Um... could this be "it"?

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, I agree that Hofstadter's analysis is largely as true now as then; as
always true.

But, as a great historian---who also wrote a fine book on
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life which *page after page*
shows how NO public gets 'confused' *all by itself..*..great historians
show how....

I think the paranoid conspiracy exists elsewhere too; some overgeneralizing
critics of certain countries are also victims.

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 3:16 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> Just so newbies don't think this list is an extension of Daily Kos...
>
> As usual, Michiko Kakutani is wrong. The American public
> managed to get this angry and confused all by itself. Richard Hofstadter
> called this the paranoid style of American politics, and his analysis is as
> valid now as it was in 1964:
>
> "American politics has often been an arena for angry
> minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work
> mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now
> demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political
> leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of
> a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a
> style of mind that is far from new and that is not
> necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style
> simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense
> of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial
> fantasy that I have in mind."
>
> And then there is this:
>
> 'As for Eisenhower himself, Welch characterized him, in
> words that have made the candy manufacturer famous, as “a
> dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”—a
> conclusion, he added, “based on an accumulation of
> detailed evidence so extensive and so palpable that it
> seems to put this conviction beyond any reasonable
> doubt.”'
>
> https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-am
> erican-politics/
>
> As for Jill Stein as a "Russian asset", there is only one
> question:
>
> "How long are American liberals going to put up with this
> bullshit?"
>
> Yes. And how many principles are they willing to compromise, how many
> former allies are they willing to demonize and marginalize? Parry, Hersh,
> Assange, Snowden, Hedges, Stein... What's next? Martin Luther King as a
> Kremlin stooge, like the FBI always said he was? Black Lives Matter as a
> fifth column of the Kremlin? Susan Sarandon as Putin's "useful idiot"?
>
> https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/28/jill-stein-in-the-cr
> osshairs-the-russia-investigation-shifts-to-clintons-political-rivals/
>
> As C. J. Hopkins says, we are witnessing a war on dissent:
>
> https://consentfactory.org/2018/01/26/the-war-on-dissent/
>
> "If anyone challenges incremental, corporate-funded, hyper-militaristic
> neoliberalism in any way, I know what to do: Denounce them! And denounce
> their master, Putin."
>
> http://www.chris-floyd.com/home/articles/a-liberal-s-confess
> ion-16012018.html
>
> The abominable state of the so-called liberal media is perfectly
> illustrated in this interview with the Guardian's Luke Harding:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ikf1uZli4g
>
> As one observer noted:
>
> "How can you write an entire book called COLLUSION and
> then not be able to coherently and convincingly answer a
> single question or offer a single fact which undeniably
> proves that collusion took place?"
>
>
>
>
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