An Open Letter to Joe Sobran on the Lew Rockwell Contretemps

By John "Birdman" Bryant

Date: June 13, 2001
 
Dear Joe:

I like you, Joe.  As columnists go, you are a good one.  But more than
that, I like a man who is politically incorrect, and who is willing to say
so in public.  In this PC day in time, that takes courage.

But a little problem seems to have developed here.  Today there was a
letter of yours posted on lewrockwell.com in which you told Lew what a
great job he was doing on his website, following which was a pitch by Lew &
Co for contributions.  Now normally this would not have caught my
attention, except that it comes in the context of some essays severely
critical of Lew which I have written and sent to you and most of the other
LRC writers, and which are now posted on my website, along with some
correspondence over the essays, including a death threat by LRC writer Jeff
Elkins.  (To see these essays, click the Net Losses section on the main
page (
www.thebirdman.org), and scroll down to The Rockwell Files.)  All of
which is to say that my accusative case essays (hey, that's a Latin pun!)
seem to have made some people pretty upset, possibly including yourself.
Which of course would explain why your unprecedented plug suddenly appeared
on the LRC website.

Now maybe I am wrong -- maybe your letter has nothing to do with my
accusations.  And if you were asked, I am pretty sure you would deny that
they did, because it has now apparently become Official Policy at LRC to
ignore me.  Little Lew-Lew has of course been doing it for some time, but
now that several of the LRC writers -- including Karen DeCoster, Jeff
Elkins and of course that celebrated Y2K Guru-Of-Gurus Gary North -- have
gone head-to-head with me and gotten their buttockals severely beaten, the
word seems to have filtered down that it is wisest to ignore me and hope
that I will just go away.

But whether I am right or wrong about your supporting Lew in this little
contretemps, the fact remains that you are the one person on LRC who most
ought to be supporting me -- and denouncing Little Lew-Lew.  The reason, as
a great many already know, is that you, like I, have felt the power of
Jewish censorship, for you lost your editorship at the National Review
because you dared to raise politically-incorrect questions about Things
Jewish.  In short, you above all others ought to know that the questions I
have been raising about 'the Jewish thing', to use Karen DeCoster's
forgettable phrase, are not merely legitimate, but vitally important.  So
why aren't you supporting me, Joe?  Why aren't you pressuring Little Lew-
Lew to treat the Jewish Question as it deserves to be treated?

Well actually I can think of several possible reasons.  He's your friend,
and besides, your page gets a lot of hits because of the drawing power of
his.  Or he might lose his advertising.  Or his readership.  Or offend Burt
Blumert.  Or get haunted by Murray's ghost.  Or stop getting all those
plugs in the Wall Street Journal.  But what do all these things boil down
to?  Partly status, but mostly money.  And hey, like any good libertarian,
I am definitely not against money.  But money isn't the only thing in this
world, Joe.  In fact, while libertarians are certainly in love with the
Almighty Dollar, there is something they usually place above it, namely,
freedom.  And that's why I am having trouble understanding you, Joe.  If
you love freedom, if you love America which has stood as a beacon for
freedom all over the world, and if you love the culture of America and the
West -- white Anglo-Saxon culture -- which is different from every other
culture because it has been responsible for creating and sustaining that
freedom for hundreds of years, then it seems to me that you ought to be
concerned about the fact that the great 'freedom site' that you write for
has a Great Black Hole & Blind Spot Inc when it comes to the freedom to
deal openly and honestly with the Jewish Question.  Or to put it in
religious terms that you might better understand, Do you really want to
sell your soul for thirty pieces of silver?

And let me hasten to add that we aren't just discussing some arcane
intellectual point, Joe.  The Jewish threat to our freedom is real.  There
are more than 8000 people in jail in Germany alone for questioning the
Orthodox Jewish Version of the Holocaust, and I'll give you one guess as to
who is responsible for passing and enforcing the relevant laws.  In fact,
you can't even defend yourself in court against such charges by proving the
truth of what you said -- unless, that is, you want to be charged with a
new offense -- because of the fact that truth is no defense.  (That's
right, Joe -- TRUTH IS NO DEFENSE!)  And all of the other countries of
Europe, as well as Canada and Australia, have similar laws -- if not
specifically forbidding discussion of the Holocaust, then more general
'anti-hate' laws that basically forbid saying anything politically
incorrect.  And of course such laws are on the agenda here -- the ADL
agenda, and the Wiesenthal Center agenda, and the agenda of many other
Jewish organizations -- with the push to create 'hate crimes', which are a
means of softening up the public to accept draconian restrictions on
speech.  All of which is to say that America is the last bastion of
freedom, and the people who have the wherewithal to do something to
preserve that freedom have a moral obligation to act, and act NOW.  Like
you, Joe.

Let me put things slightly differently with a quote from Winston Churchill.
While I can't say that I care too much for Winnie the Poobah -- he was,
after all, responsible for enormous abuses, from Gallipoli and failing to
stop WWII in 1940 to the breakup of the British empire and caving in to
Uncle Joe Stalin -- he did upon occasion have something truly important to
say, and here is an example:

If you will not fight for your rights when you can easily win without 
bloodshed -- if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not 
too costly -- then you may come to the moment when you will have to fight 
with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.  There 
may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of 
victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

As your favorite playwright and poet might say, Think on't, Joe.

 

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