spending a good portion of her time lately brooding about the rising menace of anti-Semitism.” Poor Barbara; like all Randians, she is perpetually out of sync. There is indeed a menace in this area, Barbara, but it is precisely the opposite: the cruel despotism of Organized Anti-Anti-Semitism. Wielding the fearsome brand of “Anti-Semite” as a powerful weapon, the professional Anti-Anti-Semite is able, in this day and age, to wound and destroy anyone he disagrees with by implanting this label indelibly in the public mind. How can one argue against this claim, always made with hysteria and insufferable self-righteousness? To reply “I am not an anti-Semite” is as feeble and unconvincing as Richard Nixon’s famous declaration that “I am not a crook.”
So far, Organized Anti-Anti-Semitism has been able to destroy, to drive out of public life, anyone who receives the “anti-Semite” treatment. True, “anti-Semitic” expression is not yet illegal (though it is banned in many Western ”democracies,” as well as increasingly – as with other “hate speech” – serving as grounds for expulsion, or at the very least compulsory “reeducation,” on college campuses). But the receiver of the brand is generally deprived of access to organs of influential opinion, and is marginalized out of the centers of public life. At best, the victim of the brand may be driven to abase himself before his persecutors, and, by suitable groveling, apologies, and – most important – the changing of positions of crucial interest to his enemies, he may work his way back into public life – at the expense of course, of self-emasculation. Or, if, by chance, the victim manages to survive the onslaught, he may be induced to exercise due caution and shut up about such issues in the future, which amounts to the same thing. In that way, Organized Anti-Anti-Semitism (OAAS) creates, for itself, a win-win situation.
The real menace is organized Anti-
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