Gertrude Himmelfarb (Wm Kristol's mother) on c-span2 right now

[housewolf]

BookTV, broadcast on c-span2 or online at c-span.org

It's a Booknotes show from 1995. She's a founder of neo-conservative thought, this is an intersting history of her conversion from socialism/trotskyism to neo-conservatism.



The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values
Gertrude Himmelfarb

Description: Gertrude Himmelfarb was a guest on Booknotes in 1995 to talk about her book, "The De-Moralization of Society." The author asserts that the Victorian virtues of hard work and deferall of gratification are the tools to fix current social problems in America.

Author Bio: Gertrude Himmelfarb is the author of several books, including "Marriage and Morals among the Victorians," "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution," "Victorian Minds; Poverty and Compassion," "The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians," and "The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age." She is the wife of Irving Kristol and mother of William Kristol.

[TomClash]

1. This is well known

They were Jews who sat at the Trotskyite table in the City College cafeteria in the late 30s: Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Kristol (Billy's Father and Gertrude's husband), Nathan Glazer, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Bell and so on. This was the intellectual fetus of today's neo-con movement.

They migrated to the right after the advent of the New Left and the UN resolutions denouncing Israel ("Zionism is a form of racism"). A few, like the great Irving Howe, refused to make that much of a shift.

Add Leo Strauss and the wide swath of nutty Christian Dominionists to the mix and you have a recipe for unrepentent and unabashed imperialism masquerading as "Democracy" and "Freedom."

[fairfaxvadem]

2. Yup, just went from one extreme to another.

Trotskyites. Good Grief. I tried watching some of old Gert, but only lasted a few minutes.

However, I'll wager they were far less dangerous in that former incarnation than they are now in their neo-con movement.

[TomClash]

6. You're absolutely right

And the tentacles of this movement spread like wildfire.

Here are a few examples:

William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Stansard, is the son of Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. The elder Kristol and Norman Podhoretz founded Commentary magazine, the first neocon bible.

John Podhoretz, the Editorial Page Editor of the NY Post, is the son of Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter.

Nathan Glazer, a Contributing Editor of the New Republic, is close friends with the Editor of that publication, on Martin Peretz, who you will recall was a foreign policy mentor of Al Gore.

[The Zanti Regent]

5. and this is where the neoconstipated scum incubated

http://www.socialdemocrats.org/

[applegrove]

3. They are not even origianl. Much of their thought is Disraeli.

Read an article called the creation of Modern Conservatism.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/198cdapm.asp

These neocons are not even all that intellectual. Most of their ideas are old and the ones that are new (liberals = guilt vs. conservatives = pride) requires that the 20th century history gets rewritten to follow their thinking on how fascism wasn't based on patriotism or wasn't on the right wing. I'm guessing that if this thesis didn't fly at the time history was being written, that it is not good to try and flog it on the bulletin boards. But I guess you can try.

But even though the neocons invented Nothing except stuff that doesn’t fly .... You gotta give them points for "somehow meeting up with the right psychopath to give their ideas wings". Though it took a full 50 years. Now - that (and coming up with the notion that mother liberal government does nothing to make but makes you feel guilty) is something to be proud of. Especially if you were actually witness to the events of the WWII and were Jewish.

Someone open a window give these people some air!!!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Yeah, right, Victorian Virtues

Back in the days before the Discovery Channel went trivial, it used to show some tremendous documentaries from the BBC and CBC. One of the BBC documentaries was a series called "Victorian Values," and each week featured an aspect of Victorian society, such as education, religion, women's rights, labor, and so on.

The segment on poverty told about how the Victorians believed that poverty was a moral failing and how people who couldn't support themselves were sent to workhouses, where they were given purposely pointless and painful work to do: breaking rocks, running on a treadmill, turning a crank that did nothing, and picking oakum, a thorny plant that has no practical use. The idea was that if life in the workhouse was unpleasant enough, people would start working at real jobs.

Of course, depending on the economic times (and economic fluctuations, including depressions, used to be more common than they are now), there were no jobs, but what the hey.