The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism-Part 1
from OpenLeft
by: Paul Rosenberg
Sun Sep 20, 2009
Two extremely interesting articles were published this week that shine a light on current wave of conservative lunacy. First, at Salon, Alexander Zaitchik has a fascinating article, "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life", with the sub-head, "Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him". The subhead is actually misleading. It wasn't conservatives who despised Skousen--it was ultra-conservatives like J. Edgar Hoover and the elders of the Mormon Church. More on Skousen and Beck in Part 2. But first, I want to ruminate on some new-to-most-of-us information about Ayn Rand, whose books have been selling like hotcakes since Obama came to power.
On Tuesday, author Tim Wise--a leading authority on deconstructing white supremacy and white privilege, from the blatant to the subtle--posted a fascinating diary at DKos, Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism, the most shocking aspect of which was the revelation that an early heroic model for Rand was a notorious sociopathic child-kidnapper and killer, William Edward Hickman. This is actually not a new revelation. Wise cites an online essay by Michael Prescott written in 2005, "Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman", which goes into considerable detail. (Prescott, btw, is a conservative crime novelist, so there's no way this can be construed as a leftwing attack on Rand. See, for example, his 2005 blog post "Welcome back, CNN", in which he announces his abandonment of Fox, because it's become a tabloid sewer--not because they lie like dogs.)
(More here.)
by: Paul Rosenberg
Sun Sep 20, 2009
Two extremely interesting articles were published this week that shine a light on current wave of conservative lunacy. First, at Salon, Alexander Zaitchik has a fascinating article, "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life", with the sub-head, "Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him". The subhead is actually misleading. It wasn't conservatives who despised Skousen--it was ultra-conservatives like J. Edgar Hoover and the elders of the Mormon Church. More on Skousen and Beck in Part 2. But first, I want to ruminate on some new-to-most-of-us information about Ayn Rand, whose books have been selling like hotcakes since Obama came to power.
On Tuesday, author Tim Wise--a leading authority on deconstructing white supremacy and white privilege, from the blatant to the subtle--posted a fascinating diary at DKos, Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism, the most shocking aspect of which was the revelation that an early heroic model for Rand was a notorious sociopathic child-kidnapper and killer, William Edward Hickman. This is actually not a new revelation. Wise cites an online essay by Michael Prescott written in 2005, "Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman", which goes into considerable detail. (Prescott, btw, is a conservative crime novelist, so there's no way this can be construed as a leftwing attack on Rand. See, for example, his 2005 blog post "Welcome back, CNN", in which he announces his abandonment of Fox, because it's become a tabloid sewer--not because they lie like dogs.)
(More here.)
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