Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo (born Dennis Raimondo [ [http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5226 Birthname mention] ] on November 18, 1951 [http://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/2787] ) is a paleoconservative/libertarian American author and the editorial director of the website Antiwar.com.

Background

During the 1960s, Raimondo took a brief interest in the philosophy of Ayn Rand before joining Young Americans for Freedom. In the 1970s, he became active in the Libertarian Party. With Eric Garris, he organized a "Radical Caucus", which brought Raimondo and Garris to the attention of the libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard. In 1982, Raimondo ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives as a Libertarian, against Democratic incumbent Phillip Burton and Republican challenger Milton Marks. He received 14% of the vote. In 1983, after a schism in the party, Raimondo left the Libertarian Party and attempted to organize a libertarian faction in the Republican Party known as the Libertarian Republican Organizing Committee. After 1989, Raimondo again began working with Rothbard in the anti-war John Randolph Club.

Raised a Roman Catholic, Raimondo is "not a believer." [ [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j122903.html Mention as to beliefs] ]

Raimondo's politics

In the 1996 U.S. congressional elections, Raimondo ran as a Republican candidate in California's 8th district against Nancy Pelosi. While he championed conservative and libertarian causes in general, the main emphasis of his campaign was his opposition to the deployment of U.S. troops in the Balkans and, in particular, Pelosi's vote to that effect. [ [http://www.antiwar.com/raimondo/news1.html Raimondo for Congress: Campaign News and Statements] ] Raimondo received 13% of the vote while Pelosi got 85%. [ [http://cgi.cnn.com/ELECTION/CA08house.html 1996 U.S. congressional election information] ]

During the 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections, Raimondo supported the campaigns of Pat Buchanan, both as a Republican and in the Reform Party. As he is openly gay,citation |title=Intrepid Antiwarriors of the Libertarian Right Stake Their Rightful Claim to Power |first=Lessley |last=Anderson |date=2003-12-10 |accessdate=2007-10-16 |url=http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-12-10/news/intrepid-antiwarriors-of-the-libertarian-right-stake-their-rightful-claim-to-power/full |periodical=SF Weekly] his support of the social conservative Buchanan attracted considerable attention. [ [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.29.96/public-eyem-9609.html Pat Buchanan] ]

In 1995, during the Clinton administration's military interventions into the Bosnian war, Raimondo and Garris launched Antiwar.com to provide a platform for their opposition. The site has continued to publish on a daily basis. Raimondo has been a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq and the ongoing occupation.

In 2004, he supported Ralph Nader for President, and explained his reason for this in an article published in "The American Conservative". [ [http://www.amconmag.com/2004/2004_11_08/cover2.html Justin Raimondo: Old Right Nader] ]

In 2008, he has frequently written admiringly of Ron Paul's Presidential campaign, and has also expressed support for Dennis Kucinich—while being somewhat critical of both.

Major ideas and recurring themes

Several themes recur regularly in Raimondo's writing, mostly derived from his libertarian ideological roots. He strongly opposes the Israeli occupation. He believes that initiatory war is wrong, immoral, and counterproductive, that a small group of neoconservatives in both major American political parties have been responsible for "lying us into war" repeatedly, and that the ideals of the Old Right conservative movement have been consistently sold out since around the time of the Vietnam War, when neoconservatives united with religious conservatives to pursue an expansive foreign policy, often in support of the country of Israel.

Long before John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argued that Israel exerts a dominant force in the formulation of American foreign policy (see "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"), Raimondo was essentially saying the same thing. [ [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100603.html Israel Is the Problem, by Justin Raimondo ] ] Raimondo also believes the United States was led into World War II through lies by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and that the US provoked a war with Japan deliberately through economic sanctions. [ [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3076 YASUKUNI BROUHAHA- by Justin Raimondo ] ] Raimondo's views have been compared by Christopher Hitchens to those of Charles Lindbergh, whom Raimondo describes as an "American hero sprung from the heartland." [ [http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7908 Smearing Fitzgerald- by Justin Raimondo ] ] However, it seems clear that Raimondo does not endorse Lindbergh's Des Moines speech in which the famous aviator decried Jewish influence on the media (see Raimondo's book, "Reclaiming the American Right", pages 106, 137, 227). Raimondo has also written repeatedly about the Israeli Art Student conspiracy and he has written that elements of Israeli intelligence operating in the U.S. had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks. [ [http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j032202.html The Truth, At Last] ]

He is openly gay, but as a libertarian, he believes the government should refrain from adopting laws that would prohibit discrimination against gays [http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-12-10/news/intrepid-antiwarriors-of-the-libertarian-right-stake-their-rightful-claim-to-power/2] . He is also against gay marriages [Justin Raimondo: [http://www.takimag.com/site/article/gay_marriage_sucks/ Gay Marriage Sucks!] ] and other demands of gay agenda. [Justin Raimondo: [http://www.anti-state.com/raimondo/raimondo1.html Gay Victimology and the Liberal Kulturkampf] ]

Bibliography

In addition to his thrice-weekly column for antiwar.com, he is a regular contributor to "The American Conservative" and "Chronicles magazine". Raimondo also writes two columns a month for Taki's Top Drawer.

He is the author of several books:

*"Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement" (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), reissued in 2008 with new introduction by George W. Carey, by Intercollegiate Studies Institute ISBN-13: 978-1933859606.

*"Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans" (AFPAC, 1996).

*"An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard", Prometheus Books, July 2000, ISBN 1-57392-809-7.

*"The Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection", iUniverse, November 2003, ISBN 0-595-29682-3.

References

External links

* [http://antiwar.com/justin/ Raimondo's Online Work at AntiWar.com]
* [http://www.takimag.com/site/archive/Raimondo Raimondo's Online Work at TakiMag.com]