OPINIONS & VIEWSnThe Prevaricative Left & Homemade FascismnJoseph Conlin: The Troubles: A JaundicednGlance Back at the Movement ofnthe 60’s; Franklin Watts; New York.nAlan Brinkley: Voices of Protest: HueynLong, Father Coughlin and the GreatnDepression; Alfred A. Knopf; NewnYork.nby Bryce Christensennvynce upon a time, before such lowtechnsoporifics became passe, mothersnused to beguile young offspring with anfable about a credulous emperor trickednby a clever tailor into buying a nonexistentnsuit of clothing which was to appearnbeautiful to the wise but invisible to thenfoolish. Not wanting to appear foolish,nthe emperor donned the imaginary suitnand paraded nude through the streets tonthe approving “oohs” and “aahs” ofnsubjects who likewise did not want to appearnfoolish. All of the fun was, ofncourse, spoiled when a vocal young boyninnocently revealed the obvious: thenemperor didn’t have any beautifulnclothes. Some 20 years ago, a new leftnconsisting of thousands of self-appointednemperors began parading throughnAmerica’s streets and campuses, declaringnthat the wise among us would seenthat they represented a beautiful newnphilosophy which would banish discord,ninjustice, and poverty. For a decade thenliberal intelligentsia and media loudlynoohed and aahed while the 60’s radicalsncontinued to parade. The parading diedndown during the 70’s, but many liberalsncontinued the oohing and aahing, nostalgicallynlonging for a return to the “sensitivenidealism” which they saw in then60’s activism. The fun may finally benover, though, for Joseph Conlin, himselfna radical leftist, has finally declared thenobvious: the 60’s radicals had no beautifulnphilosophy.nMr. Christensen is an editorial intern atnthe Chronicles.n6nChronicles of CultttrenBut while Conlin’s Troubles willndoubtless serve the worthwhile purposenof revealing to liberal readers that theirndarling 60’s radicals were aimless frauds,nnonliberal readers will doubtless findnmost of his revelations boringly obvious.nMr. Conlin need not tell a conservativenthat the 60’s Free Speech Movementnrapidly degenerated into a Foul SpeechnMovement because its participants reallyndid not care about free speech, nor neednhe point out that the students who seizednfour buildings at Columbia quickly lostninterest in all of their “social justice”ndemands because they really did not carenabout social justice. Most of Conlin’snother revelations are equally underwhelming:nthe 60’s movement fawnednover the blacks because of a condescendingnracism; the flower children were actuallynturned on to drugs, not love; thenBlack Panthers were merely loudmouthed,ncowardly thugs, not heroicnvisionaries; the “progressive” pragmatismnof American pedagogy encouragednaimless iconoclasm among 60’s youth;nthe 60’s “counterculture” offered littlenbut nightmarish caricatures of the worstnfeatures of the existing culture; 60’snradicals attacked the university because itnwas easier and more spectacular than actuallynworking to help the poor. Yes, Mr.nConlin, and the Pope is Catholic.nStill, coming from a leftist, such candornis refreshing. Of course, any radicalnleftist who persists in such honesty willnsoon cease to be a radical leftist, sincennnmost leftist doctrines are far too frail to benexposed to the cruel light of day. Conlinnevidently will be a leftist for some time,nfor despite his frankness about the 60’snmovement, he has mastered the mendaciousnarts of the left. He has especiallynmastered the art of appearing to be “objective”nwhile shamelessly defending anlie. Thus, for example, Conlin admitsnthat if Mr. and Mrs. Neatnik of the Eisenhowern50’s were “examined with thensame open-minded tolerance with whichnanthropologists examine Italian mountainnvillages,” it would be “difficult tonsneer and snort,” yet on the facing pagenhe largely endorses the leftists’ biasednbelief that the Neatniks’ world of LittlenLeague and PTA was “vapid, trivial, andnempty.” (Real “substance,” Conlin tellsnus elsewhere, was found in “the oldnMarxist study groups,” not in PTA meetings.)nSimilarly, like an objective scholarnConlin sets out to establish the validity ofnthe liberal dogma that “the list of socialnradicals imprisoned and even executed innthe United States for tmmped-up crimesnis a long one ” by actually showing the topnof the list^oe Hill, Sacco and Vanzetti,nand the Haymarket anarchists. Withoutnrevealing any more of this allegedly longnlist, Conlin repeats the dogma he has son”objectively” substantiated: “Thenchronicle of framed American radicals isna long one.” (Joe McCarthy, you willnrecall, once tried this phony “long list”ntechnique.) With similar “objectivity”nConlin concedes that traditional Leninistntheory will not support the “capitalist aggression”nexplanation of the VietnamnWar since America had virtually no investmentsnin Indochina before the war.nBut instead of sensibly rejecting the leftists’n”capitalist aggression” explanationnof the war, he invokes the absurd notionnof William A. Williams that Americanncapitalism fought in Vietnam “to maintainnits potential to expand.” (Conlinnpraises this explanation for its “subtlety,”nbut sophistry by any other name willnsmell as rank.)n