Martyr, eh? Really?


When my mother died recently, I found this eructation of right-wing spew in a pile of my father's old papers. Except for the unfashionable anti-semitism, which seems left over from Smith's Coughlinesque origins, I don't see very much that would ruffle any feathers at a contemporary Tea Party rally.

And yet, in 1971 these people were the fringe-beyond-the-fringe of wingers, the people that William F. Buckley swept under the rug to make conservatism respectable again. The dark and paranoid underside of the body politic is now driving our discourse in a way GK Smith never could.

I put up this blog so that people could have a look at this document. I only scanned and posted a few representative pages (I do, after all, have a life, and if this paper isn't a time-waster, I don't know what is.) However, if there's any interest, I can scan the rest. It's pretty much the same kind of crap.

The paper's title is ironic in a way Smith and his followers could never appreciate. Savvy readers will remember this quote:


"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

-- Sinclair Lewis

Saturday, February 27, 2010