Re: ANYT THOUGHTS ON AMERICAN PBS SERIES

At 09:20 AM 7/1/99 PDT, Elson wrote:

>>I saw it too.  My impression was how stupid the comparison was:
>>comparing religious fanatics in the US (who support the US
>>oppression of people in the Middle East)

Well, the religious right in the U.S. may have more in common with the Iranian fundamentalists than you think.  At least factions of the religious right mistrust globalization of the world economy in much the same way as the Iranian fundamentalists opposed U.S. "imperialism."  The obvious example is Pat Buchanan (cf. Buchanan 1998--I might add that, in spite of the book's title, ol' Pat never cared much about "social justice" when he was working in the Nixon and Reagan administrations).

Typically, key "boogie men" in the mythology of this strand of right-wing thought are the international banks, who are sometimes believed in some vague way to be in league with, _inter alia_, "globalizers" promoting world government through the UN, international communism and Zionism.  Zionism is by no means a "good guy" in this mythology, and for this reason these right-wingers have been attacked for appealing to anti-Semitism.  
In 1996, Buchanan was criticized by the media for attacking international bankers who, for some strange reason, always had Jewish names.  Pat Robertson's book _The New World Order_ has also been attacked as implicitly anti-Semitic (Lind 1995a and 1995b;_New York Times_, March 2, 1995; _New York Times_, April 6, 1995). Robertson has publicly denied the allegation (cf. _New York Times_ March 4, 1995), even though the gist of his analysis of the international political economy, as far as I can tell, is virtually indistinguishable from the explicitly anti-Semitic arguments emanating from the Neo-Nazi camp (cf. an ancient tract once sold by John Birchers called _None Dare Call It Conspiracy_).  Furthermore, his reliance upon the arguments of anti-Semites of yesteryear, especially the British author Nesta H. Webster, has been documented (Heilbrunn 1995).  Thus, at least some religious right-wingers can't be seen as unambiguous defenders of "the US oppression of people in the Middle East" (translation:  support for Israel).

Unlike Elson, I don't think the religious right can be said to have "failed", although its failure to secure President Clinton's conviction in his impeachment trial represents a major setback for it.  For now, this setback seems to have strengthened the hand of the "moderate" wing of the Republican Party in the U.S. presidential politics of 2000 (I might note in passing that this may be small comfort in an period in which the "moderate" wing can be said to include former Gov. Pete Wilson of California, whose positions on immigration and affirmative action would have had him labeled a racist and a Know-Nothing in earlier eras).  I expect the religious right, as it has done before, will bide its time, downplaying its social agenda, emphasizing middle-class issues like crime and taxes, and attempting to win relatively low visibility elections (e.g., school board races) through "stealth" campaigns (cf. Lind's discussion of Ralph Reed in Lind, 1995b, 21).  Those of us opposed to the religious right will have to become more adept at ferreting out the "code words" it will use to appeal to the U.S. public.

Furthermore, I do not necessarily accept Elson's argument that the religious right has not appealed to the post-1960s generations.  I commend to his attention annual surveys of U.S. college freshmen that, in recent years, have shown increasing support for conservative social values like the right to life or sexual abstinence outside marriage (_Washington Post_, Jan. 13, 1997).  Frankly, my experience is that, right-wing complaining about the "liberal" culture of the academy notwithstanding, university campuses in the United States are veritable breeding grounds for Christian fundamentalists (well--maybe "breeding ground" isn't an appropriate metaphor where sexually repressed Christian fundamentalists are concerned--grin).  College freshmen from conservative backgrounds frequently get "picked up off the boat", as it were, by Christian organizations like the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship or Campus Crusade.  To be sure, these organizations are not themselves political wings of right-wing religion, but they do attract individuals who are politically conservative, and thus can sometimes serve as "conduits" for right-wing religious propaganda.  And, of course, there are more explicitly "political" elements of the religious right on campuses, like student organizations opposed to abortion.

REFERENCES

Allen, Gary.  _None dare call it conspiracy_.  Rossmoor, CA: Concord Press, 1971.

"Bait and Switch".  _New York Times_, March 2, 1995, A23.

"Bait and Switch II".  _New York Times_, April 6, 1995, A31

Buchanan, Patrick J.  _The Great Betrayal : How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy_.  Boston : Little, Brown, 1998.

Heilbrunn, Jacob.  "His Anti-Semitic Sources."  _New York Review of Books_, April 20, 1995, 68.

Lind, Michael.  "On Pat Robertson:  His Defenders."  _New York Review of Books_, April 20, 1995, 67-68.

Lind, Michael.  "Rev. Robertson Grand International Conspiracy Theory.  The New World Order by Pat Robertson."  _New York Review of Books_, Feb. 2, 1995, 21-25.

Robertson, Pat.  _The New World Order_.  Dallas : Word Pub., 1991.

"Survey of College Freshmen Finds Rise in Volunteerism; Students Becoming More Conservative, Self-Confident."  _Washington Post_, Jan. 13, 1997, A01.

"Two Letters and Excerpts from Book". _New York Times_, March 4, 1995, A10.
--
Jeffrey L. Beatty
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