the senator had never been involved withrnthe CCC at all, merely succeeded inrnmaking a fool of himself when the Postrnpublished a picture of him speaking imderrnthe Council’s banner at a 1992 nationalrnconvention. Had both men simplyrnsaid, yes, they had spoken to therngroup; no, they did not necessarily agreernwith everything it stood for; but they sawrnnothing wrong with belonging to it orrnspeaking to it, the controversy wouldrnhave died quickly. That is exactly whatrnMississippi Governor Kirk Fordiee saidrnwhen asked why he had spoken to thernCouncil last fall. His response, bothrncourageous and honest, effectively killedrnthe stor)’, and no more was heard aboutrnit. Bill Clinton is not the only politicianrnwho has recendy discovered what a tangledrnweb we weave when first we practicernto deceive.rnThe smears directed at the CCCrnwere, of course, really directed at SenatorrnLott and Representative Barr for their involvementrnwith the Clinton impeachment,rnbut the story soon acquired a lifernof its own. By the middle of January, thernWashington Post had nm no fewer thanrnfive news articles, three opinion pieces,rnhvo letters (including one from Abe Foxmanrnof the Anti-Defamation League ofrnB’nai B’rith), and a major article in thernStyle section on the CCC and its “racist”rnbackground, leaders, and positions. Anrnestimated 74 other newspapers carriedrnsimilar stories. The New Republicrnchimed in with an article that mainly regurgitatedrnwhat the Post had published;rnarious hacks with one or another leftishrnnewspaper coughed up much the samernserving; and left-wing witch hunter MorrisrnDees and his Southern Povert)’ LawrnCenter released a not-particularly accuratern”report” on the Council that severalrnnewspapers swallowed whole. Clearly,rnthe regime had discovered a new demonrnto exorcise.rnIt is not my purpose here to defend thernCCC against the false charges, mistakes,rndistortions, misrepresentations, omissions,rnand slanted reporting that the Postrnand most other papers and magazinesrnwriting about the group published andrnperpetuated. It is entirely true that thernCCC —as its chief executive officer,rnGordon Baum of St. Louis, wrote in arnletter to the Posf—”speaks out for whiternEuropean Americans, their civilization,rnfaith and form of government, but we dornnot advocate or support the oppression orrnexploitation of other races or ethnicrngroups.” Indeed, the Council does notrntake many official positions of any kind.rnIts main attraction is that the CCC hasrnreal members and real local chapters,rnwhich engage in grassroots activism on arnvariety of issues, and it attracts workingandrnmiddle-class people with strongrnroots in local communities rather thanrnthe perennial misfits, oddballs, and overeducatedrnand under-employed eggheadsrnwho seem to populate other organizationsrnof the American right. Preciselyrnbecause the CCC is a real grassrootsrngroup with real members, some of themrnsometimes say and do things that thernWashington Post doesn’t approve of.rnThat is simply the price of having a grassrootsrngroup.rnThe onslaught against the CCC wasrnby no means the first occasion in whichrnan organization on the hard right hasrnbeen systematically demonized by thernregime’s thought police, and the attackrnon it was not inherently different fromrnwhat the same thugs have tried to do tornPat Buchanan and several other menrnand groups of the right that refused tornbend the knee to the idols of the NewrnOrder. Nor does the significance of thernattack lie in the obvious hypocrisy andrndishonesty of those who launched it.rnThe Post’s St}’le section piece—a profilernof Mr. Baum —snickered over its subject’srnworking-class origins (“a former autornworker, a small-time lawyer churningrnout worker’s eomp cases”) and neighborhoodrn(“a working-class suburb of the fadedrnMidwestern city of St. Louis”): sornmuch for putting equality “front andrncenter” in the New Order. On the samernday that the Stv’le section was sneering atrnthe Council’s posifions and social status,rnthe same newspaper’s Outlook sectionrnsported a front-page article by a blackrnwriter concerned that Washington’s newrnmayor, Anthony Williams, is not “blackrnenough.” As the arfiele explained,rnBlackness, like any other characteristicrnthat defines an oppressedrngroup, is a state of spiritual idealismrnthat serves to unite the grouprnfor the purpose of survival. . . .rn[Tjhere is not one person of colorrnwho can separate himself or herselfrnfrom the rest of the people of color.rnRacial consciousness and solidarity arernapparently OK with the Posf if they concernrnthe right race.rnWhile exposing the hypocrisy and dishonest)’rnof the Post and similar organs ofrnthe New Order is not my point, it doesrnbring me to it. The significance of thernhypocrisy and dishonesty is not so muchrntheir moral meaning but that they directrnour attention to the political utility ofrnsuch concepts as “equality” and “antiracism.”rnEquality is indeed at the “frontrnand center” of the regime; it’s just thatrn”equality” doesn’t really mean what yournthink it means, nor does “anti-racism,”rnnor most of the other smooth little wordsrnthat go with it, like “toleration,” “harmony,”rnand “diversity.” These are codewords,rnpolitical formulas, the meaning ofrnwhich cannot be grasped through merelyrnformal or abstract analysis but onlyrnthrough a concrete analysis that placesrnthem in their political and social context.rnFor those who use the codewords, it isrnnot a contradiction to idolize “equality”rnat the same time that they sneer at thernworking-class background of their adversaries,rnnor to denounce the “racism” ofrnone group while promoting the “racism”rnof a different group. These may be contradictionsrnin formal logic, but the realrncontext of these words reveals an underlyingrnconsistency in their usage. Theyrnare simply terms by which the power ofrnone people and its cultural and politicalrninstitutions are “deconstructed” and delegitimizedrnand the power of a rival peoplernand its embr^’onic institutions are legitimated.rnWhat imparts consistency torntheir apparentiy contradictory and hypocriticalrnusage is the unit)’ of political purpose.rnThe point is to be master—that’srnall.rnThe attack on the CCC was thus onernmore installment in the managed displacementrnof the old civilization and itsrninstitutions by an emergent one, and—asrnin most such displacements—the attackrnis led by a vanguard drawn from thernwreckage of the old order. Yet it’s importantrnto note that the demonization of thernCouncil of Conservative Citizens didrnnot quite work. The attacks gave thernCCC more publicity than it had ever enjoyedrnbefore, attracted new members tornit, and gained for its website some 10,000rnvisits more per month than it usually receives.rnThat may indicate that the birthrnof the New Order and the destruction ofrnthe old may not be quite as easy andrnpainless as the thought police of the formerrnwant to believe. The more they attack,rnthe more clearly the lines of battlernare drawn in the cultural and politicalrnsands, and the sooner the battle is joined,rnthe sooner we will know whose gods willrnbe master.rnAPRIL 1999/33rnrnrn