美国极右组织约翰·伯奇协会的沉浮及其对美国外交的影响

约翰·伯奇协会(John Birch Society,以下简称协会)是战后美国出现的一个极右组织。麦卡锡主义遭谴责后冷战格局的进一步发展,美国国内社会问题的日益严重,《权利法案》提供的保护以及美国国内存在的区域纷争,为协会的建立和存续提供了条件。与麦卡锡主义一样,协会也主张“共产主义阴谋论”,但在表述方法和所包含的内容方面又较麦卡锡主义灵活而丰富。作为一个组织,协会实行严格的集权制管理,通过发行刊物和公报、建立委员会、寄发邮件和游行示威等方式宣传自己的主张。它的极右言行对战后美国保守主义运动产生了不容忽视的影响,但协会对“共产主义阴谋论”的泛化和它对美国政界人物的指责,使它逐步失去了保守主义运动主流派的支持,沦为边缘右派。     

Canadian Concerns of a Different Kind of Brexit: Britain’s First Application to the EEC and Canada’s Commonwealth Appeal

Recent debates on Brexit have made several attempts to connect the current situation with Britain’s first attempt to gain entry to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1961. In both 2016 and 1961, questions were raised about what role the Commonwealth would take and how the relationship with Britain would adapt to their then-entry and current exit of a union with Europe. This article seeks to examine how Canada reacted to Britain’s decision to enter the EEC and sheds light on the vociferous opposition it raised within the Commonwealth. Using both British and Canadian cabinet minutes and Commonwealth memoranda, the article follows the Canadian campaign against British entry to the EEC and its fervent defence of the Commonwealth as an economic-focused community. Ultimately, the Canadian-led protest against British entry into the EEC derived from a fear that Britain would drift from the Commonwealth towards Europe, leading to the complete dissolution of the economic bonds that tie the community together.     

Weak and Ineffective? Reassessing the Party Political Leadership of John Major

Interpretations on the party political leadership of John Major are dominated by perceptions of weakness and ineffectiveness. This article examines his party political leadership by considering the relationship between, first, his political ambitions, and, second, his style of political leadership. When evaluating the political ambitions of Major, the article will demonstrate that he was ideologically agnostic and a political pragmatist. When examining his party political leadership style, the article will demonstrate, via an examination of his management of the European policy divide and his Cabinet management, that he was politically indecisive and an avoider of political confrontation. The article concludes, however, that perceptions of his weakness and ineffectiveness should be contextualised due to the following two factors: first, the constraints of inheriting an ideologically divided parliamentary Conservative party; and, second, the contrasting circumstances that ensured that his predecessor and successor appeared strong and effective, which have magnified perceptions of his weakness and ineffectiveness.     

Effeminate Edmund Burke and the masculine voice of Mary Wollstonecraft

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the gendered and nationalist rhetorical strategies Mary Wollstonecraft used in her work The Vindication of the Rights of Man which was written as an open letter of response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France . While a number of scholars note Wollstonecraft’s adoption of a masculine voice in her systematic feminizing of Burke, this article also pays attention to the ways in which Wollstonecraft impugns Burke with the taints of being crypto-Catholic, Irish, and quasi-French. We notice how Wollstonecraft’s masculine voice is rational, combative, righteously passionate, middle-class, patriotically English and critically Protestant. We compare the fashioning of Wollstonecraft’s voice with contemporary political caricatures of John Bull and the cartoon depictions of Edmund Burke that appeared as Wollstonecraft was composing her VRM. Wollstonecraft’s VRM gained her considered attention and her critique of Burke’s character, (and what this article claims is her misreading of his aesthetic treatise), have been remarkably influential even to the present day. The characteristics of the distinct voice created in Wollstonecraft’s first Vindication are also evident in her second and more famous Vindication of the Rights of Woman. However, the rhetorical commitments entailed in Wollstonecraft’s public voice created challenges for her arguments in the second Vindication that demand careful attention.     

The Constitutional State in the Political Philosophy of Johannes Althusius

The central questions of this article are: a) Based on what arguments defended Johannes Althusius the distinction between the private and public life sphere? b) What kind of relationships exist between the state on the one hand, and private and other public associations on the other hand? c) Based on what arguments may the government restrict actions of citizens and private associations? Answering these questions leads to the conclusion that Althusius should be mentioned as one of the founding fathers of the liberal constitutional state.     

Nixon and the Jews

ABSTRACT

In public the 37th President of the United States did not express hostility or disparagement, or show any signs of religious prejudice towards Jews. But inside the White House, Richard M. Nixon's remarks were often scurrilous. His antisemitism was not casual; it was close to compulsive. And it could be coupled with other seething grievances, for example, towards liberals, radicals, the media, Blacks and Italian-Americans. Yet Nixon controlled his antisemitism. It had no adverse effect on Jewish life, either at home or abroad. The malice that he nurtured remained unmobilized. Apart from a few limited personnel instances (mostly but not completely ignored by Nixon's underlings), it is impossible to connect private resentment to public policy, probably because the barriers to the expression of antisemitism in the United States have been so high. The ugliness of his utterances in the Oval Office revealed his character, but did not extend outward to shape the processes of governance. A disconnect can therefore be discerned between what he felt and how he acted. Most American Jews voted for Nixon's Democratic opponents in 1968 and 1972. But even Jews who voted against him, even those who loathed him, have often acknowledged that Nixon's policies fortified the security of Israel; and he was proud of his support for the Jewish state during the Yom Kippur War. What betrayed Nixon, and what forced him to resign the presidency, was his decision to instal a secret taping system in the Oval Office. When the tapes were played in 1974, he showed himself to be conspiring to obstruct justice. In subsequent years, further exposure of the tapes revealed the extent and intensity of Nixon's antipathy to Jews. The expletives that had to be deleted did much to besmirch the dignity of the office. But such was the stigma the political culture attached to antisemitism that, had his bigotry become public before 1968, Nixon's career would have been over.     

Lost Imperium: the European Liberation Front (1949-54)

In 1947, just two years after the fall of Nazi Germany, an American expatriate living in Ireland named Francis Parker Yockey wrote Imperium, a massive tome that advanced a new strategy for post-war European fascism. Yockey insisted that fascists abandon their narrow nationalist viewpoint and, instead, fight for a new European-wide fascist empire, which he dubbed the 'Imperium'. In 1948 Yockey and his closest collaborators left Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and founded the European Liberation Front (ELF), a British-based groupuscule that lasted until 1954. Rejecting the possibility of building a mass fascist movement in post-war Europe, the ELF defined its primary task as ideological: namely, the advancement of the 'Imperium' idea inside the ranks of Europe's 'fascist elite'. The ELF soon ran into stiff opposition from Mosley over Yockey's controversial identification of the United States, and not the Soviet Union, as Europe's 'main enemy'. The ELF also met with fierce resistance from Hitler worshippers inside the British right like Arnold Leese, who rejected the ELF's emphasis on 'culture' over 'race'. Despite the ELF's relatively brief existence as a groupuscule, its introduction of a new kind of 'Eurofascist' thinking has recently led to its rediscovery by contemporary European New Rightists now searching for a new political strategy following both the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as the world's sole 'superpower'.     

What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too: Converging U.S. intellectual property exhaustion doctrines

With the increasing dispersion of intellectual property comes the intellectual property rights owner's continued desire to retain that part of the equation for which the bargain was struck. In terms of patents, the patentee strikes a deal to disclose the invention to the public in exchange for a monopoly over its use for a limited term. Copyright holders contribute their works to the intellectual pool receiving value by sale, lease or license. In 2012–13, the U.S. Supreme Court was tasked with delineating the realms of two intellectual property exhaustion doctrines and answering the question of where to draw the line with regard to an IP owner's ability to control the protected invention or work via patent or copyright, respectively. In one case, the Court permitted the intellectual property owner to restrict a subsequent purchaser's use of the product subject to protection, while in the other case the Court rejected the intellectual property owner's attempt to control the downstream use or resale of the product. This article discusses the relevant intellectual property exhaustion doctrines, analyzes and reconciles the Court's decisions in these cases, and provides guidance for navigating restrictions on use of U.S. protected products and works around the globe.     

Australia’s Army Nurse: Locating a Woman as the Heart of Sacrifice in the Hall of Memory

This article contests the misconception that the Hall of Memory of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, represents an irreligious space. While accommodating the expectations of a post-secular society, this belief fails to recognise the influence of Christianity upon the generation that experienced World War I and developed the memorial practices that arose in response to it. Veteran-artist M. Napier Waller embedded complex religious symbolism in the scheme of three windows he designed and executed for the hall. Drawing on his individual experience of battle, personal philosophy of art and the medieval customs of his forebears, Waller told the story of Australia’s experience of the war and aligned a nation’s sacrifice with that of Christ: His Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension are symbolised in the south, west and east windows, respectively. The inclusion of a nurse was central to Waller’s plans and required he manipulate the men creating the memorial to achieve his goal. In doing so, he neutralised the greatest threat to his vision: its founder, Charles Bean, and located a woman of many identities—a Martial Madonna—as the heart of national sacrifice in Australia’s premier war memorial.     

John Paul Jones: An Overlooked Autopsy Finding that May Explain His Terminal Illness

A finding in the autopsy of John Paul Jones, the American Revolutionary War naval hero, may explain his terminal illness. During his last 2 years, he had a persistent productive cough and dyspnea. Ten days before death, he developed rapidly progressive dependent edema and ascites. He died in France in 1792. His body, preserved in alcohol in a lead coffin, was, in 1905, removed to the United States. Glomerulonephritis was noted on an autopsy, performed in France, but there was no comment then or since about ventricular wall thickness being the same in both ventricles at 5–6 mm. Hypertrophy and dilatation with biventricular failure followed by tissue shrinkage during 113 years in alcohol could have resulted in these ventricular wall findings. Systemic hypertension and left ventricular failure are consistent with his respiratory symptoms complicated perhaps by pulmonary emboli, right ventricular failure with tricuspid regurgitation, peripheral congestion, and jaundice.