In Defense Of
Lew Rockwell
By Joshua Frank
07 October, 2005
Counterucrrents.org
Recently
Jacob Laksin over at the ridiculous Frontpagemag.com snapped at Lew
Rockwell, the libertarian-minded editor of the popular LewRockwell.com,
for aligning himself with the most "unhinged elements of the far
left." AKA Cindy Sheehan, Stan Goff et al. I mean really, you've
got to laugh out loud when saps like Laksin get all huffy over trivial
matters. Come to think of it, though, this isn't that trivial of a matter.
Any major alliances against US Empire means the movement against the
war in Iraq must be making serious headway.
The American public
isn't happy about this war, or the Bush administration for that matter.
They don't trust the liar-in-chief, and the polls are finally confirming
it. In New York State, which is a liberal haven, (or is it? Governor
Pataki is a foaming mouthed right-winger, and so are Mayor Bloomberg
and his predecessor Giuliani, heck so is Senator Clinton but no
biggy) Bush has reached an all time low of 29 percent, according to
a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. Things aren't looking
much better for Bush and his agenda nationally, either. According to
a CNN/USA Today/Gallup conducted on September 17, almost 68% of respondents
said they disapproved of how Bush is handling the Iraq war, with 59%
admitting that they thought the 2003 invasion was a mistake.
Those numbers must
worry the neocons and their feeble apologists like Mr. Laksin and David
Horowitz. Rather than deal with reality, they'd just as soon make up
fantastic conspiracy theories that leftists are taking over the whole
friggen world. Communism is all but dead. Yet, if you were ever to wander
over and scroll on through Frontpagemag.com (I don't recommend it; the
prose is unbearable and the analysis puerile), you'd think Stalin was
still shipping my ancestors off to the Gulag.
Sorry, but it's
the neocons we've got to worry about today. Not the Bolsheviks.
President Bush and
Co. can only get away with their imperial agendas as long as the US
public remains catatonic. But alas, citizens are slowly waking from
their slumber, and Bush's henchmen at FrontPage aren't the least bit
happy about it.
Any alliance between
occasional political foes more than worries the pro-war gang; it scares
the holy bejesus out of 'em. In their little, twisted, misinformed worlds,
if the majority of America starts turning on Bush they must simultaneously
be thumbing through the pages of the Communist Manifesto. That's hogwash,
of course. All the new poll numbers indicate is that Americans realize
they've been lied to, spit on, and slapped around by the Bush administration.
And they've had enough of it.
The one-issue alliance
of Rockwell and lefty folks like myself only means we see it as necessary
to come together and oppose this brutal, illegal war. We aren't talking
regulations, here. We're talking about misguided US foreign policy that's
killed tens of thousands of people. And no matter what the FPM crew
say, it's not Commie of Rockwell and his readers to say that this war
must stop, now. It's humane of them.
Joshua Frank is
the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect
George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common Courage Press.
You can order a copy at a discounted rate at www.brickburner.org. Joshua
can be reached at [email protected].