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(part 1) Introduction and mainstream U.S. politics

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A sketch of American political extremism

(part 1) Introduction and mainstream U.S. politics

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Event	A sketch of American political extremism
Speaker	Hall, Gordon D.
Affiliation	Extremism
Date of event	1967
File number	ve005co
Collection	Voices of Extremism: Conflicting Ideologies in United States Politics in the Decades Following WWII
Copyright	Copyright 2013, Illinois State University. All rights reserved.

Event	(part 1) Introduction and mainstream U.S. politics
Background	Gordon Hall, a Bostonian and expert on extremist groups, spent his life studying, questioning, interviewing, exposing, lecturing and writing about extremist activity and philosophy in the United States. He was interested in left and right wing groups, groups spanning a wide political, social and religious spectrum active during the 1950s-1980s. Hall collected their literature, taped their speakers and traveled the country to lecture to civic, fraternal, university and political groups Hall begins his lecture with the basic philosophies of liberals and conservatives working within mainstream politics. Personally he adhered to a philosophy of mainstream politics, never stating is he prefers liberal or conservative ideals, where differences are debated and dealt with peacefully; even if it is a complex and messy system. He recognizes the proliferation of political parties, twenty-four at the time of his lecture. Part II Hall describes far left as outside the tradition of liberal reform, where disorderly and revolutionary change in the system is sought. He estimates there about 150 movements on the left with about one million members all with a Marxist leaning. He calls left extremists system haters and people lovers. Part III describes the far right as lovers of the american system as they see it, and haters of many people within it, specifically: Jews, Catholics, and non-whites. The over 1000 extremist groups, with 4-5,000,000 members on the right are usually single purpose movements, full of slogans and with little understanding of the broad issues. His favorite example of a right wing group is the John Birch Society. These groups use traditional symbolism (flag, constitution, religion, and family) to win members.
Speaker	Hall, Gordon D.
Affiliation	Extremism
Biography	Gordon D. Hall (1921-2001), a young veteran of the Pacific Theater during the Second World War, first encountered the printed propaganda issued by domestic hate-your-neighbor organizations/groups in the late 1940's. Based in Boston, he became a freelance investigator who spoke and presented his investigations and research of these organizations by giving public lectures about them. In the course of his lifetime, he collected massive amount of materials, e.g. newspapers, magazines, lectures, speeches, interviews, etc. which are now located in a handful of universities such as Brown, Brandeis and Illinois State University.
Location of event	Lake Forest University
Country	United States
Date of event	1967
Transcript	https://library.illinoisstate.edu/downloads/assets/digital-collections/voices-of-extremism/ve005a.pdf
Run time	0:22:21
Subject	Communism--United States Conservatism--United States Left-wing extremists Liberalism--United States--History--20th century John Birch Society Radicalism Right-wing extremists
Media type	MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3)
Original physical format	Reel-to-Reel Tapes
File number	ve005a
Repository	Illinois State University, Milner Library
Collection	Voices of Extremism: Conflicting Ideologies in United States Politics in the Decades Following WWII
Image permission	Courtesy of Richard D. Hall
Copyright	Copyright 2013, Illinois State University. All rights reserved.

A sketch of American political extremism

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A sketch of American political extremism

A sketch of American political extremism