PAINE, THE NEOCON

This PADL[1] essay examines the review by conservative historian, Arthur Herman[2] appearing in the September 22, 2006 Wall Street Journal, page W4. It's title is, incredibly, The First Neoconservative. It is the purported review of Craig Nelson's, Thomas Paine and Harvey J. Kaye's, Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.[3] Mr. Herman has more important "neocon"[4] fish to fry, so he makes short shrift of these two Paine books with the following:

      Unfortunately, two new biographies of Paine devote scant time to his writings. Craig Nelson offers a
      "life and times"-style biographical narrative. Harvey Kaye gives us a rambling essay whose title,
      although referring to "the promise of

America

," should be "Changing Views of Tom Paine in
    American History." Neither book digs very deep or offers much more than historical filler. Yet both of
      these biographies have value, forcing us to confront Paine's place in the American intellectual
      tradition.

Despite Arthur Herman's disregard for what Paine actually wrote and his desire to fit Paine's views with his own extreme right-wing agenda, he has fashioned two pithy statements about Paine's legacy which are well worth quoting:

      He [Paine] was, after all, the author of a single great idea: that ordinary people know how to shape the
      future of society better than their social and intellectual superiors. Of all the Founding Fathers, Tom
      Paine was the most consistent populist; he believed in progress. To Paine, the supreme benchmark of
      human progress was the growth of equal rights for individuals.

      Like Common Sense, the pamphlets [The American Crisis] taught Americans that they were fighting for
      something more than the traditional rights of "freeborn Englishmen." The goal was to sweep away the
      whole rotten facade of hereditary kings and aristocrats, a corrupt state church that taxed believers and
      unbelievers alike, and a social system built on privilege and oppression. In its place Americans would
      build a better society, one based on the universal rights of man, which offered every person a chance to
      lead a productive, happy and decent life.

Let's explore the upside-down world of Arthur Herman, as he rides roughshod over the facts in order to satisfy his ideological bent. He writes:

Progressive radicals--including Mr. Kaye--embrace him as kindred spirit, but only by ignoring Paine's
view on the right to property, which he saw as crucial to a free society.

But the right to property is a basic tenet of the Human Rights agenda, enthusiastically supported by liberals and conservatives and even progressive radicals. Mr. Herman has it all wrong and it gets worse as he continues:

Paine's populism rested on a keen belief in the creative power of capitalism and the universal appeal of
what we call the American Dream. You could call him,

America

's founding neoconservative.

As we know, Paine went well beyond Adam Smith's capitalism and gave us an early version of the "welfare state," a democratic society, based on adherence to full human rights for all its members. Mr. Herman is wrong again in dubbing Paine a "neocon" for two cogent reasons. The first is that the advocacy of the right to property and strong faith in capitalism are not the hallmarks of Neoconservatism.[5] It is the aggressive, militaristic foreign policy, which is the neocons' sine qua non!

The second is that Paine was a ferocious opponent of imperialism and aggressive wars and an advocate of an organization of nations to prevent war and severely reduce armaments (Rights of Man, Maritime Compact, among many). Paine would obviously be a leader in the struggle to defeat the "neocons" and their policies. Much more of Mr. Herman's dark and deadly fantasy world is revealed in his final paragraph:

...it is more than possible that Paine would have supported our current war in

Iraq

. Paine
understood that preserving liberty sometimes means enduring the cost of war.

To the contrary, Mr. Herman! Paine would be in the thick of the anti-Iraq war effort. He would see that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was about seizing control of the lion's share of Iraqi oil profits for American oil giants, like ExxonMobil, done under the guise of spreading democracy and neo-liberal, corporate-dominated free markets throughout the Middle East. And how does the

Iraq

war preserve our liberty?

Paine the free thinker would instantly have seen in the Iranian mullahs the kind of narrow-minded
clerical tyranny that has to be destroyed if humanity is going to move forward.[6]

Finally, in brief, what are the intellectual forces in motion today which truly reflect Paine's values on international affairs? The list begins with the anti-corporate crusade of Ralph Nader; Noam Chomsky's revisionist history of post world-war II events, showing the

so often deterring democracy; John Perkin's revelations concerning World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans to the Third World in his Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2006, New York: Plume/Penguin); and Chalmers Johnson's books, as well as his recent article, Republic or Empire, in Harper's Magazine, January 2007.

The central fact of our times is that transnational corporations and the wealthiest investors, not nation-states or their citizens, are the true global powers. They have replaced the monarchies and aristocracies of the ancien regime that Paine fought so valiantly. Any alternative American foreign policy must begin with the truth that irresponsible corporate power must be challenged and brought under democratic control and the rule of universal human rights.

1 PADL stands for the Paine Anti-Defamation League. It seeks to expose and correct defaming and demeaning comments against Paine by those who should know better and to applaud instances in which Paine is given his due. Timothy Nelms, TPF Board member, brought the Arthur Herman review

The 13th annual Thomas Paine Day observance in Amherst will be held on Saturday, January 27, 2007, from 2 to 5 pm in the large meeting room of Jones Library at 43 Amity Street. As in past years, our format may be any or all of the following: readings, presentation of a paper, discussion, music, videos, refreshments, with, of course, a birthday cake. A Paine exhibit accompanies the commemoration. Free and open to all. The Amherst TPF group gratefully acknowledges our public library's comfortable, generous, free facilities.

For information, contact Irwin or Martha Spiegelman / spiegelman22@yahoo.com / 413-253-7934

James Tepfer and Maurice Bisheff will host a gathering of friends on Friday, January 26, for readings and conversation "on the meaning and contributions of Paine to a Republic of Conscience."

There will be a Thomas Paine Day dinner at a restaurant on January 29. Host Jack Makens thinks more people will attend than did last year, as he has been out regularly at his local Farmers Market with a Paine information table and he finds much interest. The dinner location has not been set yet.

Please contact Jack Makens at b4ethics@yahoo.com or at 479-444-8149 (call only up to 9 pm please)

The Morgantown Thomas Paine Society will meet to celebrate Paine's birth date, with a pot luck dinner on January 29, 2007. This will be our fifth year. We expect our four local TPF members as well as another 10 or more others who enjoy Paine and the camaraderie. The dinner will be at the Nelms' home at 221Poplar Drive in Morgantown WV. All are welcome and are asked to bring some Paine quotation, story, poem, or comment to share. Despite the possible interruption, we'll still invite the "royalist," who, several years ago, started a debate on whether King George's rule would have been better than the fight for independence ......he's a contrarian who helps us think.....

The Thomas Paine Society of Pasadena will hold "A Grande "Birthnight Ball" at the Historic Castle Green, 99 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, Saturday, January 27, commencing at 6 pm with diverse festivities. It is a fundraiser, with admission charge.

At the Farmers Market General Casimir Pulaski Day
in Fayetteville Arkansas, in Northampton MA.

campaign for Arkansas. and picture. (Photo from
(Photo from Jack Makens) TPF member, John Skibiski)

Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of                      But it is necessary to the happiness of man
being deceived, all that is necessary or proper                         that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity
to be known. The creation is the Bible of the deist.                   does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving;
He there reads, in the hand-writing of the Creator                   it consists in professing to believe what he does

himself, the certainty of his existence, and the believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral

immutability of his power; and all other Bibles mischief, if I may so express it, that mental

[James Tepfer's paper, with a companion paper by Maurice Bisheff, will be in the next number of the Bulletin.]