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Tim Gratz: Right-Wing Extremist


John Simkin

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It is interesting that Tim Gratz has been very reluctant to explain why he joined the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). However, evidence of his right-wing views can be found in his defence of George Bush. He has also been quick to attack those who have criticised other right-wing politicians. This happened recently when I suggested that William Buckley might have been in some way involved in the assassination of JFK. Buckley was of course the founder of YAF. I thought it might be a good idea to carry out research into the political ideas of Buckley and the YAF. It has been an interesting journey and does indeed reveal some interesting information about the JFK assassination, the CIA, Watergate, and the activities of Tim Gratz.

William F. Buckley was the son of an extreme right-winger, William Buckley Sr., a Texas oil millionaire (according to the New York Times he left $110 million at his death in 1958). Like other Texas oil millionaires, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, Sid Richardson, etc. Buckley was willing to use his considerable resources to help to persuade the public that anyone who suggested that taxes designed to redistribute wealth was a “communist”. These millionaires were especially hostile to anyone who suggested that the oil depletion allowance should be brought to an end.

It is no surprise that Buckley became a right-wing activist (so did all his brothers and sisters). His first book, God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom (1953) was a call for all socialist and liberal academics at Yale to be sacked. According to Buckley, “the purpose of education was not to acquaint students with the means of discovering the truth, but with received truths and the means of defending them”. Truth to Buckley was his right-wing interpretation of Christianity. Buckley argued that all those academics that took an alternative view to this should be removed from office. In other words, the function of a university was to indoctrinate students in received wisdom.

As Buckley pointed out: “I myself believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.”

Of course this bilge could not find a commercial publisher. Therefore Buckley’s rich daddy supplied the necessary funds via one of his company’s, Catawba Corporation. This money went to the Henry Regency Company, a publisher that had created great controversy a couple of years earlier by bringing out two books attacking the Nuremberg Trials. Henry Regency was a wealthy German-Catholic who had funded attempts to keep the United States out of the war with Germany.

Buckley’s father also spent a fortune promoting this book. This included persuading people like Max Eastman and Selden Rodman to write rave reviews in the American press. Interestingly, the most hostile review came from McGeorge Bundy in the Atlantic Monthly. He called Buckley a “twisted and ignorant young man”.

Buckley’s next book was McCarthy and Its Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning (1954). This was a passionate defence of Joseph McCarthy, who like Buckley, was advocating the sacking from office of all those who held left of centre political views. As Buckley wrote: “We cannot avoid the fact that the United States is at war against international Communism and that McCarthyism is a program of action against those in our land who help the enemy.” Buckley admitted that not all the men who McCarthy and himself wanted sacked were not all traitors: “men whose only fault may be that they are incompetent political analysts, men of bad judgement.” But for the good of the “advancement of American interests, the merely incompetent men must go out along with the traitors.” Before the book was published, McCarthy was able to go through the manuscript and make suggested changes. Buckley then rewrote these passages. Buckley and his co-author, his brother-in-law, Brent Bozell, also wrote speeches for McCarthy during this period.

In 1952 McCarthy had meetings with an old friend, E. Howard Hunt, about establishing a right-wing magazine. At first he tried to buy The American Mercury. He finally decided to establish his own magazine, The National Review. Some of the money came from his father. Buckley also had meeting with other right wing Texas oilmen such as H.L. Hunt. Another oilmen who contributed was Lloyd Smith. Roger and Gerrish Milliken (South Carolina textile magnates) and Jeremiah Milbank (New York financier). These men were associated with funding several right-wing organizations, including the John Birch Society. It was later revealed that there was another secret backer of Buckley’s activities. I will return to this point later.

The National Review’s first target was Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Buckley attacked what he saw was the administration’s concessions to communism and the welfare state. Buckley described Eisenhower program as “essentially one of measured socialism”.

When Eisenhower agreed to meet Khrushchev in 1959 Buckley wrote: “The President will meet with Khrushchev as Chamberlain and Daladier met with Hitler at Munich, as Roosevelt and Churchill met with Stalin at Yalta.” (National Review, 15th August, 1959). Privately, Buckley was urging a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Earlier he had advocated this policy against North Korea. Later, he urged its use in Vietnam.

The journal also disliked what they saw was Eisenhower’s sympathy towards the civil rights movement. Surprisingly as it may now seem, Buckley saw Eisenhower and Nixon as a “dangerous liberals” as they accepted the New Deal reforms and were willing to seek accord with the Soviet Union. During this period Buckley described himself as a "revolutionary against the present liberal order".

When Joseph McCarthy died in 1957 Buckley devoted two issues of the National Review to him. As the journal pointed out, McCarthy was the symbol of the continuing fight against liberalism.

Buckley was particularly concerned with the sympathy that Eisenhower and Nixon showed towards racial integration and voting rights. In an article entitled “Why the South Must Prevail” (24th August, 1957) the journal argued that the Deep South was “right to disenfranchise blacks from voting in elections”. In an editorial of the same edition, Buckley wrote that the whites were the advanced race and that uneducated blacks should not be allowed to vote. He was particularly concerned that if given the vote, blacks would vote for socialistic measures to solve their economic problems.

Buckley argued that liberals who pursued the “absolute right of universal suffrage” for the Negro were endangering existing standards of civilization. According to Buckley, this was not only true of America. He was also concerned about what was taking place in countries that were part of the old empires. He advanced the theory that “acceding to black demands for independence and one man, one vote, whites were inviting a return to barbarism”

Buckley shared the same views of other neo-fascists of the time such as George Lincoln Rockwell (founder of the American Nazi Party), Gerald L. K. Smith (founder of the Christian Nationalist Party), Russell Maguire (publisher of The American Mercury), General Charles Willoughby (a financial supporter of the National Review) and Robert Welch (the founder of the John Birch Society).

All these men believed the theory of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world (Protocols of Zion). Buckley was in constant contact with these men. The surviving correspondence shows that he attempted to improve their public image. Buckley actually felt uncomfortable with anti-Semitism.

In the 1960 presidential election he tried to get Barry Goldwater adopted as the Republican Party candidate (another one urging a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union). Part of this campaign involved establishing Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) with the John Birch Society. The main mission of the YAF was to “prepare young people for the struggle ahead with Liberalism, Socialism and Communism”.

Robert Welch was also a supporter of Goldwater. However, Buckley and Goldwater, were furious when Welch circulated a private letter that Eisenhower had been "knowingly receiving and abiding by Communist orders, and consciously serving the Communist conspiracy, for all his adult life." Buckley and Goldwater were concerned that this story would get out and destroy Goldwater’s prospects to get the nomination. After all, Eisenhower was a much loved figure in the Republican Party. Buckley wrote to Welch asking him to stop making these extreme comments about Eisenhower. However, he added: “If Eisenhower were what you think he is, then the elimination of Eisenhower would be a critical step in setting things a right.”

When the attempts to get Goldwater the nomination Buckley refused to endorse Richard Nixon who he considered to be far too liberal. Buckley considered supporting JFK (he liked the speeches he had been making about the need for increasing military spending on nuclear weapons and promising retaliation against Castro’s Cuba). However, Buckley distrusted JFK’s civil rights policy and decided not to endorse either candidate (he told friends that he planned to abstain from voting).

Buckley quickly got disillusioned with JFK. The Bay of Pigs operation showed that JFK had been lying about his planned strong action against Castro. Buckley was also furious with JFK policies concerning universal suffrage in the Third World and his comments about civil rights in the Deep South. However, it was JFK’s reactions to the Cuban Missile Crisis that really upset Buckley. If Eisenhower was a dangerous liberal, JFK was indeed a communist. To re-quote Buckley’s earlier letter to Welch: “If Eisenhower were what you think he is, then the elimination of Eisenhower would be a critical step in setting things a right.” If Buckley believed that JFK was a communist, was it right to “eliminate” him.

When JFK was assassinated Buckley was one of the first to suggest that Oswald was part of a KGB/Castro conspiracy. He went onto argue that Earl Warren, a man he considered to be a communist, had covered this up in his report.

Buckley continued to make extreme right-wing statements. For example, when Viola Liuzzo, the civil rights activist from Detroit was murdered in March 1965, Buckley argued that it was her own fault as she “drove down a stretch of lonely road in the dead of night, sharing the front seat with a young Negro identified with the protesting movement”.

He also led the smear campaign against Martin Luther King in the press (based on documents leaked by J. Edgar Hoover). He urged the repression of King and other civil rights and anti-war protestors on “constitutional grounds”. Buckley compared King to Hitler and Lenin. He said that he wished Lenin and Hitler had been repressed in the same way as King should be repressed. (National Review, 19th August, 1967).

In 1968 Buckley supported Nixon because he feared the Democrats might pull out of Vietnam. However, he soon got disillusioned with Nixon as a result of his attempts to negotiate with the Soviet Union and China. Buckley now became a strong supporter of Spiro Agnew and he went into overdrive when it was reported that Nixon might replace Agnew with John Connolly in 1972.

It was the Watergate Scandal that finally exposed Buckley’s long-term relationship with the CIA. As long as Agnew was vice president, Buckley made no real attempt to protect Nixon from this scandal (he did say in the National Review that Nixon was only doing what Democrats had been doing for years).

However, Buckley did help out his long-term friend, E. Howard Hunt. He gave Hunt advice and even paid some of his legal bills. He also became guardian of Hunt’s children and executor of Dorothy Hunt’s estate. After the death of Dorothy while carrying $10,000 in cash, Hunt had a meeting with Buckley. He told him that he believed that Nixon gave the order for the Watergate break-in. Hunt told Buckley that he had a safe-deposit box that contained documents that would protect him when he really got into trouble.

However, the resignation of Agnew complicated matters. So also did the decision by the CIA to fully expose Nixon’s relationship with Hunt and the others involved in Watergate. This dragged Buckley into the scandal and exposed him as a long-time CIA agent. Someone leaked information about Buckley to Sherman Skolnick. In his Hotline News he claimed: “Bill Buckley’s so-called oil fortune is mostly money deposited by the CIA… He has admitted he has been a long-time deep cover operative for the CIA. Over the years he has participated in several operations in Mexico with E. Howard Hunt, including preparations for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.”

It was revealed that Buckley was recruited into the CIA by James Burnham. A former supporter of Leon Trotsky, Burnham had been “turned” in the 1930s. Burnham introduced Buckley to E. Howard Hunt who arranged for him to join his covert CIA operation in Mexico City. After three months training in Washington, Buckley arrived in Mexico City in September, 1951. His first task was to help Eudocio Ravines write an anti-Communist book The Yenan Way (it was an attack on the Chilean Communist Party).

Buckley’s other major task was working as an undercover agent with university students in Mexico City in an attempt to create a right wing organization. This is of course what he later did in the United States with Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (1953) and the Young Americans for Freedom (1960).

Buckley officially left the CIA in April 1952. He returned to the United States where he concentrated on producing right-wing political propaganda. In 1953 he established the ISS, an organization that free copies of right-wing books such as Road to Serfdom (Friedrich A. Hayek) and The Income Tax: Root of all Evil (Frank Chodorov).

Some investigative reporters began to look at the accounts of the National Review. It had been losing a great deal of money over the years. It was not clear from published accounts who had been funding this operation. Some speculated that it was the CIA. In other words, Buckley was a key figure in Operation Mockingbird.

Evidence for this view came from a very strange source. On 29th January, 1975, the Washington Post published an article by George Will, the National Review’s Washington columnist. He posed the question: “Was National Review, with four ex-agents of the CIA on its staff, a CIA operation?” He claimed that several members of the National Review’s had believed that it was receiving funds from the CIA. Will also pointed out that Buckley was very close to E. Howard Hunt and had been raising funds for him.

Up until this time George Will had appeared to be a devoted follower of Buckley. What made him turn against Buckley? Was the National Review’s Washington columnist working for Richard Helms?

It was also revealed that Buckley was a long-time friend of two former directors of the CIA, William Casey and George Bush.

However, Nixon thought Buckley was working for him. When the Watergate tapes were released, Nixon is heard to say that Buckley would write an article in the National Review calling for Hunt to be given clemency (8th January, 1973).

It was also revealed that the National Review had obtained funds from the American-Chilean Council (ACC). This helps to partly explain the support that Buckley had given to General Pinchet’s coup (this included a defence of the execution of 500 Chilean opponents of the regime). Buckley wrote that this action was popular in Chile because “people prefer an authoritarian government to chaos.”

Buckley also published the claim (based on information from the ACC) that Orlando Letelier had been assassinated in Washington because he had been “entangled in international terrorism and was receiving funds through Havana”.

I think this information helps us to understand Tim's posts. It also helps explain why he has been so reluctant to reveal the background to his political ideology.

Unfortunately, you omitted the "good" deads of which Buckley was known.

Such as assisting foreign immigrants to the US to achieve the "American Dream"

Case in Point:

Pantepec Oil Company (Pantipec according to some)

Formed in Mexico by William Buckley, Sr.

Transferred to Venezuela in 1924 due to changes in the Mexican Constitution.

Employer of one George DeMohrenschildt, foreign immigrant to the US.

http://www.scripophily.net/pacoofveinde.html

Tom

P.S. Are you aware of the old saying "Follow the Money" ??

P.P.S. It should also be noteworthy to point to the fact that LHO did not begin his true life of "mystic" until such time as he began his "Mexico" sojurns from his USMC assignment at El Toro, CA.

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Wow!!! Ball's in your court Tim. You have indeed some serious explaining to do.

I doubt very much if Tim Gratz will reply to the points I have made in this thread. Nor do I expect him to contribute to these threads anymore:

William F. Buckley

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5078

Young Americans for Freedom

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4437

Whenever Tim is exposed he either threatens legal action. He will not do that as all the information I have included is from published sources.

The other strategy is to ignore it hoping that it will eventually leave the top page of the Forum. To help it do that he posts on as many other threads as possible. I am on to Tim and I will continue to refresh these threads by adding extra information. I suggest others do the same when Tim refuses to answer questions (I have noticed that Mark Stapleton and Mark Knight appear to have sussed out Tim's strategy as well).

Nor will Tim get involved in this thread on Karl Rove and the CIA either:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4297

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John, the news of the death of Rosa Parks this week brings home once again just how divisive the issue of civil rights was in the US. To blacks, to those who sympathized with the cause of civil rights, Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man was in many ways just as important as Brown vs, Board of Education. Rosa Parks' actions led to a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus lines by blacks...and since the bus-riding population of Montgomery was estimated at 75% black, according to an estimate in one news article I read, the economic impact on the transit system was fairly severe.

But on the other side of the coin, for those of the conservative persuasion, Rosa Parks' action wasn't portrayed in terms of standing up for a higher cause. In the eyes of the right wingers, it was simple asnd straightforward: there was a law requiring blacks to surrender their seats to whites when asked [or told] to do so, and ROSA PARKS WAS A LAWBREAKER. The US was [is] a nation based upon the rule of law, and for justice to prevail, in the eyes of the right-wingers, the guilty must pay for their crimes. So Rosa Parks went to jail, and was fined $10.

The credo of the right-winger is, if the law is wrong, you don't BREAK the law, you go through the appropriate channels and CHANGE the law. But in 1955, most blacks were denied the right to vote in the South. Their ability to change laws that discriminated against them hinged entirely upon the benevolence of the white majority. And, as the governors of Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi and other segregationist strongholds demonstrated, the fountains of human kindness simply didn't flow that far. So the right-wing Americans outside the South saw the struggle as one not so much of segregation vs. integration, but of enforcing the law vs. breaking the law, and while they might have mouthed the words that they were against the idea of segregation, they were for law-and-order, and thus supported the means by which segregation was enforced. If I understand him correctly this is the background from which Mr. Gratz comes.

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John wrote:

It is interesting that Tim Gratz has been very reluctant to explain why he joined the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). However, evidence of his right-wing views can be found in his defence of George Bush.

Don't understand this statement. Not just "reluctant"; "very reluctant"! Incredible. I always said I joined YAF because I agreed with most (not necessarily all) of its views and it was an activist organization. Why does anyone join any political organization? Presumably because he or she shares its agenda. It is certainly no big mystery. Most young Goldwater supporters were YAF members.

I did NOT support the man (whom I am sure you would have at least joournalistically) who many people believe murdered his predecessor (among others). In 1964, I KNEW most of the charges made against LBJ in "A Texan Looks at Lyndon" were probably true.

John, why the heck do you need any "evidence" of my "right-wing" views? I have always identified myself as conservative. No big mystery there. And supporting President Bush hardly qualifies one as a conservative!

But you labeled this thread that I was a "right-wing extremist". I presume as usual that it is another example of the tale twice told by an idiot, signifying nothing (no, I am not calling you an idiot).

Please identify only one of my viewpoints that you consider to be "extremist". If you cannot do so, why did you so label the thread? Just being rude, I guess. (Hey, you admitted being "rude" to try to "get my goat" so to speak.) But I am really only interested in whether you have ANY defense to this characterization.

I think your personal attacks merely prove you cannot seriously attack my points. Else why stoop to an ad hominen attack?

I shall not hold my breath.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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But you labeled this thread that I was a "right-wing extremist". I presume as usual that it is another example of the tale twice told by an idiot, signifying nothing (no, I am not calling you an idiot).

Please identify only one of my viewpoints that you consider to be "extremist". If you cannot do so, why did you so label the thread? Just being rude, I guess. (Hey, you admitted being "rude" to try to "get my goat" so to speak.) But I am really only interested in whether you have ANY defense to this characterization.

I think your personal attacks merely prove you cannot seriously attack my points. Else why stoop to an ad hominen attack?

I shall not hold my breath.

My claim that you are a right-wing extremist is based on several pieces of evidence.

You are a self-confessed former member of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). An organisation set up in 1960 by William F. Buckley and the John Birch Society.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4437

In your postings you have passionately supported the views of Buckley although you have tried to distance yourself from the views of Robert Welch and the John Birch Society.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5078

As I have pointed out on the thread on William F. Buckley, he was an early supporter of Joe McCarthy. In fact he was the subject of his second book. His first book was a call for liberals and those on the left to be sacked from their posts as university teachers (an early McCarthy tactic). You have shown yourself to be a McCarthyite in your postings in the Thomas Buchanan thread. You appeared to think it was acceptable for him to be sacked from the Washington Evening Star in 1948 because he was a former member of the Communist Party. Nor should he be taken seriously as a researcher because all “communists are liars”.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2846

Buckley was so opposed to communism that he advocated nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union, North Korea and North Vietnam. That seems to be pretty extremist to me.

He also advocated and supported the overthrow of democratically elected left-wing governments in South America. This includes the support of the Pinchet’s coup and the execution of 500 Chilean opponents of the regime. On several occasions on the Forum you have refused to condemn the role the CIA played in the removal of Chile’s democratically elected government.

Buckley was also a racist. He supported the racist governments in South Africa and Rhodesia and believed in white minority rule (this was an issue that helped turn him against JFK).

Buckley was against the civil rights movement. He thought that the Deep South was “right to disenfranchise blacks from voting in elections”. In 1957 wrote that the whites were the advanced race and that uneducated blacks should not be allowed to vote. He was particularly concerned that if given the vote, blacks would vote for socialistic measures to solve their economic problems. He also argued in private correspondence that Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders should be “suppressed”.

You have claimed several times that you are now a supporter of equal rights. That is of course easy to say. The real test is what you were doing about this when you first became involved in politics. Were you campaigning for civil rights or were you more concerned with sending troops to Vietnam and on tax cuts for the rich.

We know that as a young man that your politics were so right-wing that you were approached by Donald Segretti to take part in Richard Nixon’s illegal dirty tricks campaign.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3812

One thing we know is that you are now a passionate supporter of George Bush. This includes his illegal invasion of Iraq and his measures to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich (and very successful it has been as well).

We also known you are a member of the Christian Right who opposes abortion and other social measures that were introduced in the 1960s.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3566

From my perspective you are clearly a right-wing extremist.

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Okay, here we go:

As another example of John's sloppy postings, he claims that I am a member of Young Americans for Freedom. Wish that I could still consider myself a "young American". My politics might still qualify me for YAF but I believe there are age requirements that disqualify me. (Unfortunately, I now qualify for senior citizen discounts. I'll have to get together with Buckley to start a new group called "Old Americans for Freedom!).

But YAF was not, by any commonly accepted standards, a "right-wing extremist" organization. Nor is there any evidence that it was set up by the "John Birch Society", an organization that I, and most, would consider to be extremist.

I read "God and Man at Yale" years ago, as a high school student. Be honest, John. Have you read it? I serriously doubt it. I do not believe that it called for liberals and those on the left to be "sacked from university positions". Frankly, I think this represents intellectual dishonesty on your part. "God and Man at Yale" decried the fact that Yale, that started as a religious college, was dominated by atheists and leftists. What it called for was intellectual balance in universities. Since I have read the book and you have not, I hope Forum members will take my word for it until you have read the book and will post passages that support your take on the book, which is dead wrong.

Do I think secret Communists should be allowed to infiltrate the media? No. That does not make me a right-wing extremist; it makes me a loyal American. Funny, you have spent hundreds of pages on this Forum attacking CIA influence on the media ("Operation Mockingbird") but not a SINGLE WORD attacking the Soviet disinformation campaign, as documented in "The Sword and the Shield." I wonder why that might be. Hmmm.

You say that Buckley advocated nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union, North Korea and North Vietnam. "That seems pretty extremist to me." Several responses. First, I would like to see the quotations to support that generalization. Second, how does a position taken by Buckley make yours truly a right wing extremist unless you show I also advocated that position? Yes, I respect Buckley anbd his writings but that of course does not mean I would necessarily support every single position he has ever advocated. Heck, on many occasions I have posted my appreciation for many of the things you have written. Certainly does not mean I adopt all of your positions.

Moreover, few political analysts of whom I am aware, regardless of their political ideology, would brand Buckley a "right wing extremist" as you do.

I would like to see proof of what you write about Buckley's posaition on civil rights. You know that is not my position and never was. If it was in fact Buckley's that does disappoint me. But again it is dishonest of you to tar me as an extremist because of supposed statements by Buckley. I began reading National Review in 1961 and I do not recall the statements you attribute to Buckley. If Buckley made some commebt in 1957, when I was eight years old, for heaven's sake, how does that make me a right-wing extremist?

You claim I must be a right-wing extremist because Donald Segretti targetted me. Segretti, dear John, was a Nixon operative, and the first person he approached in Wisconsin was Randy Knox, a Rockefeller left-wing Republican. Segretti was a rascal to be sure, who broke (I believe) numerous campaign laws, but he did so in support of a president who was a left-oriented Republican. Nixon's nomination was opposed by conservatives in 1968 (I supported Reagan over Nixon) and his renomination was opposed by some conservatives in 1972. There is no nexus between Segretti and the extreme right-wing. Get your facts straight.

Yes I support George Bush but he is far from the darling of the extreme right. If you consider Bush a right-wing extremist all that demonstrates is how far left you are.

The only political position or policy that you correctly attribute to me is that I oppose abortion. Opposition to abortion is not a position of the extreme right wing. The pope who opposed the war in Iraq also opposed abortion, as you know. So does Nat Hentoff and certain other leftists. Many left-wing Democrats (e.g. Sen. Kerry) claim they personally oppose abortion but would not have society prohibit it. You yourself have admitted that if life begins at conception (as I believe science clearly indicates) abortion is murder.

To assert that society ought to be conservative in presuming based on thge science that abortion may very well constitute abortion is hardly an extremist position.

The long and short of it is that you cannot name a single policy that I support that makes me a "right-wing extremist" and yet you so labeled me. You failed in my challenge to do so. All you tried to do was produce "guilt by association" by arguing positions that you claim were advocated by William F. Buckley, Jr. Interestingly, of course, "guilt by association" is a tactic often attributed to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Now if you have a shred of intellectual responsibility, you will admit that you have no reason to assert that I am anything but a fairly conventional traditionalist conservative.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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Guest Stephen Turner

Tim, if the political universe has shifted so radically that Bush is not considered a right wing extremist, then 80% of Europeans could be considered far left, and a great many Americans too I have no doubt. Just who qualifies in the US these days for that epithet.

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To Stephen:

Few in the US do consider Bush an extremist. Some at National Review doubt that he is in fact a conservative, compassionate or otherwise. I posted a National Review article to this effect on another thread. And you are correct many if not most in America consider most Europeans as very far to the left. Objectively, I think this is correct. The current prevailing political opinions in Europe are certainly far to the left of what they were a generation ago.

To John:

As I said before, the fact that my (unfinished) political science thesis was defending the foreign policy of Attila the Hun is an insufficient datum to call me an extremist!

Edited by Tim Gratz
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Guest Stephen Turner

Wow Tim, so redistributing billions of Dollars from welfare to enable the poor, to provide a series of tax cuts for the super rich is not considered the work of a right wing idealogue? As Cosner said in JFK,"Were through the looking glass people"I also have to dispute your assertion that most Europeans are further to the left than a generation before, sorry tim its simply not true, Communist parties regularly held power, or the balance of in the 60's and 70's France and Italy were several times on the verge of leftist revolution, and in Britain the trade union movement had twice the strength it has today. With all respect its not us that has moved left, its the US that has turned sharply right. Steve.

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As another example of John's sloppy postings, he claims that I am a member of Young Americans for Freedom. Wish that I could still consider myself a "young American". My politics might still qualify me for YAF but I believe there are age requirements that disqualify me. (Unfortunately, I now qualify for senior citizen discounts. I'll have to get together with Buckley to start a new group called "Old Americans for Freedom!).

But YAF was not, by any commonly accepted standards, a "right-wing extremist" organization. Nor is there any evidence that it was set up by the "John Birch Society", an organization that I, and most, would consider to be extremist.

Evidence for the Young Americans for Freedom being an extreme right-wing organization can be found from the following sources:

Alan Crawford, Thunder on the Right (1980)

B. Epstein and A. Forster, The Radical Right (1967)

B. Epstein and A. Forster, Danger of the Right (1964)

D. Freed, Death in Washington (1980)

V. Nikitin, The Ultras in the USA (1981)

K. Sale, Power Shift (1976)

W. Turner, Power on the Right (1971)

D. A. Wilcox, The Right Guide (1993)

However, the most revealing book on the background to the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) comes from John B. Judis’s book, William F. Buckley, Jr: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988). Judis was given access to Buckley’s private correspondence. This included Buckley’s correspondence with Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society (JBS). These letters reveal that the JBS was fully involved in establishing YAF. In fact, 15 members of the original general council of YAF were also members of the JBS.

It is true that in 1962 Buckley made an attempt to distance himself from Robert Welch. This was because a document that Welch was circulating was leaked to the press. This document claimed that Eisenhower was under the control of the “communists”. As Buckley pointed out in a letter, this might have been true, and if so, Eisenhower deserved to be “eliminated”. However, this accusation, without back-up evidence, would hurt Barry Goldwater’s attempt to win the 1964 presidential nomination. It was therefore agreed that Buckley and Goldwater would attack Welch in the press. However, what they also agreed was not to attack the John Birch Society as its members were vital in the campaign to get an extreme right-winger into the White House.

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John et al:

I admire trying to prove Tim is a right wing extremist. I have a cousin in Nova Scotia who is exactly like this. We email and argue regularily. But it is pointless. We just see the worlld differently. It can never be reconciled. After receiving his reply early this morning to the article I sent him about record breaking profits by the oil companies, and him responding that this is, fine, an example of Capitalism at work I have decided to call it quits. We just have no business trying to communicate, it's a waste of time for both of us. He has this notion that if he sends me enuf Rush and Ann Coulter I will "see the light". I just turned 56 and I truly doubt I will ever change in my political views. Nor will Tim. The problem with the extreme right is that they just don't think the are extreme, merely "right". Maybe it's a gene or something, but I listen to say Sean Hannity on cable tv and his brain is just wired differently from mine. He also lies and cuts off his guests the second they begin to make a valid point. Rush does the same. The right is the most intellectually dishonest group around. What is going on with the Plame matter is a simple case in point. Wilson disagreed with the faked evidence. The administration and its bulldogs attacked. They are neither conservative (in the true sense) nor compassionate. They are power hungry and will stop at NOTHING to achieve their goal. Very scary. Let's hope FItzgterald does something to set this gang back a tiny bit; tho I'm not overly optimistic.

Tim is steeped in this kind of thinking; it's how his brain is wired and all the logical arguments to the contrary are not going to "englighten" him in the least.

I knew at age 11 that Nixon was a crook. My Pastor's wife told me recently that she supported this man right up til his regisnation. Our brains are just not wired the same. (Or some people are very easily brainwashed and are greatly lacking in discernment).

I'm sure Tim will take great issue with ths.

But know what, Tim: you know what I do for a living and I work about 13 hours a day. When I have asked you what you do your response is that you have an office in Langley. So you cannot/will not even answer that simple question. You, like the other Tim here complain that I don't read every word of your every post, like I don't have a LIFE and a real JOB...but when I ask you a question I DO read your response.

And I don't mean to be ganging up on you here, it probably looks that way. I actually like you, but find your political thinking a total mystry .

Dawn

sorry this is so long

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You claim I must be a right-wing extremist because Donald Segretti targetted me. Segretti, dear John, was a Nixon operative, and the first person he approached in Wisconsin was Randy Knox, a Rockefeller left-wing Republican. Segretti was a rascal to be sure, who broke (I believe) numerous campaign laws, but he did so in support of a president who was a left-oriented Republican. Nixon's nomination was opposed by conservatives in 1968 (I supported Reagan over Nixon) and his renomination was opposed by some conservatives in 1972. There is no nexus between Segretti and the extreme right-wing. Get your facts straight.

"No nexus?" It is a classic fascist tactic to neutralize the power of the ballot box by thieving elections. If that "rascal" Segretti was part of such an attempt, which is fairly clear from the agenda he outlined for you and others on behalf of the Nixon re-election campaign, then he was not acting in the service of any [small "d"] democratic ideal to further a "left-oriented Republican." Rather, he was using fascist tactics to ensure his candidate would never face the viable opponent who might have made it a horse race, Ed Muskie. That you consider Nixon to have been a "left" Republican tells us more about you than it does Nixon. That you seek to distance Nixon from the machinations employed to maintain him in office, and thereby conclude that Segretti wasn't serving the extreme right wing, is equally illustrative.

Now if you have a shred of intellectual responsibility, you will admit that you have no reason to assert that I am anything but a fairly conventional traditionalist conservative.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom why so much time and attention on this Forum is devoted to plumbing the political leanings of those who contribute. In my own life experience, I've had common cause with those on all points of the political spectrum, depending on the issue and their sincerity.

If somebody is genuinely interested in probing the Kennedy assassination to the extent that it remains possible, why should I care what their politics are? And if they are not sincere in that quest, should I regard them as colleagues, simply because we happen to vote for the same candidates?

I have great disdain for the tack taken here by Tim Gratz, because I think he is shilling for a Castro-did-it tale that he either knows to be wrong, or should. His unwavering support for the Republican party is immaterial. Were he a Democrat, it wouldn't make his performance here any more acceptable to me.

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Robert Charles-Dunne wrote:

"No nexus?" It is a classic fascist tactic to neutralize the power of the ballot box by thieving elections.

I think it a ridiculous assertion, Robert, that only fascists attempt to steal elections.

It is widely accepted that Lyndon Johnson "fixed" his first election to the U.S. Senate and that there was widespread vote fraud in Illinois on behalf of the Kennedy-Johnson campaign. (Wasn't it Mayor Daley who quipped that even the dead ought not be disenfranchised?). And there was also widespread corruption in the West Virginia primary election, as described by Tip O'Neill in a PBS program on JFK.

Surely you do not contend that LBJ and JFK were "fascists".

I do not believe that Segretti was involved in practices such as ballot-boxing stuffing but clearly his tactics were designed to corruptly influence the 1972 election. But that does not make Nixon a "fascist" any more than what happened in Illinois made Kennedy a "fascist". Nixon was not an "extreme right-wing" Republican. Right-wing Republicans opposed many of his policies. His domestic program was quite liberal, in fact.

But I do agree with you that a person's politics ought not relate to the issues in the assassination debate and find it quite curious that John is devoting an entire thread to attempt to prove that I am some "right-wing extremist". As you point out, my theories out to rise and fall on their merits.

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