THE ONLY CRIME FOR WHICH HE CAN NOT BE FORGIVEN...:

An Interview With Roger Simon About His New Book, "Blacklisting Myself." (John Hawkins, 2/11/09, Right Wing News)

You used to be a creature of the left and although you're not really a hard core conservative, you're treated that way these days. So, you're someone who has seen both sides of things. What's the difference between the left and the right outside of their admittedly large policy differences?

Great question. I think it's almost worth a book in itself, but part of the answer is right in your phrase "you're treated that way these days." The left - possibly because of its predominant atheism or agnosticism - has become much more of a religion than the right and therefore is a much smaller tent in regards to ideas, much less accepting. On the right, someone like me (still an agnostic and a social liberal) can co-exist with, indeed be good friends with, someone like Hugh Hewitt, who is a devout Catholic. It's not by accident the subtitle of my book is "Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror," accent on the apostate. No one enjoys being one - or being treated as one.

Let me quote something you said that strikes me as true, "I agree that leftism began as a form of utopianism but I don't think it is utopian any more. Does anybody really believe in the old rhetoric? I don't think they do. I think it is all a charade nowadays." So, since that's the case, why are there not more people like you, Michael Medved, David Horowitz, etc., who've concluded liberalism doesn't work?

Another good question - one of the great mysteries. Suffice it to say that change is very difficult. You have to give up a lot - friends, job opportunities, your own self-image. It's hard to tell why some people overcome these things and others don't. Some people told me that I was courageous, but I don't feel that way. I was just myself. I couldn't be any other way. Furthermore, I'm a writer. If you don't write what you believe - let me promise you - it shows.

You were involved with the Black Panthers. Some people say they weren't so bad. Others, like David Horowitz, say they were absolute monsters. What do you think?

Horowitz is pretty much correct, ninety percent anyway. On the tiny plus side, they did run a children's breakfast program (with which I was involved) and a few other social services in South Central LA and Oakland. But in the end that was sort of like Hamas, running a few good programs to paper over their horrific agenda.

In the seventies and eighties, when you were a hard core leftist, you visited China, Cuba, and the USSR. Can you tell us a little about what stuck with you about those countries?

Well, there are several chapters in the book about this and I would refer readers to that because it's hard to sum up in a paragraph. Also, the national characters come into play, mixing with the hideous communist ideology some once thought idealistic and egalitarian. In one sense I think I was quite lucky to have had as much experience of communist countries as I did, because today I am not easily seduced by the nostalgia some are having for them. There were giant jails and I got to see them from the inside. The sections of Blacklisting Myself in which I describe my visits may be the most useful parts of the book in the long term and are among the chapters I am most proud of. In the case of Red China, I was among the first Westerners allowed in when nearly everyone was still wearing Mao suits. One thing is for sure: my work won't be confused with Lincoln Steffens or John Reed.

...is trying to make the private eye novel a vehicle for leftwing stonerism....

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 11, 2009 10:39 AM