by
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Recently
by Thomas DiLorenzo: Constitutional
Neoconmen

The whole world
should know by now that the neocons at National Review magazine,
the War Street Journal, and elsewhere will tell any lie in
pursuit of political power. Lying the nation into war with Iraq
by spreading the falsehood of “weapons of mass destruction”
that were supposedly headed our way was the most atrociously evil
act perpetrated by the U.S government and its propaganda organs
in decades, having led to the senseless death of thousands of Americans
and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

No one should
be surprised that National Review is now engaged in a spectacular
act of chutzpah, to put it mildly, by smearing Ron Paul as
being insensitive on matters of race. Before anyone gives any credence
to the latest smear campaign against Congressman Paul it would be
useful to take a look at National Review’s own record of
publications on the issue of race relations. It is not a pretty
picture.

National
Review’s Support of Apartheid

All during
the time that the real godfather of neoconservatism, William F.
Buckley, Jr., was editor, National Review editorialized in
favor of the evil South African system of institutionalized discrimination
against blacks known as “Apartheid.” In an unsigned editorial
on November 9, 1979 the magazine praised South Africa’s President
Botha who it said “has earned the benefit of a doubt from responsible
critics.” The critics were not named, but Buckley is probably
who the anonymous editorialist (probably Buckley himself) had in
mind.

On February
8, 1985 Buckley praised the supposed “liberalization of the
Apartheid laws under Prime Minister Botha,” reminiscent of
how some intellectuals used to talk about “socialism with a
friendly face.” Apartheid with a friendly face.

On March
28, 1985 Buckley pronounced that Botha was “widely, and properly,
derided’ for suggesting that Nelson Mandela was “a political
prisoner, rather than a terrorist . . . ” On September 20,
1985 Buckley pontificated that “Where Mandela belongs . . .
is precisely where he is: in jail.” On May 23, 1986 an unsigned
National Review editorial criticized those who called for
the abolition, as opposed to what Buckley called the “reform”
of Apartheid. He wasn’t opposed to institutionalized government
discrimination against blacks as long as it was done “the right
way.”

Buckley waxed
indignantly over the international criticism of the Botha regime
in South Africa, complaining in a July 23, 1976 article about the
United Nations that there is “international indignation”
whenever the South African government stepped up enforcement of
the Apartheid laws, but much less so when crimes are committed by
“black Africans.” Here Buckley was criticizing the UN’s
criticisms of the brutal and murderous Apartheid suppression of
the Soweto uprising against the system.

National
Review’s Smears of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unlike
Ron Paul, who has stated publicly and on television that Martin
Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks are among his heroes for practicing
peaceful, civil disobedience against government, in the true spirit
of libertarianism, Buckley’s National Review expressed nothing
but contempt (and worse) for Dr. King. Complaining bitterly about
the King national holiday, an unsigned National Review editorial
on October 28, 1983 remarked that “it rankles that we should
be asked to take the day off to remember a man whose career was
built on leisure. (The GNP, after all, is not produced by people
marching in the streets).” Thus, if the neocons at National
Review had their way, there would have been no protests against
unequal treatment of blacks under the law in the 1960s.

Even worse,
the editorial goes on to say that since Dr. King was supposedly
such a bum and a loafer, “Perhaps MLK Day should be celebrated
only by the gainfully employed, and all those on welfare should
be required to collect their checks as usual.” That would be
more acceptable to Buckley and his fellow neocons, says the editorial.

It gets
worse. In a February 13, 1987 unsigned editorial Dr. King is portrayed
as the epitome of the old racist stereotype of the black man who
cannot control his sexual urges. Citing a professor who had produced
“studies” of Dr. King, the editorial called him “a
compulsive philanderer, and compulsive may be too weak a word.”
Not only that, but “King was [allegedly] closely and continuously
associated with several men who were almost certainly Communists
. . .” Martin Luther King, Jr., according to the neocons at
National Review, was “almost certainly” a communistic
sex maniac.

This comment
about consorting with communists reminds your writer of the highly
publicized friendship that Buckley had with the preeminent communistic
public intellectual of his day, John Kenneth Galbraith. Of course,
as my old friend Yuri Maltsev reminds us, even the Soviets never
actually practiced “communism” per se. Communism was always
the theoretical end state of history that was never realized. What
the Soviets practiced was socialism, and there was never
a bigger American cheerleader for socialism during the twentieth
century than William F. Buckley, Jr.’s pal, John Kenneth Galbraith.

Being exasperated
about the enshrinement of the King holiday, National Review
figuratively threw up its hands in another unsigned editorial on
February 13, 1987 and besmirched the holiday as” affirmative
action in the creation of national memorials.” “But let’s
hang in there,” the neocon tabloid advised, “and contribute
to the disposal of the historical Dr. King down the memory hole.”

National
Review’s Support for White Supremacy

In an early,
August 1957 editorial National Review asked the question
of whether “the White community in the South is entitled to
take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and
culturally . . . ” “The sobering answer is Yes – the White
community is entitled because . . . it is the advanced race.”
It is “almost certain” that this was written by Buckley.
To bolster its case for White supremacy in the South (and presumably
in the North as well), the editorial cited unnamed “statistics”
that supposedly proved “median cultural superiority of White
over Negro . . .”

Universal
suffrage (i.e. ending government interferences with the right to
vote by blacks) would be harmful to “the claims of civilization,”
said the editorial. The same editorial also praised the actions
of the British government in Kenya for basing its discriminatory
policies on its perception of “qualitative differences between
its culture and the Negroes,” or “between civilization
and barbarism . . .” After all, a March 1960 National Review
editorial intoned, “in the Deep South the Negroes are retarded”
and any attempt to argue this point is mere “demagoguery.”
Ah, that Buckley had a magical touch with the English language,
did he not?

Buckley
even had kind words for former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke of Louisiana.
“[J]ust as we like to think Gorbachev has truly renounced the
evil doctrines he was so recently associated with,” Buckley
wrote on December 2, 1991, “so has David Duke.” He then
praises Duke for his view that “white people also have rights.”
Huh? Whoever said that white people did not have “rights”?!
Buckley then says that if he lived in Louisiana he probably wouldn’t
vote for Duke (who was running for public office at the time), but
then again “I would however force myself to wonder whether
I was being vindictive” by not voting for David Duke.

In sum,
most of these racist rants were probably the work of William F.
Buckley. If they were not, he certainly approved of them since he
was the editor-in-chief of the magazine in which they appeared.
As the “flagship” neoconservative publication for so many
years, these views can be legitimately called the Official Doctrine
of the neocons on the issue of race.

When the
smear campaign against Ron Paul commenced in 2007, a leader of the
smear campaigners was a young twenty-three-year old neocon named
James Kirchick who laughingly called Congressman Paul a “racist”
for merely expressing support for the Jeffersonian, states’ rights/decentralized
government philosophy. Kirchick was responsible for other much more
outrageous smears as well, and was assisted by many of the anti-Paul
D.C. “libertarians” associated with the Cato Institute
and other elements of the “Kochtopus,” the empire of think
tanks and propaganda organs funded by billionaire Charles Koch.

As a neocon
in good standing, Kirchich has had nothing but the highest of praise
for the man responsible for all of the above-mentioned racist rants
– William F. Buckley, Jr. In a eulogy for Buckley that was published
in the February 27, 2008 issue of The New Republic (the day
of Buckley’s death), Kirchick swooned that “liberals could
not find a more gracious intellectual opponent than WFB.” Kirchick
said he enjoyed “relishing Buckley’s intellect, style and the
voluminous service he performed on behalf of the English language.”
“[N]o American writer of the last half century had a more significant
impact on our politics than he has,” Kirchick approvingly intoned.
What a love story.

December
23, 2011

Thomas
J. DiLorenzo [send him mail]
is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the
author of The
Real Lincoln; Lincoln
Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe
and How
Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s
Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution
– And What It Means for America Today.

Copyright
© 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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