I want to share this early morning chuckle via Yahoo and The Daily Beast. There were so many factual errors in this sloppy screed I don’t know where to begin. The author, former red diaper Commie, now neocon propagandist, Ronald Radosh couldn’t even get the title of Schlafly’s book right. It is A Choice, Not An Echo, and is still a legend in the publishing industry for creating the niche for million+ mass marketed self published books. Her book is also a pioneering work in power elite analysis.
Equally laughable is his reliance upon the work of “ernie1241” aka Ernie Lazar. Lazar is a retired, evidently well-meaning fringe character who has made his life’s work “exposing” the John Birch Society and any other deviation from “respectable conservatives” such as Buckley, Goldwater, Kirk, etc. He has been at it for decades. Any and every time the JBS, Cleon Skousen, etc. is mentioned in the known universe, ernie1241 is on it like fleas to a dog. He got onto me with my numerous LewRockwell.com blogs about “phony conservatism,” Buckley, and the CIA.
Most notably, the article — “I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard.
Rothbard was a co-author with Radosh of A New History of Leviathan, back in his old New Leftist period. Still a fantastic read.
Ernie has a very simplistic view of all this, and doesn’t seem to entertain or imagine the possibility of disinformation agents, black propaganda, or synthetic or false fronts working for intelligence agencies. When I first dealt with “ernie1241” I emailed the late Will Grigg, formerly a big-wig with the JBS, who filled me on ernie1241’s obsession.
By the way, actors John Wayne, Walter Brennan, and Raymond Massey were all JBS members at the time it was claimed Schlafly was a member.
Big deal.
10:02 am on April 22, 2020
