Kevin, I entirely agree with the lesson that you drew from this conference, that real
rightwing youth must learn from these moral degenerates how to act up. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful if several hundred young rightists would demonstrate at a gathering of CPAC
against being marginalized by the likes of Karl Rove, Bill Kristol and David Brook. What
the liberal-neocon establishment until now has been able to count on are the docility
and bourgeois manners of those they have pushed out of the visible conservative movement.

“Even the spoken word pieces show awareness that culture is the pivot for political movements, not elections.”

Exactly.  And that is relevant in an unexpected way to Mr. Gottfried’s comment that the Right needs to learn how to “act up”.  The folks acting up in this article are not part of the dominant center-left political structure, but they are part of the hegemonic culture, which is more important.  Acting up is a media event, and a crucial point is that left-wing acting up is portrayed totally differently by the media than is right-wing acting up.  Left-wing acter-uppers are “militant” or “enthusiastic”, right-wing acter-uppers are “racist” or “angry”.  It’s a fact of life that the Right can’t act up in the same way that the Left can.

I draw another lesson from this article, which goes back to the slogan “No enemies on the Left”.  These activists didn’t waste their time condemning liberals.  The cries of disapproval against the New Republic guy seems to be the only exception.  Imagine, by contrast, how much of the energy of a paleo conference of this sort would be directed towards condemning the evil neocons.  Paleos need to get over their obsession with neoconservatism, and even more so their obsession with neoconservatives, and stay focussed on the business at hand.

The problem is, and I hope you would agree, Dr Gottfried, that “conservatives” are family men and their wives.  We just don’t particularly care, nor do we have the time (or the money), to attend conferences in foreign (meaning not where we currently reside) cities.

I can remember myself, as a “conservative youth”.  Ronald Reagan was “THE MAN”, GHW Bush was “THE MAN”, and Bill Clinton was a “liberal”.  As I’ve matured, I realized that both Reagan and GHW Bush were “liberals”, and Clinton was simply the logical conclusion of their presidencies.  Kind of how either Obama or McCain are the logical conclusions of GW’s presidency.  Mainstream “conservative youth” will only blow up in the face of a “conservative movement”.  The youth are more apt to support neo-conservative liberalism because it fits their “time preference”.

Quick anecdote: I got pissed off when the Georgia State Patrol made me wait in line with everyone else to go through the metal detectors at a GHW Bush rally in Woodstock, Georgia back in 1992.  By God, I was a DONOR to GWH Bush’s re-election campaign, why should have to wait in line?!?  Well, OK, by then I was headed down the path toward “libertarian youth”.  Luckily I was “saved” by the Church.  If the “conservative movement” wants youth, the only place to find it is at traditional Latin Mass parishes.  The next challenge is to get these kids to be militants.  It’s going to take some knocking of skulls to advance any cause, be it liberal or conservative.  Right now, only the liberal kids, because they don’t particularly care about their own future, are willing to knock skulls, because they don’t care about their own.  The only way to convince the conservative youth to risk their own skulls is to convince them martyrdom is glorious.  Good luck.

Kevin, you are to be commended for being willing to attend both CPAC and the Campus Progress National Conference—you have more intestinal fortitude than I. I think, if forced to choose, I would prefer the company of trendy, obstreperous leftists to the that of the useless, self-promoting tools of CPAC who are happy to wait around for hours in order to take a picture with Sean Hannity. Praise Odin I don’t live in DC anymore.

Many of the young rightists groups get PC and stupid. Indeed, they simply fall in place as the designated bad guys on campus, and go nowhere.

I have long thought the campuses as a lost cause.  Even the libertarian groups, while organized better than the conservative ones, tend to be of a leftish variety and suffer from PCism also.

@Kevin

“The Young Democratic Socialists handed out a flyer featuring Martin Luther King stating, “We are saying that something is wrong with capitalism, there must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism”—which would shock my movement colleagues who tell me every January that MLK was a conservative Republican.”

Speak of the devil, here’s an article about this very same subject.

[My apologizes to the webmaster for posting this in full instead of linking. The free access expires in nine minutes]

“MLK in GOP? Billboards say so; others deny
‘Poppycock’: Black Republican group puts message in parts of Florida, South Carolina.

By Brendan Farrington
Associated Press
Published on: 07/05/08

Tallahassee —- A black Republican group has put up billboards in Florida and South Carolina saying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, a claim black leaders call ridiculous.

The National Black Republican Association has paid for billboards showing an image of the civil rights leader and the words “Martin Luther King Jr. was REPUBLICAN.” Told about the billboards, the Rev. Joseph Lowery let out a soft chuckle that grew stronger as he began to think more about the idea.

“These guys never give up, do they?” said Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King.

Seven billboards have gone up in six Florida counties, and another in Orangeburg, S.C., said Frances Rice, the group’s chairwoman. Part of the mission is to highlight what she said is the Democratic Party’s racist past.

“I knew the King family well. We were all Republicans,” said Rice, 64. “There was no way Dr. King would have wanted to be in the party of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Her assertion angered state Rep. Joe Gibbons, a Democrat who chairs the Florida Legislative Black Caucus.

“Nobody knew who was leading the Ku Klux Klan, they had sheets over their heads. Was she at the cross burning meetings?” Gibbons said with disgust. “To make a statement like that is ridiculous. To make a claim without presenting proof is bogus.”

The King Center in Atlanta says there is no proof that King was ever a Republican. But Rice stands by her claim. She said she was asked by the King Center to take down the billboards, but refused.

“I said, ‘If you want us to stop, sue us.’ But they don’t want to come into court because they know they’ll have to tell the truth,” Rice said.

The National Black Republican Association was criticized two years ago for running radio ads in Ohio and Maryland with a similar message. Rice said the group plans more radio ads in the areas where the billboards are up, as well as a mail campaign. It also sells T-shirts and buttons with the message.

In Tampa, Clarissa Robinson, sat in her car directly under a billboard.

“Why’d they put that up there?” said Robinson, 22, who is black and a Democrat. “So nobody [will] vote for [Democrat Barack] Obama. They’re trying to make us vote for the other guy.”

At the nearby gas station, Devoney Karvonen, 30, a white Republican, said she thought the billboard was offensive.

“I don’t know the reason they would put that up,” she said. “I don’t think it’s right. You’re obviously lying about something and you shouldn’t be.”

Lowery said there is no reason anyone would think King was a Republican. He said King most certainly voted for President John F. Kennedy, and the only time he openly talked about politics was when he criticized Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign.

“That was not the Martin I know, and I don’t think they can substantiate that by any shape, form or fashion. It’s purely propaganda and poppycock,” Lowery said. “Even if he was, he would have nothing to do with what the Republican Party stands for today. Do they think Martin would support George W. Bush and the war in Iraq?”

In “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” which was published after his death from his written material and records, King called the Republican national convention that nominated Goldwater a “frenzied wedding ... of the KKK and the radical right.”

“The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction and extremism,” King said in the book.

In a statement released through the King Center, Martin Luther King III said, “It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest that he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African-American votes in Florida and many other states.”

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2008/07/05/kingrepublicans.html

We can thank Jack Kemp for this sort of idiocy.

Of course Michael “Martin Luther” King was a Republican.  The Republican Party was on the vanguard of Black emancipation, and then “civil rights” for almost 100 years.  The Republican Party was the party of urban welfare until it was co-opted by the “Bourbon Democrat” (read: Whig) LBJ in the 1960’s.  To say the King family weren’t Republicans is disingenuous.  From my understanding, the family behind the Atlanta Daily World were Republican even until relatively recently.  All one has to do is look at the appeal of such Democratic candidates as Adlai Stevenson to understand the weak appeal the Democrat Party had to American Blacks.

American “conservatives” shouldn’t shoe-horn themselves into the Republican Party, because there really is no history of conservatism within it.  Indeed, nor is there any in what’s left of the Democrat Party.  Conservatives should strike where the iron is hot, and forge out a party from where they can.

Definitely the case at my university. The left is overwhelmingly associated with activism- they’re much more concerned with bringing their message to the “real world”. The Right here is divided into two camps: the craven careerists and hacks, and those of us so mired in philosophy that we think activism is toolish and beneath our dignity.

Kind of a problem.

Kevin,

The reason you aren’t taken seriously, and never will be, is because you’re a dime-a-dozen activist. The only credibility you have is within a tiny circle of people who aren’t taken seriously either.

I really feel bad for you because you’re throwing away the chance to do anything worthwhile with your life. You may think that your current path is the best because you’re “fighting for the truth” or “fighting for what’s right.” However, you’re never going to be taken seriously and you’ll always be seen as just another crazy activist who’s way to pissed off about issues that people don’t care about.

By the way, you giving “the left” far more credit than it deserves. While you may not realize it, these sort of events are meaningless and irrelevant. Much like YAF conferences make no difference and change nothing, these conferences have little to no impact on politics.

The presence of some leftist activists won’t change policy just as none of your efforts to build a “real right-wing revolution” will.

These kind of things are nothing to be concerned about.

@Kevin

I’m the first Ryan who posted the MLK story, not the second one above.

“Progress is building activists and the campus Right is building politicians and politicos.”

I’ve been involved with both type of groups you described, with YAF and a left wing group that I actually agreed with on one issue. I hate to say it, but the leftists were more fun, organized and more importantly, actually accomplished something-- a rather sizable demonstration.

At the end of the YAF (1979) event I got a questionnaire that I wish I still had. The person who read it was so impressed with my observations about the YAF event and other YAF activities that he sent me a reply. The YAF event was boring without any social activities like drinking beer. My criticisms about other activities were concerned with not being more aggressive in not putting up with disrupters at speaker events, etc. 

The one thing I remember was the way it ended. “When this train pulls out of the station some people are going to be aboard, others will be left standing there and some will be tied to the tracks. Judging by the detailed way he addressed my questionnaire I got the distinct impression that I was going to one of the people tied to the tracks.

The Leftists, on the other hand, proved to be much more receptive and when a number of them wanted to bring in side issues like “no nukes”, etc., (this being 1980) I pointed out that this was a single issue group and if they wanted to get any support from anyone the outside they should avoid this other stuff that might turn folks off. They adopted my recommendation.

“The young Right has more to learn from the upstarts at Campus Progress than the other way around.”

I couldn’t agree with you more. Good luck with your endeavor, I know exactly where you are coming from.

Richard Kim of The Nation argued the queer agenda should be about pan-sexual liberation, including liberalizing divorce laws and pushing for acceptance of alternative family models...

In what long-passed decade is Mr. Kim living? So much of the Left’s counterintuitive hogwash has become a part of our mainstream that it’s become almost impossible for our crybaby warriors to play churlish rebel anymore. The real insurgents are asailing the “wisdom” that brought us hate crimes laws and affirmative action.

But this is an amusing view of a true “jackassoiree.”

Thanks for this intersting and enlightening contrast between right and left youth Mr. DeAnna
and its a contrast we must recognize. The Young Republican/CPAC/YAF types basically spend their
youths learning how to become dirty politicians and then use such aformention groups as resume builders for the careers they plan to live off the taxpayers they so wish to defend. On the left, however, you have those who wish to move a culture instead of playing politics. That’s why Young/College Democrats are utterly irrelevent because leftist politicans and interest groups don’t view them as their farm system nor do they use them as gophers and flunkies.  Both have been quite successful. The young rightists win elections and the young leftists change the culture which ultimately change the young rightists. They win all the elections in the world running against that culture and yet they can nothing about it. Its a symbioctic relationship that lasts a lifetime.

Here’s Part One of the problem: Conservative thinkers are brilliant when it comes to understanding what keeps a conservative society going. But they don’t know how to reconstruct Humpty Dumpty after he has fallen, they can’t get the deraied train back on the track, they can’t re-establish a stable center once things have fallen apart. Part Two: It is simply not the nature of “conservative” individuals to commit to the kinds of actions that are necessary to even begin a serious reconstruction/re-establishment project.

This is one reason I think that only the various kinds of pro-white activism will stimulate the necessary level of emotional power to successfully confront the status quo. Not to dwell on this too much here—the Zmirakites and the citizenists have their ways of thinking and I have mine. I did write an essay,
A White College Student’s Guide to Political Activism,
which might be of some interest to right-wingers interested in campus politics. I tried for quite some time to write something like that for “conservatives,” but I gave up. These days, I tend to think that “conservative activism” is an oxymoron.

“Campus Progress is building activists and the campus Right is building politicians and politicos.”

We can certainly wish for a different outcome, but what else could one reasonably expect?  This is a direct result of the uneasy marriage between conservatives and the Republican Party, which is more than happy to take conservative votes as long as nothing is expected in return.  Republicans are a party whose sole purpose is to represent big money interests.  As such, they want nothing whatsoever to do with common people of any persuasion.