http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com Liberal Fascism en-us © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved webmaster@nationalreview.com (NRO Webmaster) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:20:15 -0500 Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:20:15 -0500 NRO RSS Generator v1.0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 5 http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/nro_rsslogo.jpg http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com 144 80 National Review Online webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDJkYzFhOTQ0OGZjZTI3MDMzYzc2YTU5NDQ4NzkzYzI= Well, it was a nice run. But I think it’s time to turn out the lights on the Liberal Fascism blog. Alas, turning out the lights on liberal fascism might take a bit longer.<br />    As only the most loyal readers may have noticed, I haven’t been updating the blog much this summer. I fell out of the habit while I was on the NR Cruise and never got back into it. One reason for that might be that if you wanted to read about the themes of my book, all you had to do was open a newspaper. <br />    Let’s see. Off the top of my head, in the first six months of Obama’s presidency we’ve seen <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWVmYjQ5MDFhZDQxNjU5ZTJjYjliMGE0MGQ1YzkxNjY=">corporatism </a> and “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082102313.html">state capitalism</a>”   run amok, in the government takeover of two car companies and numerous banks. Labor unions have become increasingly indistinguishable from the government and the party that controls it. <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjI1YTM3YTRlYzA5Yzc1ZTg3ZDViMzUzNjVhNjQzODI=">Herbert Croly</a>  and the Progressives have once again been rehabilitated as founding fathers of the New Age. The entire liberal intellectual class is convinced that this the time for a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=%22new+new+deal%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8">new New Deal. </a>Critics of statism are vilified by liberal elites as <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135402.html ">racists and fascists</a>. (And those who refuse to get with the Gorian program are guilty of "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">treason against the planet</a>"). When out of power, liberals lionized free speech and celebrated dissent as the highest form of patriotism. Now, they label dissent<a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/unamerican-attacks-cant-derail-health-care-debate-.html "> “un-American”</a> and the president insists he <a href="http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dont-want-the-folks-who-created-the-mess-to-do-a-lot-of-talking/ ">doesn’t want to hear a lot of talking</a> from anyone who disagrees with him. While the stench of eugenics and euthanasia do not quite sting the nostrils yet, the <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/08/24/4641/">odor</a> <a href="http://zombietime.com/john_holdren_and_harrison_brown/">is</a> <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Science-czar_s-support-for-eugenics-should-raise-eyebrows-7971354-50765207.html">detectable</a> <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmFlNjVkNjdlZjk1MmFlZmZkZDQyNDY0YTBlY2FjNGQ= ">and</a> <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk4MjUzZTZiY2JmMjQ4OTMwOTVkOTBlZDdkMWY1NjY=">the</a>  liberal impulse for controlling the lives of others has been re-exposed. <br /><br />    Indeed, our own messianic president, who insists that we can create a <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/122866.html">Kingdom of Heaven on Earth</a>, also apparently believes that “we are God's partners in matters of life and death” and that religious organizations that are true to their calling should rally behind a united front to expand the scope and role of government.  When the head of state says such things, it is hard not to be reminded of the Progressive concept of the God State, a major theme of Liberal Fascism. The “State is the actually existing,  realized moral life . . . The divine idea as it exists on earth,” Hegel declared in The Philosophy of History. The State, according to Hegel, was the “march of God on earth.” The progressives agreed.  Richard Ely, the founding father of progressive economics, proclaimed “God works through the State in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution.”<br /><br />    It’s revealing, to me at least, that I wrote the book with Hillary Clinton as the stand-in for the fascistic ideas lurking inside contemporary liberalism. Here’s how I put it in the new afterword for the paperback edition:</p> <blockquote> <p><br /><br />….And then something funny happened. A self-proclaimed “transformative”  leader formed a self-declared “movement,” powered in large measure by a sense of historical destiny (“This is the moment!”),  yearning for national restoration (“We will make this nation great!”),  demanding national unity at all costs, and glorifying itself for its own youthful energy. At times his most conspicuous followers were blindly devoted to a cult of personality with deeply racial undertones and often explicit appeals to messianic fervor. This new leader of men—who earned his credibility from his work as a street organizer  and disciple of Saul Alinsky—vowed to restore the promise of American life in a vast new collaborative effort between business,  government, churches, and labor. His platform included mandatory youth service, a new civilian security force, and spreading the wealth around.<br /><br />In short, Hillary Clinton, the indicted co-conspirator of this book’s original subtitle (“The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”), was defeated by Barack Obama precisely because he was better able than any of his opponents to personify many of the themes discussed in this book.</p> </blockquote> <p>Needless to say, I could go on. And I will, mostly over at the Corner. I haven’t given up my argument. I just don’t think the argument is best served by this stand-alone blog, particularly since NR has techno-changes coming down the pike. The blog will continue to exist in the archives and if you bookmark it now, you can revisit it and poke around as much and for as long as you like. <br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Summing Up</strong></span><br /><br />    The book’s success in every respect was more than I could have hoped. Long time followers of this project will recall that the book was attacked years before it even came out. The dismaying thing is that most of the attacks on the book from the left weren’t all that much more impressive or substantial even after the attackers had the opportunity to read it (many of whom did not avail themselves of that opportunity). In case you missed it in the print edition of National Review, I did write a<a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=NTI2YjhkNDg0ZWNjMWIyMjAxNTQ2NGI5ZTM4ZTc5OGQ="> brief response to</a> some of the critics who did read the book. It will be familiar to many who’ve seen me talk about the book or who paid close attention to this blog. Regardless, I’ve pulled it from behind the firewall for those interested. <br /><br />    Also, in the current issue of NR I have a short item on the recent spate of “Obama as Hitler” epithets being thrown around by a few people on the Right (and a lot of idiot Larouchies). A link is unavailable but here’s the relevant passage:</p> <blockquote> <p><br /><br />The simple truth is that I do not think it is in the cards for America to go down a Nazi path. I never said otherwise in Liberal Fascism, either….<br /><br />….Indeed, while I don't think it is remotely right or fair to call Obama<br />Enhanced Coverage Linking Obama a crypto-Nazi (if by that you mean to say he's a would-be Hitler), the real problem with all of this loose Nazi talk is that it slanders the American people. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen may have overstated his case in Hitler's Willing Executioners, but he was certainly right that the German people were Hitler's willing enablers. The overwhelming majority of the American people -- in their history, culture, bones, hearts, souls, DNA, and carbon molecules -- are not like that. That goes for American liberals and leftists too. The extent and depth of liberalism's obtuseness on the subject of fascism (and much else) stews my bowels, but American liberals are still Americans, and Americans will not goose-step behind a Hitler, period.</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>As I make clear in Liberal Fascism, the obvious and pressing threat is not from a Hitlerite-Orwellian dictatorship but from a Huxleyan namby-pamby mommy state. That sort of system could seduce Americans into becoming chestless subjects of the State in exchange for bottomless self-gratification and liberation from the necessity of adult decision-making. Yes, there's a danger that such a society could then be susceptible to some darker vision that lionizes the lost manhood of a half-forgotten past. But, by that point, this would be America in name only, if even that ("U.N. District 12" has a nice ring to it).</p> </blockquote> <p>    I should note that I am not quite agreeing with David Frum's recent broadside against conservatives who find relevance in fascism and Nazism.  David <a href="http://www.newmajority.com/can-we-get-a-grip">writes</a> "can we get a grip here" and I certainly agree that if people think Obama will become a Hitler, or even a Mussolini, they need to do some more thinking. But I think this bit from David is a sort of sleight-of-hand I've encountered many times before. He writes:</p> <blockquote> <p><br />Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader.  </p> </blockquote> <p>That's all true, but misses an important point. What the fascists were or are primarily <em>known for </em>is not necessarily dispositive to the question of what they actually <em>were</em>. Speaking for myself, the relevance of the generous social welfare programs and anti-smoking programs is to point out that the Nazis weren't exactly what we've been told they were. Sure, they were violent and hysterically devoted to an authoritarian leader, but they were also more than that and their popularity with the German people cannot be easily chalked up to those features either.</p> <p>The Nazis did not rise to power on the promise of bringing war and violence. They just didn't. They rose to power by promising national restoration, peace, pride, dignity, unity and generous social welfare programs among other things including, of course, scapegoating Jews. People forget how Hitler successfully fashioned himself a champion of peace for quite a while. Limbaugh's counter-attack on liberals, specifically Pelosi, is exactly that, a counter-attack. He was saying that if liberals are going to call conservatives Nazis for opposing nationalized healthcare maybe they should at least account for the fact that Nazis agreed with <em>them</em> on the issue, not conservatives. If liberals want to have a fight over who is closer to fascism, I see no reason why conservatives should cower from that argument, particularly since the facts are on our side. But I reject entirely the idea that liberals today are literally Nazi-like, particularly if we are going to define Nazism by what "they were known for." Liberals don't want to invade Poland or round up Jews. As I've said many times, one naive hope I had for my book was that it would remove the word "fascist" from popular discourse, not expand its franchise. Alas, on that score the book is a complete failure.</p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The Scoreboard</strong></span><br />    But by other measures, it's done far better than I hoped. When the book came out, its critics assured the faithful that it didn’t matter, wasn’t important and would be an embarrassment. That is still the party line for many, but the party line is increasingly disconnected from reality. The book has been translated into numerous languages, the latest being Romanian. Reviews keep coming out on <a href="http://rossputin.com/blog/index.php/book-review-liberal-fascism-by-jonah-goldberg">blogs </a> and in scholarly journals. <em>The Independent Review</em>’s  critique was only recently put online [<a href="http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_13_03_7_horwitz.pdf">PDF </a>] and I’m told that the journal <em>Interpretation</em> has a review in the latest issue. I’ve spoken to college and graduate seminars and the book or chapters from it have been included on numerous syllabi. I’m still receiving invitations to speak at college campuses about the book. <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmY3YjlhYzMwMmQzYWM1YTUwODAyNWI1MWVmNmZkMmQ=">Predictions </a> that it wouldn’t sell as well major liberal books have proven <a href="http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGQwMmFjYzdjM2RjM2Y0ZWM3Y2ZjNzFhNjc4ZTZjNzk=">unfounded</a>. In both the US and UK it went into numerous printings. Aside from reaching #1 on the NYT and Amazon bestseller lists and being named the #1 history book by Amazon readers for 2008, it has sold (according to Bookscan) more than 135,000 copies in hardcover and, so far, over 35,000 in paperback. The paperback continues to sell at a rate of over 1,000 per week two months after its release.  (FWIW,  bookscan allegedly only captures about 70% of sales). It’s no Tom Clancy novel, but as far as intellectual histories go, that ain’t too shabby. I don’t know if it’s <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjI0N2E5ZjM0MGU0ZWVkZTdmYTBjNDQ4YTM4YTgzODA= ">one of the most important books of the last quarter century</a>,  but I am confident it will have a lasting impact and my thesis will gain respect, even if I don’t always get credit.<br /><br />    My thanks to everyone at NR, Random House and most of all to my editor Adam Bellow for their support and help. <br /><br />    But, lastly, let me say how grateful I am to all of you who’ve supported the book, touted the book, used it in book clubs and sent it to relatives. Your encouragement has meant more than I can convey. Please keep sending me tidbits, insights and links to stories of the day that relate to <em>Liberal Fascism</em> (and if you have a time machine, please go back and send me some of that stuff when I was still working on the book!). Thanks so much for defending me and LF in the comments sections at blogs and elsewhere. Such efforts are not only appreciated but vital for the book’s long term success. <br /><br />    Oh, wait, sorry. If you made it this far I should let you know that I’m going to be starting an email newsletter in the Fall, at the Suits’ insistence. Expect book updates and arguments to appear there from time to time.  Be on the lookout for announcements in September.  <br /><br />    So that’s it. Thanks so much for everything and look for me in the Corner where the conversation will continue, amidst all the other conversations.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDJkYzFhOTQ0OGZjZTI3MDMzYzc2YTU5NDQ4NzkzYzI= Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:54:13 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk4MjUzZTZiY2JmMjQ4OTMwOTVkOTBlZDdkMWY1NjY= From the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-health25-2009jun25,0,1978875.story">LA Times:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Reporting from Washington — President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.<br /><br />In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."<br /><br />He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."</p> </blockquote> <p>There's an interesting contradiction here. According to the pro-choice perspective, it's outrageous for the state to interfere in a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy. But it's pragmatic and reasonable for the state to consider terminating a person, if some money can be saved.</p> <p>This logic is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life">nothing new.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODk4MjUzZTZiY2JmMjQ4OTMwOTVkOTBlZDdkMWY1NjY= Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:02:24 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzM4ZDFhMmM3YTZkN2M3MTY3ZmM4YjZmYzRiOTgxZDA= The editorial blog of the Baltimore Sun is accusing me of violating Godwin's law, and some of the commenters are <a href="http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/2009/06/post_18.html">rushing to my defense. </a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzM4ZDFhMmM3YTZkN2M3MTY3ZmM4YjZmYzRiOTgxZDA= Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:17:12 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGJhZjM4NjQ3NzBhMmU4YTY0Y2E5MDk5MDRlMWI2Yzk= From an <a href="http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/toolbar.html?4t=extlink&4u=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdwMh1mQauGfZNQNSvKI1xmLtscwD98VBT5O0">AP story</a> on the kerfuffle over Neo-Nazis signing up for the adopt-a-highway program:</p> <blockquote> <p>Representatives of the National Socialist movement in Missouri did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the legislation Sunday. But a statement on the movement's Web site calls the renaming "a lame attempt to insult National Socialist pro-environment/green policies."</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGJhZjM4NjQ3NzBhMmU4YTY0Y2E5MDk5MDRlMWI2Yzk= Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:35:56 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGNiZTA3NDlhYTM4NmY2M2I1NTg0OGNhZGMzYTc4MDc= Over at the <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1115">Armed & Dangerous Blog.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGNiZTA3NDlhYTM4NmY2M2I1NTg0OGNhZGMzYTc4MDc= Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:55:40 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWI3ZjQ3N2E2NDRlY2I2MDRhMjU3NjM0NjMzMDI3YTU= The Chapter Two <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/06/liberal-fascism-chapter-two.html">Quiz</a> is now up.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWI3ZjQ3N2E2NDRlY2I2MDRhMjU3NjM0NjMzMDI3YTU= Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:15:09 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGUwMGQ5YTAyYWRkMGJlNjE3MGI2OGFiM2NjZGYwMmM= From a reader in response to my magazine piece from the last issue:</p> <blockquote> <p>Hi Jonah<br /> <br />Just got around to reading your article on Liberal Fascism and it’s critics.  I read Tomasky’s review too and noted some of the same things, especially his religious claim that liberalism has something deep within it (a respect for individual liberty) that keeps it from EVER endorsing fascism.  That was one of the most hilarious claims ever printed and the most indefensible.<br /> <br />But it was on the subject of leftist historiography that I had a question.  You describe it as “team” based, but I would argue that it is more about ideology than you think.  However, it is about which ideology has power.  Read Foucalt, Derrida, Lacan, even Said- all center history around the question of who has power and what ideology they get to push.  So you are right when you say that it is about allegiances and coalitions, but using the term “team” is misleading, because Leftists intellectuals are pretty honest in their understanding of power as the driving force, and their willingness to team up with whoever they need to in order to consolidate and maintain power.  It is why they can team up with Islamofascists in Canada and sue Steyn.  It’s why they team up with all kinds of seedy fascists or tacitly support fascists- all the while calling us fascists. The team mentality is simply the surface.  The real issue is maintaining power for the team.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGUwMGQ5YTAyYWRkMGJlNjE3MGI2OGFiM2NjZGYwMmM= Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:48:20 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTcxMWNjODlkYjA3ZDM3OTU4MjJhZWY1NzBiZTM3MmM= <a href=" http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/06/liberal-fascism-chapter-1.html.">Over at the Voxiversity.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTcxMWNjODlkYjA3ZDM3OTU4MjJhZWY1NzBiZTM3MmM= Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:15:05 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2QzMjg3MjQ3ODg1M2Y4OThjYzI1ZWQ3ZDJmYTgyMmE= From pages 369-371:</p> <blockquote> <p>...Just as the Nazi attack on Christianity was part of a larger war on the idea of universal truth, whole postmodern cosmologies have been created to prove that traditional religious morality is a scam, that there are no fixed truths or “natural” categories, and that all knowledge is socially constructed. Or as the line goes in The Da Vinci Code, “So Dark, the Con of Man.”<br /><br />The “con” in question is, in effect, a conspiracy by the Catholic<br />Church to deceive the world about Jesus’ true nature and his marriage to Mary Magdalene. The book has sold some sixty million copies worldwide. The novel, and movie, have generated debates, documentaries, companion books, and the like. But few have called attention to the ominous roots and parallels with Nazi thought. <br />Dan Brown should have dedicated his book to “Madame” Helena Blavatsky, the theosophist guru who is widely considered the “mother” of New Age spirituality as well as a touchstone in the development of Nazi paganism and the chief popularizer of the swastika as a mystical symbol. Her theosophy included a grab bag of cultish notions, from astrology to the belief that Christianity was a grand conspiracy designed to conceal the true meaning and history of the supernatural. Her 1888 book, The Secret Doctrine, attempted to prove the full extent of the grotesque Western conspiracy that The Da Vinci Code only partially illuminates. Christianity was to blame for all the modern horrors of capitalism and inauthentic living, not to mention the destruction of Atlantis.  <br />Alfred Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century, the second most important book in the Nazi canon, borrowed ideas wholesale from Blavatsky. Rosenberg lays out one Christian conspiracy after another. “Before it could fully blossom, the joyous message of German mysticism was strangled by the anti-European church with all the means in its power,” he insists. Like Blavatsky and Brown, he suggests the existence of secret Gospels, which, had they not been concealed by the Church, would debunk the “counterfeit of the great image of Christ” found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. “Christianity,” writes Hitler in Mein Kampf, “was not content with erecting an altar of its own. It had first to destroy the pagan altars.” It was “the advent of Christianity” that first unleashed the “spiritual terror” upon “the much freer ancient world.”13<br /><br />Large segments of the cultural left today subscribe to similar notions.<br />For example, Wicca and paganism constitute the fastestgrowing religion and religious category in America, with adherents numbering anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million depending on whose<br />numbers you accept. If you add “New Age spirituality,” the number of Americans involved in such avocations reaches 20 million and growing. Feminists in particular have co-opted Wicca as a religion perfectly suited to their politics. Gloria Steinem is rhapsodic about the superior political and spiritual qualities of “pre-Christian” and “matriarchal” paganism. In Revolution from Within she laments in all<br />earnestness the “killing of nine million women healers and other pagan or nonconforming women during the centuries of change-over to Christianity.”14<br />The SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, was convinced that the antiwitch craze was an anti-German plot concocted in large part by the Catholic Church: “The witch-hunting cost the German people hundreds of thousands of mothers and women, cruelly tortured and executed.”15 He dedicated considerable resources for the SS to investigate the witch hunts and prove they were attempts to crush Aryan civilization and the true German faith. The SS put together what amounted to their own X-Files unit—dubbed Special Unit H (for Hexen, or “witches”)—to ferret out the truth of over thirty-three thousand cases of witch burning, in countries as far away as India and Mexico.<br />Indeed, most of the founders of National Socialism would be far more comfortable talking witchcraft and astrology with a bunch of crystal-worshipping vegans than attending a church social. Consider the Thule Society, named after a supposed lost race of northern peoples hinted at in ancient Greek texts. The society was founded as the Munich chapter of the German Order, and while its occult and theosophical doctrines were nominally central to its charter, the glue that held it together was racist anti-Semitism. Anton Drexler was encouraged by his mentor Dr. Paul Tafel, a leader of the Thule Society, to found the German Workers’ Party, which would soon become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Its membership was a veritable Who’s Who of founding Nazis, according to Hitler’s biographer Ian Kershaw.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2QzMjg3MjQ3ODg1M2Y4OThjYzI1ZWQ3ZDJmYTgyMmE= Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:23:18 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjZhZDMwM2Y1OGUwYTljODg5NDI4NWY3MTgwOWYyMjQ= <span style="new roman,times;"><span>From pages 364-365 of my book:</span></span></p> <p><span style="new roman,times;"><span><br /></span></span></p> <blockquote> <p><span style="new roman,times;"><span> Like the engineers of that proverbial railway bridge, the Nazis<br />worked relentlessly to replace the nuts and bolts of traditional<br />Christianity with a new political religion. The shrewdest way to accomplish<br />this was to co-opt Christianity via the Gleichschaltung<br />while at the same time shrinking traditional religion’s role in civil society.<br />To this end, Hitler was downright Bismarckian. The German<br />historian Götz Aly explains how Hitler purchased popularity with<br />lavish social welfare programs and middle-class perks, often paid for<br />with stolen Jewish wealth and high taxes on the rich. Hitler banned<br />religious charity, crippling the churches’ role as a counterweight to<br />the state. Clergy were put on government salary, hence subjected to<br />state authority. “The parsons will be made to dig their own graves,”<br />Hitler cackled. “They will betray their God to us. They will betray<br />anything for the sake of their miserable little jobs and incomes.”5<br />Following the Jacobin example, the Nazis replaced the traditional<br />Christian calendar. The new year began on January 30 with the Day<br />of the Seizure of Power.6 Each November the streets of central<br />Munich were dedicated to a Nazi Passion play depicting Hitler’s<br />Beer Hall Putsch. The martyrdom of Horst Wessel and his “old fighters”<br />replaced Jesus and the apostles. Plays and official histories<br />were rewritten to glorify pagan Aryans bravely fighting against<br />Christianizing foreign armies. Anticipating some feminist pseudo<br />history, witches became martyrs to the bloodthirsty oppression of<br />Christianity.<br /></span></span></p> <p><span style="new roman,times;"><span>Under the progressives, the Christian God had been transformed<br />into the God of lower food prices. Under the Nazis, the Christian<br />God would be transformed into an Aryan SS officer with Hitler his<br />right hand. The so-called German Christian pastors preached that<br />“just as Jesus liberated mankind from sin and hell, so Hitler saves the<br />German Volk from decay.” In April 1933 the Nazi Congress of<br />German Christians pronounced that all churches should catechize<br />that “God has created me a German; Germanism is a gift of God.<br />God wills that I fight for Germany. War service in no way injures the<br />Christian conscience, but is obedience to God.”7<br />When some Protestant bishops visited the Fuhrer to register complaints,<br />Hitler’s rage got the better of him. “Christianity will disap</span><span>pear from Germany just as it has done in Russia . . . The Germanrace has existed without Christianity for thousands of years . . . and<br />will continue after Christianity has disappeared . . . We must get<br />used to the teachings of blood and race.” When the bishops objected<br />that they supported Nazism’s secular aims, just not its religious innovations,<br />Hitler exploded: “You are traitors to the Volk. Enemies of<br />the Vaterland and destroyers of Germany.”8<br /></span></span></p> <p><span style="new roman,times;"><span>In 1935 mandatory prayer in school was abolished, and in 1938<br />carols and Nativity plays were banned entirely. By 1941 religious instruction<br />for children fourteen years and up had been abolished altogether,<br />and Jacobinism reigned supreme. A Hitler Youth song rang<br />out from the campfires:<br /></span></span></p> <p><span style="new roman,times;"><span>We are the happy Hitler Youth;<br />We have no need for Christian virtue;<br />For Adolf Hitler is our intercessor<br />And our redeemer.<br />No priest, no evil one<br />Can keep us<br />From feeling like Hitler’s children.<br />No Christ do we follow, but Horst Wessel!<br />Away with incense and holy water pots.9<br />Meanwhile, the orphans were given new lyrics to “Silent Night”:<br />Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright,<br />Only the Chancellor steadfast in fight,<br />Watches o’er Germany<br /></span></span></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjZhZDMwM2Y1OGUwYTljODg5NDI4NWY3MTgwOWYyMjQ= Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:53:20 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTIzNjNiYzUyYzFmYTYxMGEzY2Y0YjI0MjdiZWM3ZTM= I've been so incredibly swamped since the von Brunn shooting I haven't had a chance to post a few things on Hitler and Christianity that I think are relevant given all of the "he's a rightwinger talk." Remember von Brunn subscribes to the view that Christianity was a Jewish conspiracy against European-Pagan vigor. This email reminded me:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Jonah:<br /> <br />The current issue of MILITARY HISTORY QUARTERLY (summer 2009)includes an article by John H. Osborne Jr. entitled "Greek Trajedy" It is a short history of Mussolini's botched invasion of Greece which drew in the British to keep out the Germans in one of Churchill's Mediterranean side-shows. The British were then promptly ejected by the Nazis who took all the credit for the victory because they had essentially no help from the incompetent Italians This WWII theatre of operation is largely forgotten although it devasted Greece.<br /> <br />The LF nature of the following passage -- which quotes Goebbel's diaries (?) -- struck me so I wanted to share for purposes of your research notes in case you never have seen this before. It describes Hitler on the occasion of the German victory over the Greek army.<br /> <br /><strong>'While Mussolini had raged and moaned, Hitler's enjoyment at Churchill's new Greek travails was marred by regret over having to devastate the country. "Athens and Rome are his meccas," his ranking diarist, Josef Goebbels, wrote. "The Fueher is a man totally attuned to antiquity. He hates Christianity, because it has crippled all that is noble in humanity …. What a difference between the benevolent, smiling Zeus and the pain-wracked, crucified Christ …. What a difference between a gloomy cathedral and a light airy ancient temple." ' page 86 (ellipses in original passage in MHQ).</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Right, but Nazis were Christianists and Christianists are Nazis.</p> <p>Remember this from Jesse Jackson: "In South Africa, we call it apartheid. In Nazi Germany, we'd call it fascism. Here in the United States, we call it conservatism.” Or his statement that the Christian Coalition was a "strong force" in Nazi Germany?</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTIzNjNiYzUyYzFmYTYxMGEzY2Y0YjI0MjdiZWM3ZTM= Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:42:07 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDNhNDgyN2FhZDQxYWFiZjdlMjU2NzZiZmY0MTRjNTg= <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/halper/69841">Hilarious</a>.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDNhNDgyN2FhZDQxYWFiZjdlMjU2NzZiZmY0MTRjNTg= Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:36:48 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTY3ZjMyZGY0ZDJkNjAzZWRjMzdiODUzZDk1ZWMxM2I= The test on the introduction is now up, <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/06/liberal-fascism-introduction.html">over at the Voxiversity. </a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTY3ZjMyZGY0ZDJkNjAzZWRjMzdiODUzZDk1ZWMxM2I= Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:45:13 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDhlYzVjMDU5MGQ3ODk5OTk4MTQyZDEyODkxNmQxYjM= <blockquote> <p>First, in case you didn't know, Reihan Salam is now a blogger for NRO. I think this astoundingly good news.  Now, on to business. He <a href="http://agenda.nationalreview.com/">writes</a>:</p> <p>Earlier this week, Will Cain very kindly asked me to participate in a series of online debates with Chris Hayes of The Nation, a leading left-of-center thinker. To his credit, Hayes describes himself as a social democrat, a political tradition that remains obscure in U.S. political discourse. Unlike left movements in Europe, the American left has traditionally had a strong individualist streak, hence the resonance of the "liberal" label that many center-left Americans now eschew in favor of "progressive." The best book I've read on the origins of social democracy is Sheri Berman's The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century, a sympathetic account that describes the movement as an outgrowth of the various revisionist movements that emerged in tension with and in opposition to Marxist orthodoxy. <strong>Another movement that emerged from the intellectual ferment of revisionism is, of course, fascism, and Jonah Golderg has vividly described the awkward relationship between these traditions at great length. Though it should go without saying that egalitarian social democracy and racial fascism are deeply different, both see the creation and cultivation of social solidarity as vitally important.</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>He goes on to make many fine points. I just want to offer a slight -- really slight -- dissent. I agree that social democracy and racial fascism are deeply different (a point I make several times in my book). And I'm grateful that Reihan actually recognizes a distinction between fascism and "racial fascism." In the 1920s, Mussolini's fascism was not racial (it became racial in the late 30s when Mussolini wanted to justify his North African adventures and, later, when he fully became Hitler's stooge). The question is, how different are social democracy and <em>non-racial</em> fascism? The problem for many people is that they cannot imagine the possibility that fascism isn't shorthand for racial fascism, never mind get their heads around the idea that Nazism was -- and was understood at the time as -- racial <em>socialism</em>. The word "fascist" appears twice in Mein Kampf and neither time as a meaningful label for National Socialist ideology. Meanwhile the word socialist appears nearly 200 times, if memory serves, and it is often used as an accurate description of Hitler's preferred policies.</p> <p>Regardless, I will concede that non-racial fascism and social democracy  are still different, just as social democracy and, say, Leninism are different. But few eyebrows would be raised were one to note that Leninism and social democracy share common roots and more than a few common aspirations. But when one says similar stuff about fascism and social democracy, teeth are gnashed and cloth rent.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDhlYzVjMDU5MGQ3ODk5OTk4MTQyZDEyODkxNmQxYjM= Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:17:57 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjI2OTNiYWNiZDYxN2VlOThkN2YwOGEyZmU5MGVjYjY= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br />I bought your book tonight from Borders (I plan on completing <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/05/voxiversity-iii-liberal-fascism.html">Voxiversity III)</a>.  Considering how well it is selling, it was pretty tough to find--I found one paperback copy under "Political Science" not in the prominent "New In Paperback" displays.  I've never had a checkout woman look at me so strangely, either, but maybe because I purchased one other item, a collector's edition of the new Rancid double CD.  I'm guessing not too many people buy this combination.<br /><br />Looking forward to reading,<br /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjI2OTNiYWNiZDYxN2VlOThkN2YwOGEyZmU5MGVjYjY= Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:40:04 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjkzZGU1YTdiYzE5ZmJhNDc3YTI5YmRiOTIwMjBkNjM= I like this one:</p> <blockquote> <p>Mr. Goldberg - There are not words that adequately express what a complete a**hole you are - what a dishonest, right-wing fraud you are .. Your sole purpose in writing the ludicrous "Liberal Fascism" is to scare people away from the laudable and constructive policies President Obama is trying to implement to improve and fix this country after the 8 years of disastrous misrule by your people .. The only danger of fascism in this country comes from the right-wing of the Republican Party - your people. Under Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bolton-Rove-Gonzales et.al., this country came as close to fascism as it ever has, and, hopefully, ever will. You are merely trying the alarm and scare tactics that the right-wing invariably turns to ..<br /> <br /> Your points are ludicrous nonsense: our best and closest allies in the Western tradition, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, most of Western Europe, Canada, and most of the industrialized world, are far more "liberal" - indeed socialist - than could ever happen in this country: and not a one of them is in any danger of fascism: you are quite simply full of sh*t on that point .. It was the great liberalism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that brought us out of the Great Depression, while it was those of your ilk, your pathetic Republican predecessors in the '30's, that opposed the New Deal every that eventually lifted us out of that crisis. There have been countless successful exercises in the liberalism that you speciously and fraudulently try to link to liberalism. But your Dick Cheney is the closest thing to an American fascist as we're ever produced; if wasn't your other ancestor - Joseph McCarthy ..<br /> <br /> Your scare tactics, your histrionic alarmism are pathetic. The only winder is how such right-wing garbage as your book gets published at all - you should consider yourself very lucky ..</p> </blockquote> <p>Me: Any bets that this guy hasn't read a single page of the book?</p> <p><strong>Update</strong>: Oh, I should have said that the asterisks are mine. This is a family website.</p> <p>I should have also have mentioned that I started this book when Barack Obama was an obscure Illinois state senator. So I deserve every success simply for the quality of my prescience.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjkzZGU1YTdiYzE5ZmJhNDc3YTI5YmRiOTIwMjBkNjM= Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:26:57 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTAyN2RiYzQzNzliYTRiZjhmODFlNTBhNjMyZDA5ZjQ= I'm delighted to announced that the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0767917189/ref=pd_ts_b_2?ie=UTF8&s=books">paperback of Liberal Fascism</a> will debut at #5 on <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em> besteller list.</p> <p>Because the list works on a weird time-delay, it will appear a week from this Sunday.</p> <p>Thanks again to everyone, including the knee-jerk critics, for making it a success.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTAyN2RiYzQzNzliYTRiZjhmODFlNTBhNjMyZDA5ZjQ= Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:23:47 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTBjNzRiOTg4ZTllYmY4ZmUxM2ZjYWFhMTIzMWQ0ZGM= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br /> <br /><br />While I’m obviously generalizing, I think the following mental calculation describes the perspective of a great many liberals/leftists:<br /><br /> <br /><br />Political thought can be described as a straight line with communism occupying the far left position, fascism the far right.<br />While I’m in agreement with a lot of its positions I’m not a socialist. For instance, I think some income inequality is probably necessary. And while there are parts of communism that I agree with, there are also parts that I have significant misgivings about, like the relative lack of press freedom and free speech.<br />There is almost nothing I find appealing or I’m in agreement with when it comes to conservatism. <br />My own views are pretty centrist. I may lean a little to the left but there isn’t anything extreme about my politics, and besides most of the people I know have similar opinions so I must be pretty solidly in the center.<br /> <br /><br />Conclusion:<br /><br />If I’m in the center, and can find more common ground with communism than conservatism then conservatism must be pretty far to the right; if not exactly fascist very much in the same neighborhood.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Update</strong>: Quite a few readers wondered why I didn't contest this. I think the reason is that I basically agree with it. I think the confusion stems from the fact that the emailer was referring to the liberal-leftist mindset rather than his own.</p> <p>But I think he's absolutely right. Liberals <strong><em>start</em></strong> from the assumption that fascism is on the right and then they fit their own biases to the political spectrum. What I Don't Like becomes "fascist." Things I Have Sympathy For, in whole or part, becomes left.</p> <p><strong>Update II:</strong> From the reader himself:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br /><br />Thanks for posting my e-mail (a Navin Johnson moment!).<br /><br />I think you read me correctly. I was trying to get at how pernicious the template of left (communism), right (fascism) is given that most people will tend to place themselves in or near the center (We make $750,000 a year, so we’re middle class). From that orientation a calculation of relative distance leads inevitably to placing any vigorous conservatism on the far right of the spectrum, which makes it fascist or quasi-fascist. The search for substantive differences with socialism and more serious differences with communism is a way of substantiating their position as being centrist. Hence the frequently observed denial of being a socialist despite espousing socialist views that you pointed to last week.<br /><br />The above is in part why I think Oakeshott’s enterprise association/civil association categorization is so valuable (a brief explication of which can be found in the Hunter College address given for NR’s 25th anniversary and available on the archives)</p> </blockquote> <p>Update III: It is very strange, but readers keep thing the above correspondent is talking about himself when he says "we make $750,000 ..." He doesn't. He's characterizing a mindset.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTBjNzRiOTg4ZTllYmY4ZmUxM2ZjYWFhMTIzMWQ0ZGM= Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:10:50 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDBiZWU0N2NlM2VhODY1NjQ0ZjhlNTAwMmE4MjNiNTA= I have every confidence that fans of my book and those otherwise interested in the issues raised by it, will find Charles Kesler's <a href="http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=OTkzNzE1ZTk5YTIwNzg4MmU4NTJiOWY4MDMyNzhmMjU=">discussion</a> of progressivism both familiar and enlightening. Kesler overdosed on smart pills years ago, and he's never recovered.</p> <p>Update: I take issue with my friend Peter Robinson<a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDg4MzA1YzY3ZGRmOGRkYTU2Nzc3M2FjZmI3MWE0OTE="> here.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDBiZWU0N2NlM2VhODY1NjQ0ZjhlNTAwMmE4MjNiNTA= Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:49:57 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2ZiNWRhMTBlZjE5MTBjNjhiMzUzMmQ2ZTcxZDM2YjQ= <a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134033.html">Michael Moynihan has a very useful post.</a> I'm not sure I agree with every angle of it, but I am very reluctant to disagree with him on contemporary European politics as he knows a lot more about such things than I do.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2ZiNWRhMTBlZjE5MTBjNjhiMzUzMmQ2ZTcxZDM2YjQ= Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:39:04 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjg0Yzg2MTAwYTEyMjI4NGM2MTI1M2FlNTM3ZjA1MTc= Now this is an interesting point:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Mr. Goldberg:<br /> <br />Always interesting to read your posts and (some of the) reader responses.  One of the most recent, inquiring about what a "real" right-wing regime is, and how to recognize such, you characterized as a fair question.  On that I agree.  But the question originates from a fundamental ignorance about the nature of fascism, as originally conceived by its purest practitioner, Mussolini.  Mussolini, as you know, considered himself a radical, and said once (paraphrase) that he and Lenin were the only true revolutionaries in Europe.  He was a man of the left, and fascism, as so conceived in 1920s Italy, was a leftist regime.  Can there be right-wing fascists?  Sure--as long as the fundamental building blocks of authentic Mussolinian fascism are in place: corporatism, statism, a co-opting and/or subjugation rather than destruction of private property, enough nationalism and bread/circuses to keep the populace's energy directed towards ends that don't threaten the regime.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think the reader is basically right. John Ralston Saul talks about how America has an "unconscious civilization" of fascism. I think he's too Marxist, but makes the same basic point I make, which is that we've inherited some corporatist and fascistic arrangements without realizing it. The worst thing for the country and for conservatism would be for the Right to become complacent about these arrangements. That's why I have my whole discussion on the "Tempting of Conservatism" and rightwing progressivism. I think there's a real danger of having Republicans and conservatives making peace with the welfare state and simply becoming "rightwing" versions of liberals, rewarding their constituencies, imposing their values etc. (Somewhere in the book, I have a quote from FDR in which he says something like: Democratic/New Dealer control of the government was good because the good guys ran it, but it would be bad or fascistic if some other faction got in there.)</p> <p>Of course, it's still worth noting that conservatives -- properly understood -- who embrace statism, cease to be conservatives. But I think the reader is still getting at a real danger.</p>  <br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjg0Yzg2MTAwYTEyMjI4NGM2MTI1M2FlNTM3ZjA1MTc= Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:53:34 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzAyZmFmODcyZWY0OWYwN2IxNTY5ZTFiNzUyZTkyYzI= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br />I wonder whether your campaign to properly label extremist groups might be aided by a description of what a real right-winger would be like. Any thoughts on people or groups that could properly be labelled right-wing or extreme right?</p> </blockquote> <p>I think it's a very good question. I don't have a systemic answer because I think the "right" in the Anglo-American tradition has a fork in it. One branch heads off toward extreme anti-statism, the other to extreme traditionalism to the point of monarchism or some such. I think you could make a persuasive case that a serious anarcho-capitalist libertarian was a rightwing extremist. I also think you could make the case that those who want to restore the monarchy in, say, France are rightwing extremists.</p> <p>Here's a curious irony that I don't discuss much because it just confuses people. I think you can make the case that Franco was an extreme rightwing ruler, but not a fascist. You can see why this is confusing. Franco is for many on the Left the quintessential fascist. The problem is that he was far, far closer to an authoritarian caudillo than a totalitarian fascist. Indeed, the general consensus among scholars of fascism is these days is that Franco's Spain should not be lumped in with Fascist Italy and  Nazi Germany. Anyway, as you can imagine, that argument gets awfully complicated given the history and the label profusion in the literature.</p> <p>Many critics of the book think I believe that their can't be anything like a "bad" rightwing regime. I think this is nonsense. I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, nor am I a hyper-traditionalist, a monarchist or even in significant respects a "reactionary" save perhaps in the Marxist sense. So, at least by own standards, I'm perfectly willing to concede that extreme rightwingery can be bad. But it can't, technically speaking, be fascist.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzAyZmFmODcyZWY0OWYwN2IxNTY5ZTFiNzUyZTkyYzI= Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:19:10 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmI4YWYyNTA5MzMwMGJlNjliYTIzNmU0NmQ3ZmQ1OTk= A reader asks:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br />I was reading your blog comments about the British National Party.<br /><br />Your observation that far from being “right wing” their platform is in fact socialist seems spot on.<br /><br />But I’m left asking myself;  so what?<br /><br />Does it really matter whether people call them right wing loons or socialist loons when, if they had their way, people like me (and you I suppose) would have to pack our bags and move back where our ancestors came from?   (I guess that would be Israel if Obama lets the Jews keep that).<br /><br />Just a thought.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me</strong>: Well it matters for a few reasons, not least because I think it is a very interesting aspect of political life, so much so I wrote a book about it.</p> <p>But more importantly, it matters because one statist faction uses another statist faction to tar  <em>anti-statists </em> as fascist. The leftwing  and mainstream press in Britain (and America) routinely uses "far right" parties like the BNP to tar mainstream conservative policies. But in most ways the left has far, far more in common with the BNP than the right. Why? <em>Because they're both leftwing.</em> Or, if you prefer, they're both statist. Surely, if we should be vigilant about preventing the sort of dystopia the reader clearly fears -- and we should -- than at least clarifying which parties are statist and which are not is a useful project.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmI4YWYyNTA5MzMwMGJlNjliYTIzNmU0NmQ3ZmQ1OTk= Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:12:33 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGRkNzk4M2FhNzQ1YjE3NTE2NDJlOTEyZGM5NDY2MTc= More on the BNP's <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzVhM2I2MTA3NjdkNmYxZDBiYzY1OWRjM2Q4OTlhZDY=">success</a> at stealing labor votes. Here <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/04/24/new_statesman_bnp_is_to_the_left_of_labour">are</a> <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/02/22/theres_nothing_rightwing_about_the_bnp">some</a> <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/06/08/2009_european_elections_ten_conclusions">wonderful</a> posts about the BNP by Daniel Hannan. For instance:</p> <blockquote> <p>Incidentally, any BBC presenters reading this, why do you keep calling the party "far Right"? Weren't you listening to Nick Griffin's acceptance speech? He wasn't going to talk about immigration policy he said, since everyone knew where he stood on the subject. No, his priority was to expose the way in which public assets had been privatised. Look at the BNP's manifesto: it wants nationalisation, subsidy, higher taxes, protectionism and (sotto voce) the abolition of the monarchy. And look at where its votes came from. The BNP is a symptom of Labour's collapse.</p> </blockquote> <p>Plus readers might <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTE1NzhkMGUzNTc3OWRlNzA0MWU1MTkxMmE2YWVlNDA=">remember</a> his <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/03/interview-with-daniel-hannan.html">interview</a> with Vox Day:</p> <blockquote> <p>VD:One thing that tends to confuse Americans is that the British National Party is not very popular despite holding what appear to be populist views on immigration and the European Union. Why do they enjoy so little support compared to the three major parties?<br /><br />DH:Because they are, contrary to the way they are described in the BBC, a party of the far left. They're in favor of nationalization, they're in favor of protectionism, they want workers' councils to run industry, they want a massive state program of rebuilding manufacture. Like Hayek said about the socialist roots of Nazism, they are a national socialist party and the socialist bit is very important to them. Plus, there is a line, a very important line in politics, between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. And they've crossed that line.<br /><br />VD: In a certain respect, they really are fascists, but in the Italian Fascist sense.<br /><br />DH: Yeah. I think most of these so-called “far right” parties are on the left by any normal definition. It's a brilliant media trick in Europe to always refer to them as “the far right”. The target of that is the mainstream right. Every time you read about the BNP in the press, it's always prefaced with “the far right BNP”, as though they were like us, but more so, which is the opposite of the case. When somebody reads that, it doesn't make them think any worse of the BNP, it makes them think worse of the right. Which, of course, is why they do it.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGRkNzk4M2FhNzQ1YjE3NTE2NDJlOTEyZGM5NDY2MTc= Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:55:33 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzVhM2I2MTA3NjdkNmYxZDBiYzY1OWRjM2Q4OTlhZDY= The British National Party stands to gain from <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hmIutJy3OJDQnP1Y3SDiWXxbbcDA">disaffected Labor voters.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzVhM2I2MTA3NjdkNmYxZDBiYzY1OWRjM2Q4OTlhZDY= Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:00:51 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWVlZTc4Mzg4N2YxODZlN2EyNmI4NDhjZTA0OThkZTk= Just a great email:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Jonah Goldberg,<br /> <br />I literally just completed your book Liberal Fascism.  It was an amazing read and a wonderfully eye-opening experience.  However, I must admit that I was very hesitant to purchase your book after its initial publishing due to my fear that I would be giving into an "extreme right hit piece."  For this very reason, I avoid "extreme left hit pieces" as well.  Yet over the past year, I have heard more and more about your book from Internet reviews and, frankly, from your appearances on television.  You slowly won me over and I began to actively pursue your book in chain book stores.  To my surprise, I could not find a physical copy of the book in some of the large chain stores.  This increased by interest that much further.  When I read that the paperback was coming out, I rushed to one of these stores the day after and, lo and behold, there it was.  Strangely I felt as if I was committing a form of social taboo by purchasing the book.  In fact, I was secretly worried about how the cashier would respond to me.  In an awkward adolescent way, it felt like buying a pornographic movie or magazine.  Nevertheless, I pushed through and dove headstrong into the book.  As I was reading it, I could not help but feel so foolish for having waited so long to buy it.  <br /> <br />In the past, I have always been drawn to the skepticism of the New Deal, however, my objections were based, honestly, on the propaganda or opinions of conservatives.  Unfortunately, I had not made the intellectual investment necessary to justify my skepticism.  Your book represents a significant step forward for me in that respect.  Indeed, my appetite for more has grown.  Yet I am conflicted about whether I should invest more time in this journey since I do not feel as optimistic as you about the American people or about turning this country around.  We are further behind in this intellectual/philosophical battle than I previously thought.  In fact, "we are all fascists now."  <br /> <br />How do we find a way to pin down a Progressive dogma that seems un-pinnable?  Even if you are successful in re-educating the American people about the history of the Progressive/Democratic party, will this be enough.  Can we as conservative or libertarians create a purity of principle that can be as attractive to the majority of America?  <br /> <br />Admittedly, I sound quite pessimistic and downright depressing.  It is not in my nature to speak in this way.  However, the task of overturning 100 hundred years of such subtle deceit on the part of the Left seems impossible.  At the risk of creating a moral equivalent of war, do we have the intellectual armament, soldiers, or in roads at major universities to stop our retreat?  In other words, do we have to use the same techniques or strategy of the Left, or do we have something more valuable and sincere to offer the American people?  Do we fight fire with fire or do we fight fire with ____?<br /> <br />My frustrations I am sure are not new to you.  What is new to me is your ability to unearth a cohesive history of the American Left.  Can you help me move forward?  <br /> <br />Thank you for being a sounding board for my frustrations. <br /> <br />Sincerely Grateful,</p> <p>[Name withheld, MD]</p> </blockquote> <p>Cheer up! The worst is yet to come...</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWVlZTc4Mzg4N2YxODZlN2EyNmI4NDhjZTA0OThkZTk= Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:35:58 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzJkZGQ2Mzk2OGUxNzdjODUwODk2OTdkYjMyMDA4NWE= From the economics chapter written over two years ago:</p> <blockquote> <p>GM offers an ironic confirmation of Marxist logic. According to<br />orthodox Marxism, the capitalist system becomes fascist as its internal<br />contradictions get the better of it. As a theory of political economy,<br />this analysis falls apart. But at the retail level, there’s an<br />undeniable truth to it. Industries that once had a proudly free-market<br />stance suddenly sprout arguments in favor of protectionism, “industrial<br />policy,” and “strategic competitiveness” once they find that they<br />can’t hack it in the market. The steel and textile industries, certain<br />automobile companies—Chrysler in the 1980s, GM today—and vast<br />swaths of agriculture claim that the state and business should be<br />“partners” at precisely the moment it’s clear they can no longer compete.<br />They quickly become captives of politicians seeking to protect<br />jobs or donations or both. These “last-gasp capitalists” do the country<br />a great disservice by skewing the political climate toward a modified<br />form of national socialism and corporatism. They’re fleeing the<br />rough-and-tumble of capitalist competition for the warm embrace of<br />It Takes a Village economics, and Hillary Clinton calls it “progress.”</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzJkZGQ2Mzk2OGUxNzdjODUwODk2OTdkYjMyMDA4NWE= Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:57:14 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2YzNjNmYzAzY2ViYjUxYWNjMTZhNjBkZmYwMjExMjU= I thought this excerpt from the book might be of interest:</p> <blockquote> <p>    The glorification of racial permanence has caused the left to abandon<br />narrow rationales for affirmative action in favor of the doctrine<br />of multiculturalism. The diversity argument—which, by the way, is<br />only used to defend favored groups; Asians and Jews almost never<br />count toward the goal of diversity—is an argument for the permanence<br />of race and identity. In other words, if the left has its way,<br />racial preferences will no longer have anything to do with redressing<br />past wrongs (except when such preferences are under attack).<br />Rather, the pursuit of diversity will become the permanent license<br />for social-engineering bean counters to discriminate against whatever<br />group they see fit in order to reach the desired “balance.” For example,<br />quotas unfairly kept Jews out of universities to help white<br />Protestants. Now quotas unfairly keep Jews (and Asians) out of universities<br />to help blacks and Hispanics. What’s different is that now<br />liberals are sure such policies are a sign of racial progress.<br />Diversity depends on, and therefore ratifies, racial essentialism.<br />Not only do rich (and, increasingly, foreign-born) blacks count as<br />much as poor ones, but the argument now is that mere exposure to<br />blacks is uplifting in and of itself. The policy is condescending and<br />counterproductive because it assumes that blacks come to school not<br />as Tom Smith or Joe Jones but as interchangeable Black-Perspective<br />Student. Professors turn to black students for “the black point of<br />view,” and students who don’t present the party line are counted as<br />inauthentic by condescending white liberals (that is, most faculty<br />and administrators) or by race-gaming blacks. I’ve been to dozens of<br />campuses, and everywhere the story is the same: blacks eat, party,<br />and live with other blacks. This self-segregation increasingly manifests<br />itself in campus politics. Blacks become a student body within<br />a student body, a microcosm of the nation within a nation. Ironically,<br />the best way for a white kid to benefit from exposure to a black kid,<br />and vice versa, would be for there to be fewer black students or at<br />least no black dorms. That way blacks would be forced to integrate<br />with the majority culture. But of course, integration is now derided<br />as a racist doctrine.</p> <p>    You might say it’s outrageous to compare the current liberal program<br />to help minorities with the poisonous ideology of fascism and<br />Nazism. And I would agree if we were talking about things like the<br />Holocaust or even Kristallnacht. But at the philosophical level, we<br />are talking about categorical ways of thinking. To forgive something<br />by saying “it’s a black thing” is philosophically no different from<br />saying “it’s an Aryan thing.” The moral context matters a great deal.<br />But the excuse is identical. Similarly, rejecting the Enlightenment<br />for “good” reasons is still a rejection of the Enlightenment. And<br />any instrumental or pragmatic gains you get from rejecting the<br />Enlightenment still amount to taking a sledgehammer to the soapbox<br />you’re standing on. Without the standards of the Enlightenment, we<br />are in a Nietzschean world where power decides important questions<br />rather than reason. This is exactly how the left appears to want it.<br />One last point about diversity. Because liberals have what Thomas<br />Sowell calls an “unconstrained vision,” they assume everyone sees<br />things through the same categorical prism. So once again, as with the<br />left’s invention of social Darwinism, liberals assume their ideological<br />opposites take the “bad” view to their good. If liberals assume<br />blacks—or women, or gays—are inherently good, conservatives<br />must think these same groups are inherently bad.<br /><br />    This is not to say that there are no racist conservatives. But at the<br />philosophical level, liberalism is battling a straw man. This is why<br />liberals must constantly assert that conservatives use code words—<br />because there’s nothing obviously racist about conservatism per se.<br />Indeed, the constant manipulation of the language to keep conservatives—<br />and other non-liberals—on the defensive is a necessary tactic<br />for liberal politics. The Washington, D.C., bureaucrat who was fired<br />for using the word “niggardly” correctly in a sentence is a case in<br />point.64 The ground must be constantly shifted to maintain a climate<br />of grievance. Fascists famously ruled by terror. Political correctness<br />isn’t literally terroristic, but it does govern through fear. No serious<br />person can deny that the grievance politics of the American left<br />keeps decent people in a constant state of fright—they are afraid to<br />say the wrong word, utter the wrong thought, offend the wrong constituency.<br />If we maintain our understanding of political conservatism as<br />the heir of classical liberal individualism, it is almost impossible<br />for a fair-minded person to call it racist. And yet, according to liberals,<br />race neutrality is itself racist. It harkens back to the “social<br />Darwinism” of the past, we are told, because it relegates minorities<br />to a savage struggle for the survival of the fittest.<br /><br />    There are only three basic positions. There is the racism of the<br />left, which seeks to use the state to help favored minorities that it regards<br />as morally superior. There is racial neutrality, which is, or has<br />become, the conservative position. And then there is some form of<br />“classical racism”—that is, seeing blacks as inferior in some way.<br />According to the left, only one of these positions isn’t racist. Race<br />neutrality is racist. Racism is racist. So what’s left? Nothing except<br />liberalism. In other words, agree with liberals and you’re not racist.<br />Of course, if you adopt color blindness as a policy, many fair-minded<br />liberals will tell you that while you’re not personally racist, your<br />views “perpetuate” racism. And some liberals will stand by the fascist<br />motto: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.<br />Either way, there are no safe harbors from liberal ideology.<br />Hence, when it comes to race, liberalism has become a kind of soft<br />totalitarianism and multiculturalism the mechanism for a liberal<br />Gleichschaltung. If you fall outside the liberal consensus, you are<br />either evil or an abettor of evil. This is the logic of the Volksgemeinschaft<br />in politically correct jargon.<br /><br />    Now, of course you’re not going to get a visit from the Gestapo if<br />you see the world differently; if you don’t think the good kind of diversity<br />is skin deep or that the only legitimate community is the one<br />where “we’re all in it together,” you won’t be dragged off to reeducation<br />camp. But you very well may be sent off to counseling or sensitivity<br />training.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2YzNjNmYzAzY2ViYjUxYWNjMTZhNjBkZmYwMjExMjU= Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:54:09 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ZmYmMxMDk5YWZkMGZmYTk5MmRkNWJiMmFkYjY3YWM= Since today is the 4 year anniversary of my Dad's death, and since I'm often asked what the "Hop Bird" reference is in the book's dedication, I thought I might <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MGZkYjA3NmIzN2ZiNTE3ODE5NTgyMWY4YjIxMDEyZjY=">post this.</a></p> <p>I should also say that the book is dedicated to my Dad not just because he was my father, but because some much of this book is an extension of what he taught me and how he taught me to look at the world.</p> <p>Oh and for those who throw dictionary definitions at me as if they settle the issues raised in my book definitively in favor of liberal conventional wisdom, here's a <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110001946">piece </a>my Dad wrote for the Wall Street Journal in 2002.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2ZmYmMxMDk5YWZkMGZmYTk5MmRkNWJiMmFkYjY3YWM= Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:53:22 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWVmYjQ5MDFhZDQxNjU5ZTJjYjliMGE0MGQ1YzkxNjY= The other day, I wrote a <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/dont-call-it-socialism.html#more">piece</a> for USA Today on the contradiction of liberals pining for social democracy while ridiculing conservatives who say that liberals are pursuing social democracy. Historian <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/ronradosh/2009/06/03/americas-socialist-future-martin-j-sklar-vs-john-b-judis/">Ron Radosh </a>advances the discussion profoundly with this intriguing discussion of the influential leftist historian Martin J. Sklar and <em>The</em> <em>New Republic</em>'s John Judis. Radosh, who (I'm proud to say) <a href="http://www.nysun.com/arts/americas-fascist-moment/68954/">reviewed my book quite favorably</a>, writes:</p> <blockquote> <p>Months ago, on this blog, I talked about the theoretical analysis of historian Martin J. Sklar. In his book, The United States as a Developing Country, Sklar argued that at the turn of the century, the United States saw the emergence of a new “corporate capitalism” that mixed together elements of both populism, capitalism and socialism. The modern American state evolved into a system that mixed public and private, socialism and capitalism- “A Mix,” Sklar calls it, that has made the United States not only stable and dynamic, but the most progressive of any nation in the world.<br /><br />And the above passage led me to the essay appearing in the May-June issue of Foreign Policy , written by TNR senior editor John B. Judis. He begins by quoting a contribution he made to a forum back in 1995, where he argued that once Soviet communism was laid to rest, “politicians and intellectuals of the next century will once again draw openly upon the legacy of socialism.” Now Judis believes that he was prophetic. After our economic collapse, he notes that the “specter of socialism” has reappeared. Socialism, he proclaims, “has made a startling comeback.” Is it a remedy, he asks, for today’s crisis?<br /><br />His answer, as if he is writing to prove Goldberg correct, is that what he calls “liberal socialism,” - as distinct from the Cuban or Soviet totalitarian version, “has a lot to offer.” And he writes:<strong> “As the historian Martin J. Sklar has argued, these [Western European] economies represent a mix of socialism and capitalism; that mix has increasingly titled toward socialism.”</strong> ( my emphasis )<br /><br />This is not the first time Judis has cited Sklar as a mentor and inspiration; a man whose scholarly work has informed his own concept of how our economic and political system works. He also wrote a few columns for TNR on line elaborating about this. In one of these, he writes: “A decade ago, I might have been embarrassed to admit that I was raised on Marx and Marxism, but I am convinced that the left is coming back.” And he recommends to his readers a list of books that informed his outlook, including Marx’s Das Kapital, and books by the late sectarian Marxist -Maoist economist Paul M. Sweezy, his colleague the late Paul M. Baran, and others in his old collective at the journal Socialist Revolution. And he writes, “I got my introduction to economic history from the historian Marty Sklar, who was also a member of that collective.”</p> <p>So I thought it pertinent to find out what Sklar says about socialism and capitalism today, and what he thinks about the direction Obama is moving our country in. The results will prove surprising, especially to John Judis.<br /><br />First, Sklar- who coined the phrase “corporate liberalism” that became a mainstay of the New Left in the 60’s and 70’s- disagrees with Judis’ belief that the “mix has increasingly tilted toward socialism.” His argument, to the contrary, is that for decades, America has had an appropriate mix that already incorporates elements of what is traditionally called capitalism and socialism; that is why it is a mix. Sklar, like Judis, defines himself as a man of the Left, and in an article he has been circulating, titled “A letter to a Long-time Friend and Fellow Left-winger,” Sklar shakes things up. Sklar considers himself to be a “Freedom Leftist” who believes in a pluralist-democratic and “publically accountable left” as opposed to Obama who he considers a “left sectarian doing his mass work.” At his core, Sklar writes, Obama’s “world view is ‘Third-Worldist’ sectarianism.” <br /><br />More surprising for a man of the left, Sklar believes that “Bush has been one of our more effective and progressive-left Presidents in domestic and international affairs.” Sklar believes that Obama’s economic proposals are based on high-tax, protectionist and a slow-growth program. Bush’s in contrast, was based on a lower-tax, low-cost energy, “high-growth/job stimulus” program, and was not “ensnared in the green business/academia lobby agenda of high-cost energy,” which would work to both restrict economic growth and workers’ incomes.<br /><br />Moreover, Sklar is concerned, as he writes, that Obama will make “central to his presidency” what he calls “proto-statist structures characteristic of fascist politics- that is, ’social service’ political organizations operating extra-electorally and also capable of electoral engagement,” that will lead to “party-state systems…in which the party is the state.” Thus, he notes that during the campaign, Obama favored armed public service groups that could be used for homeland security, that would tie leadership bureaucracies to him through the unions and groups like ACORN....</p> </blockquote> <p>As they say, read the whole thing.</p> <p>[Cross-posted at the Corner]</p> <blockquote></blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWVmYjQ5MDFhZDQxNjU5ZTJjYjliMGE0MGQ1YzkxNjY= Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:03:35 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODFmMjA5MjJkMGQ3MThjOWMzMDljYmM4Y2U2Y2JlZmE= <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1096/Shock-Call-To-Action-At-what-point-do-we-jail-or-execute-global-warming-deniers--Shouldnt-we-start-punishing-them-now">"At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers' -- 'Shouldn't we start punishing them now?"</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODFmMjA5MjJkMGQ3MThjOWMzMDljYmM4Y2U2Y2JlZmE= Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:37:19 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWU2ODMzZWE2OGVkOGY3MzlhOTAyOGQ3NGU1MzYzMWY= I thought this was interesting, in a flattering sort of way!</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /> <br />I purchase pretty much all of my books as used books or remainders or as new but with very steep discounts. I usually have to wait a few months for the popularity to fade on something new, then I either snap up a remainder (for overstocks) or pick up a cheap used edition (for fad books). This has not happened with LF, and it is still not happening, even with the release of your paperback copy. The highest compliment that I can pay to you and your book is that the cheapest way for me to buy your book was in a bookstore, new (though with a nice store discount). I buy hundreds of books each year, and in the past five years, the only books that I remember having to pay new price were for Victor Davis Hanson's A War Like No Other and Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence. (In a related note, apparently if you also used your middle name, it would boost your sales.) Both held their value and didn't have remainders available throughout their first year of publication, though the prices eventually dropped somewhat, with further printings and paperback copies being available.<br /> <br />I'm sure that there are industry experts out there--for the record, I have no formal experience beyond buying lots of books online for the cheapest prices possible--who can and maybe already are telling you this, but your book could easily stand to have more printings. The people who have bought it are not selling their used copies, which means interested readers have to buy new . This could be because your readers treasure it as a future reference or because they're burning it; either way it helps your sales.<br /> <br />Most NYT non-fiction bestsellers are fad books that large numbers of people buy then dump, also in large quantities. If you search on Amazon for whatever polemic comes to mind, you'll see the low sales price for the used books, which is a sure sign of a fad book or a book that publishers over-printed. I've yet to see your book advertised on Amazon (new or used) for less than about 80-90% of its cover price. Your book is being passed around, which is what readers do with books that are thought-provoking. Depending on your priorities--making money versus influencing people--this should either motivate you to print more at a cheaper price or make you pleased that so many people are obviously reading it. The real test of the staying power of your book will be a few years from now when, assuming it is being used in college courses, students who have been exposed to it will have to either sell it at discount or keep it. If you take a quick peek at whatever books you (loved and) kept from college, you'll see that their sales and prices are probably still quite high. If you look at the books that you had to buy in college but hated (for me, I think first of La Fronteras), you'll see that they're usually available for pennies as used copies.<br /> <br />If your book and/or your next published work were available as stock options, I'd buy. Your up-side should be huge, unless someone else comes along with a book that takes away your college niche. If you can somehow get Obama to curse you out on TV, Cosmo would be rolling in bling.<br /> <br />God bless,<br /> <br />[Name withheld]<br /> <br />P.S.--I loved your book. A social studies teaching friend is currently borrowing it, and my wife is waiting to read it next.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWU2ODMzZWE2OGVkOGY3MzlhOTAyOGQ3NGU1MzYzMWY= Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:52:03 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA5MWY3YTc0NWE0ZGVmNzcwNDFhMGVhYTg1MGI3MGI= Kathryn and I did a Liberal Fascism 2.0 Q&A. <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzhhZjQ4OTJlNTNhMzI1ZmMyNGUxN2U3MDhiZmIwZjA=">Here it is.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA5MWY3YTc0NWE0ZGVmNzcwNDFhMGVhYTg1MGI3MGI= Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:04:50 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjYwYTdlOThiOTA4ZjdmNmQzYWZmOTFlOTNhZWY0NWE= That's the paperback's Amazon sales rank as of this morning.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjYwYTdlOThiOTA4ZjdmNmQzYWZmOTFlOTNhZWY0NWE= Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:19:50 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDBjMTIyNGNlYjA2MDcxNDhiMWI4MTc1M2UwZmZkMWM= <a href="http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html">Good stuff, in cartoon format.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDBjMTIyNGNlYjA2MDcxNDhiMWI4MTc1M2UwZmZkMWM= Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:42:39 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTBlYThkMTUzYjI0YmQ2NzMxMzFiNTRiNmUzMjNjMjA= <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=248">Michael Moore</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>"Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated."</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTBlYThkMTUzYjI0YmQ2NzMxMzFiNTRiNmUzMjNjMjA= Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:27:29 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWZmZWNkYjhlMjUwZGFmMmRkZTIxNTc4ZWI1YmMxMWE= Lawrence Dennis doesn't appear too much in my book, but he was, <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjIwZjcxM2JlMGI4ZTZkNGE0NjE2ZDM1NGUwNzRlMTk=">as I've mentioned before</a>,  an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Dennis">interesting cat. </a></p> <p>A reader sends me this quote of the day:</p> <blockquote> <p>Thus we shall see what fascism has to do to make a system of private ownership and management workable, so far as arrangements involving capital income or reward are concerned. The ruling principle must be that capital and management reward must be kept in continuous and flexible adjustment with economic possibilities, and that legal and institutional arrangements—like loan contracts, bonds, legal concepts of just compensation, due process of law, and confiscation—must not obstruct executive action of government to maintain this adjustment otherwise than by the present devices of bankruptcy, foreclosures, reorganization, and cycles of booms and depressions. [Lawrence Dennis, The Coming American Fascism (New York: Harper & Bros., 1936 ), Ch. V. “Can We Reorganize the Present System?”]</p> </blockquote> <p>Sound familiar?</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWZmZWNkYjhlMjUwZGFmMmRkZTIxNTc4ZWI1YmMxMWE= Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:59:33 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWE2Njg2N2NkMDZiZTBlZjUwZTYwNmQ4OTM3ZGViMWY= As the paperback release nears, my media schedule will expand. Here are some mostly confirmed appearances next week (I have no idea what times some of these shows may air in local markets):</p> <p>Monday, June 1                <br />    9:30 am Eastern Glenn Beck Radio<br />    5:00 pm Eastern Glenn Beck TV<br /><br />Tuesday, June 2                <br />    8:10 am Eastern   Mancow Muller Radio Show<br />    4:00 pm Eastern Michael Medved Radio<br />    7:20 pm Eastern   Lars Larson Radio<br /><br />Wednesday June 3                <br />    7:30 am Eastern Bill Bennett Radio<br />    10:34 am Eastern Dennis Miller Radio<br />    4:30 pm Eastern Jerry Doyle  Radio   <br />    9:40ish  pm Hannity TV<br /></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWE2Njg2N2NkMDZiZTBlZjUwZTYwNmQ4OTM3ZGViMWY= Thu, 28 May 2009 15:04:00 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTM1MDU5Y2Q1ZjhkYzc3YTViNGIwNThjMzc2ZTQzMmU= Until the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0767917189/ref=ed_oe_p">paperback release.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTM1MDU5Y2Q1ZjhkYzc3YTViNGIwNThjMzc2ZTQzMmU= Thu, 28 May 2009 14:27:45 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTUwNTI5ODg4ZWExYjczZmRjNTEzMDg0ZjIyYjJiNzk= Whatever label you want to put on it<a href="http://littledemocrats.net/index.html">....yuck.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTUwNTI5ODg4ZWExYjczZmRjNTEzMDg0ZjIyYjJiNzk= Thu, 28 May 2009 13:45:42 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWQ0NGMyMWVhMWIxYjVhOWE2NmIyYjBiODEzMThjOWI= <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hLcZ2jQ4mu4rd7XlB3hetiVn1qbAD98F32AG0">Nancy Pelosi:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>"We have so much room for improvement," she said. "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWQ0NGMyMWVhMWIxYjVhOWE2NmIyYjBiODEzMThjOWI= Thu, 28 May 2009 10:22:44 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDE4YjI5N2JjNDFlZmQxOTc5NjMxNjI0YzdjZDM2NDc= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Hello, Mr. Goldberg, this is loyal (but new, I'm only 18) reader of National Review who's just finished with your book Liberal Fascism. A good book overall; I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but it offers a lot of cool new info that has helped me learn a lot about fascism and its roots. Anyway, I have a question that hopefully won't take too much of your time. I have a friend who is blasting the book and especially taking issue with two matters that I can't fully get from the book. If you're willing to take just a bit of time from your busy schedule, I'd like some help.<br /><br />1. He asserts that you are "whitewashing" the KKK by saying they were less racist than we often see them as and that you "handwave" away any potential fascism by saying they hated Mussolini. So, do you consider the KKK to actually be fascist, and to what degree?<br /><br />2. He says that you cherry-pick classical liberalism in this way: <br /><br />"While it involves 'limited government and laissez-faire economics,' it also involved just as importantly, the primacy of the rule of law and democratic institutions, the advancement of civil liberties and civil rights, and freedom from restraint -- things all very much part of the ideology of modern liberalism, which is also descended from social liberalism." He claims you simply ignore these matters to focus on just a few factors. Any comment?<br /><br />Thanks for any response at all you may give.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me:</strong> I think both questions are basically unfair and baldly inaccurate readings of the book.</p> <p>Re question 1: I think the KKK was certainly fascistic and most certainly racist. In my brief discussion of the Klan, the point isn't to say they weren't either of these things. It is to note that the Klan -- specifically, the second Klan of the 1920s -- wasn't the rightwing phenomenon we've been spoonfed in history books. There were major Progressive elements in the KKK and their passions weren't solely the cartoonishly evil racism we've come to associate with them. But, sure, they were cartoonishly evil nonetheless. Why would I want to whitewash the Klan? I want to disavow the Klan and place them more properly outside of  the conservative tradition.  Now, what you will hear from liberals is that the Klan was rightwing because they were racist and racism is rightwing, blah blah blah. But  a huge point of my book is that such insipid tautologies are at the heart of the misunderstanding of fascism. The Progressives were racists, collectively speaking. Does that make them rightwing? If so, then we're back to the idiotic formulation that fascist, rightwing, conservative etc are really just leftwing codewords for "bad."</p> <p>Re Question 2: I'm not quite sure I grasp the intended intellectual effulgence of the question. But if I get the basic sense of it, I agree entirely that the rule of law and civil liberties are part of classical liberalism and I would never deny otherwise. "Freedom from restraint" is a stickier one because it begs the question, what do we mean by restraint? Government restraint? Surely. Social restraint, it depends. Economic restraint...self restraint? The freedom from restraint thing gets us into the realm of positive versus negative liberty. I would argue that classical liberalism is about negative liberty. Today's progressives/liberals follow Dewey and say that modern liberalism is about positive liberty -- what the government can give the individual to "empower" him. That's a huge difference.</p> <p>I don't understand the phrase "descended from social liberalism" But let me say that <em>of course</em> modern liberalism is partially descended from classical liberalism.<em> Of course</em> it cares about freedom and civil rights and all the rest. American liberals are, after all, <em>Americans</em>. But I would -- and did -- argue  that modern liberalism has come to define things like liberty and civil rights in ways that do not fit very well within the tradition of classical liberalism.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDE4YjI5N2JjNDFlZmQxOTc5NjMxNjI0YzdjZDM2NDc= Thu, 28 May 2009 09:40:58 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTgyZDUzNDYxMzA2YmVlNzRhYTE2MzI5MDJjNGU5MWE= <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/05/voxiversity-iii-liberal-fascism.html">It's coming:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It will probably surprise few of you who are intending to participate in the third Voxiversity book study that the book I have selected is Jonah Goldberg's excellent Liberal Fascism. I put this off a few months because while I know that many of you already own a copy, I thought it would be beneficial for those who don't if we waited until the paperback edition was available. The paperback will be available on June 2nd, so if you're interested in participating and don't have the book yet, you should order it now from Amazon or put a copy on hold at your local bookstore. The first quiz will be posted Saturday, June 13th on the 24-page introduction, "Everything You Know About Fascism is Wrong". I'll post reminders on June 2nd and June 6th; those who are eager to leap into discussing the book are encouraged to do so if they wish.<br /><br />I highly recommend taking part in UV-III because Liberal Fascism is not only an important book in understanding the true shape of the ideological spectrum and the history of early 20th century politics, it's a very timely book that is likely to prove helpful in comprehending what will otherwise appear to be seemingly senseless actions of the current presidential administration. It is a well-researched, intelligent book, and as an Italian speaker who has been privy to untranslated material that is unavailable to Jonah, I can testify that his assertions and conclusions about Italian Fascism are in line with those of mainstream Italian historians of the Left and Right. As I wrote in my review of the book in 2007, it is well worth reading by anyone who has ever been called a fascist, has ever called anyone else a fascist, or simply wishes to understand the history of the ideologies that pervade modern American politics.<br /><br />For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Voxiversity is designed to encourage you to not only read the book, but to nail down its details and grok its fullness. The weekly quizzes are not tests of achievement, they are merely there to cement the information in your brain. If you're curious to know more about it, here's a link to the final for VU-II as well as comments from some of those who participated in it. And this time, an added bonus, the author himself has said that he will stop by from time to time to take questions posed in the comments, and the five people who average the highest scores throughout the quizzes and final will win a signed paperback edition courtesy of Jonah and his publicist, Max.<br /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTgyZDUzNDYxMzA2YmVlNzRhYTE2MzI5MDJjNGU5MWE= Wed, 27 May 2009 10:23:42 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODllMWRjMmNmODNlNGIxNjk4NjE3NTk3NGI0NTczYzg= This is just a fascinating story, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/europe/27germany.html?_r=2&hp">from the New York Times:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>BERLIN — It was called “the shot that changed the republic.”<br /><br />The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.<br /><br />Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.<br /><br />It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.<br /><br />“It makes a hell of a difference whether John F. Kennedy was killed by just a loose cannon running around or a Secret Service agent working for the East,” said Stefan Aust, the former editor in chief of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “I would never, never, ever have thought that this could be true.”<br /><br />The revelation last week that researchers, looking into Berlin Wall deaths and East German intelligence, had stumbled across Mr. Kurras’s Stasi files raised a host of uncomfortable issues that are suddenly the subject of national debate.<br /><br /><strong>For the left, Mr. Kurras’s true allegiance strikes at the underpinnings of the 1968 protest movement in Germany. The killing provided the clear-cut rationale for the movement’s opposition to what its members saw as a violent, unjust state, when in fact the supposed fascist villain of leftist lore was himself a committed socialist.</strong><br /><br />There is the sobering reminder of the Stasi infiltration of West German structures, but also the question of whether it went much deeper than has ever been uncovered. The Stasi’s reach in East Germany is well known; Chancellor Angela Merkel said just last week that the security service had tried to recruit her, though she had turned it down.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODllMWRjMmNmODNlNGIxNjk4NjE3NTk3NGI0NTczYzg= Tue, 26 May 2009 21:36:25 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTY1YmRmZjY5NjA2Njc0NDQ3Y2Y1MDc0MmMxYzQ3ZGQ= <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_HG-wells.html">Yes, yes, I know. Fred Siegel's got a big piece on Wells in the latest City Journal</a>. I haven't read it yet, but I hear it's right up my alley.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTY1YmRmZjY5NjA2Njc0NDQ3Y2Y1MDc0MmMxYzQ3ZGQ= Tue, 26 May 2009 12:50:04 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGUzNTkxMzc5YTc0ZWE4YzhjYzRjMmVhZGVkOGVkN2U= <a href="http://tr.im/lC8Z">The book has finally been reviewed in Denmark!</a> I'm told the review is fairly positive, and from what I can tell from the <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weekendavisen.dk%2Fboeger%2Foriginal%2Fi-dag-er-vi-alle-fascister&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=">google translation</a> of it, that seems right.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGUzNTkxMzc5YTc0ZWE4YzhjYzRjMmVhZGVkOGVkN2U= Mon, 18 May 2009 09:02:12 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWFiY2ZiODk2NzExYjQ2NjJlZGY5ZGE5NzcwNjIwNGI= This came in last night, from a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Mr. Goldberg, I'm a hard-core leftist (libertarian socialist, or anarchist, to be precise) and reluctantly decided to take a look at your book at the urging of some conservative acquaintances of mine. I thought that I'd find it full of shoddy scholarship and empty, emotive rhetoric but instead found a lot of things that I agree with. The reason for this is that I'm a big fan of George Orwell and Noam Chomsky and find that many of the things you write are found in their writings as well - especially Chomsky's frequent writings about how much Fascism had support here in the U.S.<br /><br />What do you think about Noam Chomsky's writings on this topic, if you know of them? I've found that now that I've read your book a bit and am quoting it a bit too my conservative acquaintances all of the sudden don't want to talk about your book anymore hehe. <br /><br />By the way, I'm very glad that you were able to be honest to the facts and thus take your book in a direction that noone else would have guessed it would and thus make it so that your book is not what people (mostly liberals) expect it to be.</p> </blockquote> <p>And in a follow-up email:</p> <blockquote> <p>Oh yeah, again from the Chomsky-fan reader of your book:<br /><br />the only quibble I have of your book is that political campaigns based on soaring, emotive rhetoric and grand promises of change and revolution (as you identified in Fascist movements and many movements of American Liberalism and in the Left) are also present in Conservative movements as well, including Reagan's.<br /><br />I agree that such features are often negative and feel that politics in this country should be more dry and fact-driven rather than emotive and character-cult-driven.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me</strong>: First thanks for the first email. Re the second, I hear this sort of thing a lot. One one level, I think it's a fair criticism as far as it goes, but I'm not sure it goes very far. It's true, for example, that Reagan <a href="http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/19696?in=40:09&out=50:47">used stirring rhetoric</a> about making the world new again and building a shining city on a hill and all that. And if you're yearning for  purely "fact-driven" rhetoric, I can see why some of that would grate on you. But I don't believe you can take the "emotive" out of politics (nor do I think Chomsky is a  great exemplar of the effort to even try). Inspiring people  is a part of politics -- whether we like it or not -- and so I am more forgiving of inspiration that expands freedom and celebrates what is best about American culture. After all, only those inspired by the idea of liberty will fight to beat back tyranny.</p> <p>Similarly, a whole lot of nationalism is very, very, bad. A little nationalism is very, very, necessary and healthy. Nationalism depends on the "emotive" as the reader puts it and I see nothing wrong with that. Reagan's nationalism (I would argue) was aimed almost entirely at defeating the Soviet Union and expanding freedom. It may not have been a successful or as narrowly targeted as a perfectionist, rationalist, would like, but perfectionist-rationalist will always be disappointed by politics. Meanwhile, the emotive, soaring rhetoric of, say, Woodrow Wilson, was aimed at destroying our constitutional arrangements and expanding the state. These seem to me to be major distinctions. And putting Reagan in the same dustbin as Wilson simply because they both used "soaring rhetoric" hardly seems like the best way to organize our allegiances.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWFiY2ZiODk2NzExYjQ2NjJlZGY5ZGE5NzcwNjIwNGI= Mon, 18 May 2009 07:35:46 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMzOWI2YWQzNmJlNDZjZDYxZjBiNzVlMmJmZjMyNGU= A friend sends this:</p> <blockquote> <p>i've came across a lot of people ridiculing your book for, among other things, writing that "the white male is the jew of liberal fascism," in the context of your discussion of postmodern theory's influence in certain liberal circles. then i found this on chomsky's wikipedia page:<br /></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">Chomsky has also commented on critiques of "white male science," stating that they are much like the antisemitic and politically motivated attacks against "Jewish physics" used by the Nazis to denigrate research done by Jewish scientists during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik">Deutsche Physik </a>movement:<br /><br />In fact, the entire idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_male_science">"white male science"</a> reminds me, I'm afraid, of "Jewish physics." Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from "white male science" because of their "culture or gender and race." I suspect that "surprise" would not be quite the proper word for their reaction.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#cite_note-45">46</a>]</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGMzOWI2YWQzNmJlNDZjZDYxZjBiNzVlMmJmZjMyNGU= Mon, 18 May 2009 07:17:37 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2RmOGM5NmQyYzllOGI4MmRmNDRiMzJmM2EwM2VhNDk= From the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124215896684211987.html#mod=djemalertNEWS">Wall Street Journal:</a></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>U.S. Eyes Bank Pay Overhaul<br />Administration in Early Talks on Ways to Curb Compensation Across Finance</strong></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2RmOGM5NmQyYzllOGI4MmRmNDRiMzJmM2EwM2VhNDk= Wed, 13 May 2009 09:03:28 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGYwYWZmY2UzZGVkNmZmOTg3MTUxZTVhY2I2YzAyMWM= Kyle-Anne Shiver at <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html">The American Thinker.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGYwYWZmY2UzZGVkNmZmOTg3MTUxZTVhY2I2YzAyMWM= Tue, 12 May 2009 14:02:53 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTYwMThhMGY3NGEyMWM5NWFhYzFiODBjZTk5NTcyZGI= Here's a really<a href="http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/139825"> perfectly distilled bit of stereotypical idiocy</a> about the threat from the oogy-boogy-gun-loving-Right by Sara Robinson of the Campaign for America's Future . It's funny how I thought it was cribbed from David Neiwert and all of his campus coffeehouse philosophizing and -- lo and behold -- on page two the author reveals she is a colleague of Neiwert's. It's tiresome overheated nonsense that actually fits the us vs. them paranoia she ascribes to the Right better than most of the stuff you'll ever find on the Right.</p> <p><strong>Update</strong>: A reader is not well-pleased:</p> <blockquote> <p>Curse you Jonah.  Your LF blog caused me to read the Sara Robinson article to which you linked.<br /> <br />My eyes are now dribbling out of my sockets as if I were a Hiroshima blast victim.<br /> <br />Seriously, you need a stronger warning about how horribly illogical, paranoid and stupid this article is.  I only made it through page two.<br /> <br />I am going home to drink a glass of wine and recover.<br /> <br />Love the book and the columns.  Keep up the good fight.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTYwMThhMGY3NGEyMWM5NWFhYzFiODBjZTk5NTcyZGI= Wed, 06 May 2009 18:17:43 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmJjNjYyZTZiYzJhZjdlYWE4MDJjZDI2MzJiODIzN2E= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Hi—<br /><br />A couple months ago I took my teenager, a freshman in high school, to hear your lecture to the Leadership Program of the Rockies at the Broadmoor Hotel. I thought at the time your talk made a great impression on him, and now I know it did. He came home from school the other day chortling about his “take-down” of what he described as “the liberal at the lunch table.”<br /><br />Seems someone alleged Obama has socialist tendencies…The liberal student retorted, “At least he’s not a fascist, like Bush!”<br /><br />My son James, who has been taught always to ask for examples when arguing with someone’s opinion, asked what, exactly were Bush’s fascist policies? Liberal student couldn’t come up with any, but sputtered that Fox News was full of lies (isn’t it amazing that even teenagers resort to this non sequitur when challenged?), so James asked for examples of Fox’s dishonesty. Here I gather the sputtering and stammering became more pronounced.<br /><br />But the best part was when my son said, “And then I had to go into the whole thing since they didn’t understand socialism and fascism.” <br /><br />What whole thing, I asked. <br /><br />“You know, the whole thing we heard in that guy’s  [that’s you] speech. About Mussolini, and how he was trying to nationalize things, and that nationalizing something means socializing it, and the Nazis were actually the National Socialist party and that Obama is taking over the banks and car industry and healthcare and that is anti-capitalist and more like fascism than anything they could tell me Bush did.”<br /><br />Not your most eloquent fan, perhaps, but a pretty serious application of your arguments for a 15-year-old!</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmJjNjYyZTZiYzJhZjdlYWE4MDJjZDI2MzJiODIzN2E= Fri, 01 May 2009 10:17:54 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWFkMjAyMDhhZGE4NDFiNzRkYjJmMjI0MGUxMWM3OTI= <a href="http://robinphillips.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-engineering-and-dark-side-of.html">From Robin's Readings and Reflections:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>To an outsider, the Fernald school in Waltham Massachusetts looked like any other educational institution. During the school’s hay day in the 1920’s and 30’s, few passers-by would have guessed the dark secret lurking behind the brick walls - a secret penetrating to the heart of American liberalism.<br /><br />Fernald was no ordinary school. Set up in 1848 with funds from the Massachusetts State Legislature, the institution was designed for the incarceration of “feeble-minded” children. Throughout the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of low-intelligence (though not necessarily retarded) children were warehoused at Fernald in unspeakable conditions. Treated like animals and denied any affection, these “human weeds” were considered genetically inferior from the rest of society.</p> <p>In his book The State Boys Rebellion, Michael D'Antonio shows that one of the purposes behind the Fernald school was to prevent these “idiots” from reproducing and diluting the gene pool. Margaret Sanger, icon of the American left and founder of Planned Parenthood, put it even more succinctly: “The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.”<br /><br />It was not until the 1960s that the school began releasing their children to live in the outside world.</p> </blockquote> <p>It goes on to mention LF.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWFkMjAyMDhhZGE4NDFiNzRkYjJmMjI0MGUxMWM3OTI= Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:35:40 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGVlZTY0Y2E5Yjc0OTg3MzU1NWE5NWU0YWQxZjUzYzU= A regular theme from liberal critics of my book is the effort to claim that liberals never really make ad Hitlerum arguments about conservatives. Michael Tomasky, Tim Noah, Hendrick Hertzberg and others have offered very lame version of this argument. <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkyZmQzZDc3NjU3NGIwNmY3MTIyMDU0OGIyZDZkMWM=">Hertzberg</a> recently wrote "the lefties [of yesteryear] who cried 'fascism' were marginal cranks, without the slightest influence in the Democratic Party or any Democratic Administration."As I've pointed out numerous times now, this means that the cream of the Democratic Party and the Left over the last 60 years were "marginal cranks."<br /></p> <p>Anyway, a reader sent me these <a href="http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_12-2009_04_18.shtml#1240112465">Jim Lindgren "blast from the past" posts on the Volokh Conspiracy</a> from a couple weeks ago. Definitely worth reading.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGVlZTY0Y2E5Yjc0OTg3MzU1NWE5NWU0YWQxZjUzYzU= Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:59:01 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE2MmQzMTcyMmYxMmZlNDAxMzU0NjFlMDBjZmE2Mzk= A particularly edifying one, from a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br />I, for one, am ready to listen to any argument showing the connections between pragmatism and fascism, so blast away.<br /><br />But I would like to make  points -- just in case you haven't already addressed them:<br /><br />One, the "will to believe" paper, according to James himself, is not pragmatism.  At least, he explicitly says that it is not part of his exposition on the particular doctrine he calls pragmatism.  He clearly felt that it was a paper that stood by itself.  the merit of the paper is in exposing the self-defeating character and defeasibility conditions of a positivistic evidentialism.  He insisted that one really had to suspend judgment if evidence was not sufficient unless certain conditions were really satisfied.  Example, an event really had to be a crisis, not just be spun like one, to justify immediate action prior to all the evidence being in.<br /><br />Two, as Nicholas Rescher points out, there is a pragmatism of the Left and a pragmatism of the Right, where "Left" and "Right" refer more to philosophical persuasions rather than political ones.  Both and Susan Haack are philosophers in the American pragmatic tradition that are concerned that Rorty has stolen the microphone.  Rescher points out that this distinction was already apparent in the difference between James (the first "left wing pragmatist") and Charles Sanders Pierce (the first "right wing pragmatist") among the founders of the American pragmatist school of thought.  To oversimplify, the difference comes down to the difference between treating methods of inquiry as means to the end of understanding (the right) or as ends in themselves.  If the latter, then that leads to a plurality of different schemes all seen to be valuable for their subjective satisfaction to different people.  But if the former, then methods have consequences which serve as a basis for estimating their value and which lead to informed judgments about their role in understanding.  <br /><br />So I am wondering if different pragmatisms lead to different observations in relation to fascism.  Pragmatism is essentially empiricism and like empiricism depending on how you do it, it can lead either to Hume or to Aristotle.<br /><br />Cheering for you, John<br /><br />PS since i am writing I must say that I think that LF has gone from being "stimulating" to "mandatory".</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE2MmQzMTcyMmYxMmZlNDAxMzU0NjFlMDBjZmE2Mzk= Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:09:28 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTIzOWZmMGVlZWRjNzkzOWI1ZWU0ZTdiMTFiNDgyNWU= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>...I come across these days makes me think of Liberal Fascism.  To wit, the first paragraph of this <a href="http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=510e7c58-97be-444c-bb1e-54237811ba37">book review </a>in the latest TNR:</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />Not so long ago many historians saw Nazism mainly as a revolt against modernity, a call for a return to soil and Volk. Gordon Horwitz's book on wartime Lodz lends support to what has become a new scholarly consensus about the Third Reich: that it looked forward, not back. Hitler promised to build a new Germany that offered social benefits, educational opportunities, and cities that combined the benefits of modernity and technology with a proper regard for aesthetics, health, and culture. This new Germany would harness science--especially the biological sciences--to create a racially superior nation. Needless to say, such a vision had no place for Jews. <br /></p> <p>I think your book has a chance to become the Losing Ground of the "oughts".  It has influenced my own thinking enormously.  I'm honored to have met you briefly in Chicago where you signed my copy of Liberal Fascism.  Keep up the good work.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTIzOWZmMGVlZWRjNzkzOWI1ZWU0ZTdiMTFiNDgyNWU= Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:08:21 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjExNjcwNzQzNWMxNjE3MDg3MzY5Y2E2MjcwZDU5Zjg= From a longtime reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Two questions:<br /><br /> <br /><br />First, in view of recent Progressive chest-thumping demands for State decisions rooted in “science,” what did William James mean or imply back in 1906/7 when he said:<br /><br /> <br /><br /><em>Surely, in this field of truth it is the pragmatists and not the rationalists who are the more genuine defenders of the universe’s rationality. [William James, Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth, Lecture VI from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking in William James, Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 113]</em><br /><br /> <br /><br />Second, what is the philosophical connection between James’ Pragmatism and the purported neo-Hegelianism, organicism, and idealism of Mussolini’s intellectuals? Could it be found in this observation by Prof. Moss from the book review <a href="http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1363/article_detail.asp">[linked here].</a><br /><br /> <br />Note, too, that fascist ideology did not presuppose a coherence theory of truth. In the fascist account, what was true consisted in the most recent pronouncements either by il Duce or by his elite, regardless of consistency with past statements; in short, truth was the creative act of the uomo fascista. So coherence becomes irrelevant for fascist ideas, because truth depends on both the time when a statement is expressed and who expresses it. Here, in the idea of truth as willful creation by the elite or the uomo fascista, we can see the influence of 19th-century thinkers, especially Nietzsche.<br /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjExNjcwNzQzNWMxNjE3MDg3MzY5Y2E2MjcwZDU5Zjg= Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:08:15 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRhY2E1OWY3ODcxMGZkZmRmMmQ0NjE4M2NiZDgwZDk= I'm digging out from a day of travelling. I'm in LA now for a conference and some other stuff. But I thought I'd post some interesting email in response to my earlier post. I will try to address some of the points later on.</p> <blockquote> <p>Still reading...<br /><br />I'd like to make a distinction between CS Peirce's Pragmatism, and that of James, Dewey, et al. Peirce  came to call his version "Pragmaticism" to distinguish it from James' . I don't think Peirce would have agreed that his pragmatism had anything to do with destroying meaning or truth. On the contrary, he argued that the truth of scientific theories could always be called into question by new observations and discoveries, but at the end there is truth. He argued that truth could be hidden for a long time, but it would always be discovered. What passes for Pragmatism is poorly understood Peirce. I don't think most Peirce scholars liked Louis Menand's "The Metaphysical Club" because he didn't understand Peirce, either.<br /><br />Something that does occur to me, though, that maybe the progressives were attracted to Pragmatism, if not Pragmaticism, through Peirce's ideas on evolution. For Peirce, everything in the universe evolved, up to and including the laws of nature. Maybe pragmatism (not Pragmaticism) as a philosophical system, justified social darwinism for the Progressives.<br /><br />"Peirce makes everything in the phaneron evolutionary. The whole system evolves. Three figures from the history of culture loomed exceedingly large in the intellectual development of Peirce and in the cultural atmosphere of the period in which Peirce was most active: Hegel in philosophy, Lyell in geology, and Darwin (along with Alfred Russel Wallace) in biology. These thinkers, of course, all have a single theme in common:evolution. Hegel described an evolution of ideas, Lyell an evolution of geological structures, and Darwin an evolution of biological species and varieties. Peirce absorbed it all. Peirce's entire thinking, early on and later, is permeated with the evolutionary idea, which he extended generally, that is to say, beyond the confines of any particular subject matter. For Peirce, the entire universe and everything in it is an evolutionary product. indeed, he conceived that even the most firmly entrenched of nature's habits (for example, even those habits typically called “natural laws”) have themselves evolved, and accordingly can and should be subjects of philosophical an scientific inquiry. One can sensibly seek, in Peirce's view, evolutionary explanations of the existence of particular natural laws. For Peirce, then, the entire phaneron (the world of appearances), as well as all the ongoing processes of its interpretation through mental significations, has evolved and is evolving."<br /><br />http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#prag<br /><br />I suppose the reason I find Peirce so attractive is this, although the description of Capitalism is not correct, in my view...<br /><br />"An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce's evolutionism is that in his thinking evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had both a social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing against the popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century, and a cosmic significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. Peirce even argued that being logical in some sense presupposes the ethics of self-sacrifice. The sort of social Darwinism and related thinking that constituted a supposed justification for the more repugnant practices of unbridled capitalism Peirce referred to as “The Gospel of Greed.”"<br /><br />http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#prag<br /><br />Too much of this, I'm afraid...</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRhY2E1OWY3ODcxMGZkZmRmMmQ0NjE4M2NiZDgwZDk= Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:08:08 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRjYmViNDhmYmFlYTg2NGYzMjEzYTdhZTE4MDI3NDU= This might of interest. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-strange-strange-story_b_136697.html">It's from by Johann Hari last Fall on the Huffington Post.</a> A reader just sent it to me. I think Hari is nuts to call Pym Fortuyn a fascist. But I think this bit makes a good point:</p> <blockquote> <p>So the idea of a gay fascist seems ridiculous. Yet when the British National Party - our own home-grown Holocaust-denying bigots - announced it was fielding an openly gay candidate in the European elections this June, dedicated followers of fascism didn't blink. The twisted truth is that gay men have been at the heart of every major fascist movement that ever was - including the gay-gassing, homo-cidal Third Reich. With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past thirty years have been gay. <strong>It's time to admit something. Fascism isn't something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is - in part, at least - a gay thing, and it's time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music. </strong></p> </blockquote> <p>What I like about the passage is that it recognizes that all "good" things don't go together. So much of the discussion of fascism boils down to fascism being the umbrella label for All Bad Things. <strong><br /></strong></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRjYmViNDhmYmFlYTg2NGYzMjEzYTdhZTE4MDI3NDU= Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:31:13 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2JjMzQ4ZjMzYTMwYzE3OThjNmRiMDlkMjExM2U5ZmM= Peter Berkowitz has an <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/425yustu.asp">interesting essay in the Weekly Standard</a> on Obama's pragmatism. In it, he argues that Obama's much-touted Pragmatism is deeply ideological. This is straight up my alley. So I figured, starting this morning, I'd start a series of posts on Pragmatism and liberalism and the F-word. There were a few subjects that I really went to school on when working on the book that didn't get their due in the final product. One was the treatment of Jews in Fascist Italy. Another was the interplay of Progressivism, Pragmatism and Fascism. Close readers of NRO might have noticed that while I was working on the book, I was obsessed for a while with Pragmatism (please note the capital "P"). See <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200501070750.asp">here</a>, <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTZjMGI0YTFlNzE0YTBjNmExMTIyNTJlOTZkYzQ2MzE=">here</a>, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2EyYmRkNTlmOGVhZGNlOGNiNGFiZGNkZmFjOTY3Nzg=">here</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200412170916.asp">here</a> for instance.</p> <p>Let's start with some intellectual history. One of the central arguments of the book is that American Progressivism was essentially a European import, with American characteristics -- though American Progressives also had a serious influence on Europe as well.  In the book, I call it an international "fascist moment" but if you want to call it a "statist moment" instead, that's fine with me.</p> <p>This is not a particularly controversial statement. There are scads of good liberal books on the interplay and co-development of European and American brands of statism. The cream of American Progressive intellectuals, for example,  either studied in Bismarck's Germany or studied under people who did. Here's a passage from the book:</p> <blockquote> <p>From the 1890s to World War I, it was simply understood that progressives in America were fighting the same fight as the various socialist and “new liberal” movements of Europe.21 William Allen<br />White, the famed Kansas progressive, declared in 1911, “We were parts, one of another, in the United States and Europe. Something was welding us into one social and economic whole with local political variations. It was Stubbs in Kansas, Jaurès in Paris, the Social Democrats [that is, the Socialists] in Germany, the Socialists in Belgium, and I should say the whole people in Holland, fighting a common cause.” When Jane Addams seconded Teddy Roosevelt’s nomination at the Progressive Party Convention in 1912, she declared,  “The new party has become the American exponent of a world-wide movement toward juster social conditions, a movement which the United States, lagging behind other great nations, has been unaccountably slow to embody in political action.”</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote> <p>In 1915, as war loomed, a writer in <em>The New Republic</em> observed:</p> <blockquote> <p><br />It is somewhat difficult to recall that eighteen months ago Germany was to the American state socialist what free America had been to the European liberal in the early nineteenth century—a country where the heart's desire had been enacted into law, a country where labor won comfort and security, where privileges and obligations were held in true correlation. Each returned voyager brought back tales of order and culture and efficiency more marvelous than the last. <br /></p> </blockquote> <p>A major glue of this international moment was Pragmatism. In Germany, Pragmatism was a more Nietzschean affair. But as Richard Rorty argued vigorously, the similarities and ties between American Pragmatism and German deconstructionism and post-structuralism were profound. According to Rorty, James and Nietzsche and  Dewey and Heidegger,  were parallel thinkers who agreed in their prescriptive understanding that the age of Socratic man was over, but disagreed about what that meant for the future. In short, the American and German post-Socratics agreed on philosophical means but diverged sharply on philosophical ends. There's much that I liked about Rorty's analysis, and some that I disagreed with. But it was supremely convenient for the arguments I wanted to make that one of America's foremost liberal philosophers basically agreed with me (I wish I had known when I was writing the book that Rorty was Rauschenbusch's <a href="http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com/2007/06/richard-rorty-rip.html">grandson</a>) and was simultaneously desperate to revive the American Progressive tradition of Herbert Croly and Richard Ely.</p> <p>Anyway, in Italy, Pragmatism became an obsession among the early nationalist intellectuals who helped lay the ground work for fascism. Mussolini said more than once that William James was one of the three most important philosophical influences in his life (though he was probably embellishing for American audiences). He sold many of his policies as applications of William James' idea of the "moral equivalent of war" -- just as FDR had done with his New Deal.</p> <p>Moreover,  Georges Sorel, the philosophic father of both Italian Fascism and Leninism, was a devout follower of James. It's been said many times that Sorel's great accomplishment was to marry James' "Will to Believe" and Nietzsche's "Will to Power." Moreover, the influence worked both ways. James was hugely influenced by the Italian Pragmatists. He deeply admired Giuseppe Prezzolini -- later a New Republic contributor and muckety-muck at Columbia University's pro-fascist Casa Italiana. In a letter to the philosopher FCS Schiller James wrote of Giovanni Papini: "Papini is a Jewel! To think of that little Dago putting himself ahead of every one of us … at a single stride.” </p> <p>The relationship between Pragmatism and Statism is hard for some to see at first blush. But it boils down to the fact that the Progressives used Pragmatic philosophy (correctly or not) to destroy the Old Order of liberal democracy. It was a tool, sometimes sledgehammer, sometimes scalpel, aimed at dismantling the "old ideas" that held back the free exercise of will by social planners and others who wanted to start the world over at year zero, or at least to reshuffle the existing deck for a "new deal."</p> <p>More later, if any one is still reading.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2JjMzQ4ZjMzYTMwYzE3OThjNmRiMDlkMjExM2U5ZmM= Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:00:34 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTVkMmRhYjc3ZGJjN2QwZmJmZDVjMjdlN2M0NDg5NzE= <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/24/jc-penney-catches-hope-and-change-fever/">At JC Penney</a>.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTVkMmRhYjc3ZGJjN2QwZmJmZDVjMjdlN2M0NDg5NzE= Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:56:01 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmU2MWY2ZGIwNGZiYTc2ZjFkNWRiNjViN2VkMjgwMzc= Britain is turning into a soft-totalitarian state. So says <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25361297-7583,00.html?from=public_rss">Hal G.P. Colebatch:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.<br /><br />There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.<br /><br />Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.<br /><br />The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the "global baggage of empire" was linked to soccer violence by "racist and xenophobic white males". He claimed the English "propensity for violence" was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were "potentially very aggressive".<br /><br />In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.<br /><br />Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government's anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: "If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: "If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings." It took him five years to clear his name.<br /><br />Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!" Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form."</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmU2MWY2ZGIwNGZiYTc2ZjFkNWRiNjViN2VkMjgwMzc= Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:39:15 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWRiYjI4OGJlNDdhNTE2ZTg0MjBiMmEyMzQxNzIyNWU= Paul Rahe is crazy smart, on this there can be no debate. He wrote one of my favorite essays ever written -- on American and the Godfather (I <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZDk0NmQ4YzRkZjY5NTNkNWVhN2UwYWYwZGQ3ZmRjYmI=">wrote</a> about it years ago). Rahe's got a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/030014492X/ref=nosim/nationalreviewon">new book </a>out on "Soft Despotism." I have it and plan to read it when I get a chance. In the meantime, here's Rahe on John Miller's <a href="http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/post/?q=N2QxNjM2NGZkZmI3M2MxNTRkZDEyOWQxMTEwOWViY2M=">"Between the Covers." </a></p> <p>Liberal Fascism pops up in the second question.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWRiYjI4OGJlNDdhNTE2ZTg0MjBiMmEyMzQxNzIyNWU= Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:58:30 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2EyOTU5ZDVhMzExMzQyZjdkZWVmOWMwYzhmZjYyM2Y= The Obama administration may be trying to take over the banks for the long term. As Larry Kudlow <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2EzYjE0MGQ5NmUyM2JjZGU4MmExNTNiNmM1NGE4MTA=">writes</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>White House and Treasury officials are now talking about turning government TARP loans into common stock for the 19 biggest banks. It’s clearly a backdoor path to nationalization, as Uncle Sam would be the largest shareholder in these institutions. What’s more, it’s not at all clear that the administration will even let certain banks pay down their TARP loans.<br /><br />This is government intervention into the private sector on a grand scale. It is financial/industrial policy. Banks will be kept on a very short leash regarding compensation, loans, credit-card issuance, mergers, acquisitions, and all the rest.<br /><br />Not surprisingly, stocks opened down 200 points today — with banks leading the freefall — and finished down about 300 points.<br /><br />Government control of the banks is going to get worse. Team Obama won’t let go without a fight. And the hook may well be the so-called economic stress tests that will show certain big banks in need of more capital. The Treasury (a.k.a. the taxpayer) already owns 36 percent of Citigroup’s common stock, a position that comes with full voting rights. Now it looks like more of this is on the way.</p> </blockquote> <p>Again. It's not socialism. It's <a href="http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/04/obama_and_the_reawakening_of_c.html">corporatism</a>.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2EyOTU5ZDVhMzExMzQyZjdkZWVmOWMwYzhmZjYyM2Y= Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:48:53 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGY2ZmU5NTZmYWJjOGI5N2QwZjU0YzZhODhiYzI0Mzk= FWIW, Random House just let me know the book has gone into its 18th printing in hardcover. Not too shabby.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGY2ZmU5NTZmYWJjOGI5N2QwZjU0YzZhODhiYzI0Mzk= Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:45:47 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGM5OGM3YTA3NWQ3ZjRkZDgwY2FmZmY5YjUxN2NjNTQ= <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/us/politics/20caucus.html?_r=2">LF in the NYT:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>"The epithet, commonly associated with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, gained new currency among conservatives with the publication of Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 book, “Liberal Fascism.” This spring, an article in The American Spectator titled “Il Duce, Redux?” called Mr. Obama’s goals, language and conception of government “straight out of Mussolini’s playbook.”</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGM5OGM3YTA3NWQ3ZjRkZDgwY2FmZmY5YjUxN2NjNTQ= Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:48:34 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjkwOTNhNmNiY2YwZWEzOWFjZWNmNGI5M2M4ZTU1MDA= Willian Doino, co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pius-War-Responses-Critics-XII/dp/0739109065/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240243275&sr=1-1">The Pius War</a>, sends this nice note:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Mr. Goldberg--I was late purchasing your book, Liberal Fascism, and even later discovering your LF blog, but noted with interest your recent discussion about the film, "Valkyrie," and how much conservatives can lay claim to the anti-Nazi German Resistance--I touched upon some of these themes in a <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1273">review of that film</a> (for First Things) earlier this year--I attach my review, via this link, in case you're interested.</p> <p><br />As for your book, it is clearly a massive accomplishment, though obviously debatable in parts. My friend, the late Austrian political scientist Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn--one of WFB's early contributors at NR, whom I'm sure you're familiar with--wrote about the Left's fascist/totalitarian tendencies in his masterpiece, Leftism Revisted; and what Liberal Fascism does, I believe, is extend and expand upon that theme, for our own generation--with original insights, and a powerful, sustained argument. Anyone who wants to associate Fascism exclusively with the Right will now have to contend with your book.</p> <p><br />The only criticism I have of LF -and perhaps this was beyond its scope--is the omission of any extended discussion of the "fascist" charge levelled against the Christian Churches--and, in particular, the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII during WW II. This is a raging controversy, which the Left often invokes to assail the Right, but it is based more on emotion and mythology than fact. (Indeed, the latest scholarship is very much on Pius XII's side here--see, for example, Michael Burleigh's acclaimed book, Sacred Causes). I've spent a considerable amount of my time on these issues (and published an 80,000 annotated bibliography on Pius in the anthology, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII [edited by David Dalin and Joseph Bottum], which was reviewed--favorably, I'm pleased to say-- in National Review, Feb 14, 2005)--if you're interested in this subject, or plan to write about it in the future, you might find our anthology (I can send you a copy) and/or my long critique of historian Saul Friedlander--also published by First Things--of interest; here is a link to my essay/review of Friedlander's work, focusing on the papacy and the Holocaust (the <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=802">essay</a> itself contains many links within it, which you may want to reference as well).<br />I think Friedlander is a great historian, but like many great historians, he has a blindspot about conservatives, Pius XII and the Catholic Church--and their relationship to fascism and Nazism. If conservatives want to defend themselves against the charge of being "fascistic," they should know how to defend the papacy--which has been one of conservatism's greatest friends.</p> <p>Sincerely, William Doino</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me: </strong>Yes, I'm deeply indebted to Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn, his book was very useful to me (as I think I've mentioned around here before).</p> <p>As for the Church's treatment in LF, I agree it's a worthwhile subject. I waded into it just enough while researching the book, that I decided that I couldn't do it justice in the space available. Lots of fascinating and important subjects fell by the wayside. One of my favorites, the Italian treatment of Jews in Mussolini's Italy, started as a chapter and ended up being a few paragraphs.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjkwOTNhNmNiY2YwZWEzOWFjZWNmNGI5M2M4ZTU1MDA= Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:06:16 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmIzOWM4NDkyODQwYmIwYjhkOGMzZDY0NGUwNDdlMjU= I posted this in the Corner already, but it's relevant enough I figured I'd post it here too.</p> <p>Amidst all of the hooplah, I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals. Here are the most frequent complaints and my responses.</p> <p>1. <em>All of this tyranny talk is overheated and idiotic.</em></p> <p>Well, some of it surely is. But look. According to that reason video I posted below, Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude, because all of your productive labor would be going to the government. You would have no resources of your own to provide for the life you wanted. Instead the government would provide you not with what you <em>want</em>, but what the government <em>decides you need</em>.</p> <p>That sounds like a kind of tyranny to me.</p> <p>And, I think if we had to work 364 days a year it would still be a kind of serfdom (after all, serfs were allowed a little plot of their own). Ditto 363 days, 362 days, 361 days etc. Now, at some point the difference of degree becomes a difference in kind; working one day a year to pay for the government doesn't sound oppressive to me. But it seems to me that it's hardly absurd to think that 103 days a year is too much, or to believe that if that number goes even higher, we're losing something important.</p> <p>I would also add that it's sort of crazy for liberals to equate government hand-outs (positive liberty, FDR's economic bill of rights and all that) with "freedom" but to equate the desire to keep more of the money you make yourself with greed and oppression of some kind. Money does make all sorts of liberties possible (you have to pay for your megaphone and all that). But government money only pays for the "liberties" the government thinks you should have, and therefore it can determine how you exercise them. That turns liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state.</p> <p>2. <em>The original tea parties were about taxation without representation, today's spending is the result of Democrats winning elections, so it's taxation with representation.</em></p> <p>There's some fairness to this objection. But one response would be that Democrats are tripling the debt, which means that generations of Americans not yet born will be taxed to pay for spending today. That is a kind of taxation without representation.</p> <p>A second, more political than philosophical objection, would be that today's spending is being achieved under false pretenses. Obama says he's spending this money to fix a crisis, but much of his spending has nothing to do with the crisis but with shopworn liberal action items. However, since Obama campaigned on many of these items, I don't think it amounts to taxation without representation. But it does seem like the sort of duplicity worth a protest or two.</p> <p>3. <em>These protests are unpatriotic astroturfing by plutocrats.</em></p> <p>So much for "dissent is the highest form of patriotism"!</p> <p>I find it sort of amazing that when groups like ANSWER, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_Eisley_Cantina">Mos Eisley cantina</a> of America-hating nut cases, take to the streets it's a full-flowering of democracy in action. When ACORN pays their ragamuffins to protest, or when Rainbow/PUSH shakes down businesses through racial extortion, it's the sort of direct democratic action Thomas Paine dreamed of. And when labor unions pay people to protest, it's populist. But when a bunch of independent Americans, talk show hosts and email campaigners organize hundreds of protests around the country, it's astroturfing.</p> <p>4. <em>Republicans are hypocrites for suddenly caring about deficits.</em></p> <p>Well, maybe. But then so are liberals for<em> suddenly not caring about deficits. (</em>That part always gets left out.)<em><br /> </em></p> <p>Moreover, I don't get it. Republicans didn't care enough about the deficit when it went up a "little" under Bush (to pay for a war), therefore they can't complain when Obama sends it through the stratosphere (to pay for socialized medicine)? How does that work? If my wife spends too much on a shopping trip, does that mean she can't complain if I lose our house on a trip to Vegas?</p> <p>5.<em> The populist anger out there is the real face of America's homegrown fascism.</em></p> <p>Sigh. While I think Rick Perry's secession talk is idiotic and unfortunate (even accounting for Texas' unique history), I am at a loss as to how any of this stuff smacks of fascism. Even Perry is talking in the context of the federal government doing too much, taking away too much liberty, getting too involved in local communities and interfering too much with the individual.</p> <p>How do I say this so people will understand? <strong>Fascism isn't a libertarian doctrine</strong>! It just isn't, never will be and it can't be cast as one. Anarchism, secessionism, extreme localism or rampant individualism may be bad, evil, wrong, stupid, selfish and all sorts of other things (though not by my lights). But they have nothing to do with a totalitarian vision of the state where individuals and institutions alike must march in step and take orders from the government.</p> <p>If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty.</p> <p>Update: From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah, you say:<br /><br /> <br /><br />Moreover, I don't get it. Republicans didn't care enough about the deficit when it went up a "little" under Bush (to pay for a war).<br /><br /> <br /><br />A LITTLE??  COME ON!!<br /><br /> <br /><br />Have a great weekend.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me</strong>: Well, I put a "little" in quotation marks to convey the point that it wasn't literally a little. But it is a little compared to what Obama's deficits will be.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmIzOWM4NDkyODQwYmIwYjhkOGMzZDY0NGUwNDdlMjU= Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:00:26 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlMzliYzMxMGY1ZWZlZTQxMzQ4NTA1YzE2NzMwNzE= A reader sent this. The Atlantic article looks very interesting:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br />I'll tell you, in case no one else has, about an interesting admission made in an article in the latest The Atlantic called <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/nazi-germany">"Hitler's Co-Conspirators":</a></p> <p><br /><em>For those with the exceedingly rare courage to support an acute and active conscience—most notably, the conservative aristocratic officers, including Claus von Stauffenberg, behind the July 1944 plot against the Nazi regime—the war of extermination was the Third Reich’s irredeemable disgrace. It was a crime that demanded the Nazis’ overthrow and brought upon Germany a “blood guilt” (the term used almost ritualistically) that could not be expunged. The members of that humane, honorable, retrograde bunch embraced political attitudes ranging from the romantic reactionary to the quasi-corporatist to the quasi-authoritarian. They “bore some of the responsibility for the rise of Nazi rule,” as the historian Winfried Heinemann remarks in Germany and the Second World War, but “they also produced the only resistance that presented any real threat.” (For those dedicated to liberal democratic values—and aren't we all?—history provides few better lessons of the fact that we must take, and embrace, our heroes where we can find them.)</em></p> <p><br />Maybe you were right after all about that whole Conservatives-Aren't-Nazis thang.<br /><br />Cheers,</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlMzliYzMxMGY1ZWZlZTQxMzQ4NTA1YzE2NzMwNzE= Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:14:30 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTg5YTFkZDc5ZDk3NzE2MDRhZmIzODdiOTg3Mzg1NTE= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>I'm certainly no expert, but the German aristocracy was inclined towards Nazi ideology to the extent that the Nazi Party was ethnically nationalist and authoritarian, rather than populist and totalitarian. Liah Greenfeld, the Harvard sociologist (Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity), shows that nationalism in Germany, to which the aristocracy was won over after the Napoleonic occupation, was an ideology of Nietzschean "ressentiment" against the West--a transvaluation of values to which Marx also was not immune. It championed collectivism over "bourgeois" individualism, statism over market capitalism, (ethnic) "racism" over humanism, spontaneity over individual reason, and the general will over individual liberty and participatory government. And it glorified martial valor. Given the traditional aristocratic suspicion about democratic movements, this toxic stew was like catnip. It was not surprising, therefore, that Junkers went along for the ride with Hitler, but to the extent they became disillusioned I doubt it was because they had secretly harbored liberal sympathies. <br /><br />Thankß for all you do.</p> </blockquote> <p>Again, I'd need to read up more on the specific personalities to say categorically none of them had liberal (i.e. democratic) sympathies. But the point of the Junker/Aristocratic animosity is not to say that these people were the wellsping of Jeffersonian democracy in Germany. No, my point has always been that they clung to a reservoir of pre-Nazi <em>patriotism</em>. As John Lukacs has noted to great effect, Hitler insisted that he was a nationalist, but not a patriot. The aristocracy, for all its flaws, maintained a sense of noblese oblige, of decency, of tradition and a notion that being German was something more than the animalistic will to power of the SS types. Nazism was crass. Nazis did things noblemen do not do.</p> <p>Remember, Hitler despised what he considered to be bourgeois values. Admittedly, the bourgeois and the aristocracy did not share identical values, but Hitler's dislike for both had the same source: He considered himself a revolutionary. He believed the Social Democrats' greatest accomplishment was the destruction of the monarchy, which he had no interest whatsoever in restoring.</p> <p>This is all an important conservative point, I think. The left tends to see in tradition a collection of bigotries outliving their relevance. But tradition is a great source for humane values. Germany would have been better off if its best traditions had been stronger in the face of Nazism.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTg5YTFkZDc5ZDk3NzE2MDRhZmIzODdiOTg3Mzg1NTE= Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:04:00 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGYzMjE5OTM1NmIyN2ZlMTI4OTAzMDJmNTdlMzdkNWU= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>I am a bit surprised that the "knowledgeable reader" writing about the "good Prussians" who tried to oppose Hitler does not mention at all the name of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who alone was probably responsible for more anti-Nazi activities than the rest of opposition put together. Moreover, if even a part of the information given here<br /><br />http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/canaris.html<br /><br />or here<br /><br />http://www.canaris.dk/<br /><br />is correct than one can't argue that Canris's motives cannot be attributed simply to a realization that Hitler was going to loose the war. Please note in particular this passage:<br /></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;">Admiral Canaris was an eye-witness to the killing of civilians in Poland. At Bedzin, SS troops pushed 200 Jews into a synagogueand then set it aflame. They all burned to death. Canaris was shocked. On 10 September, 1939, he had traveled to the front to watch the German Army in action. Wherever he went, his intelligence officers told him of an orgy of massacre. Two days later, he went to Hitler’s headquarters train, the Amerika, in Upper Silesia, to protest. He first saw General Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Armed Forces High Command. “I have information,” Canaris told Keitel, “that mass executions are being planned in Poland and that members of the Polish nobility and the clergy have been singled out for extermination.”<br /><br />Canaris told Keitel, “The world will one day hold the Wehrmacht responsible for these methods since these things are taking place under its nose.” But Keitel urged Canaris to take the matter no further.<br /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGYzMjE5OTM1NmIyN2ZlMTI4OTAzMDJmNTdlMzdkNWU= Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:51:36 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE0YmZlMzc3NmMwNjdmYmIwMzY4M2I5MGFiMWZhNGY= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Jonah,<br /><br />Not to belabor the point concerning the “good Germans” who opposed the Nazis, but the more I study the history of the Prussians, the less I am inclined to believe their post-World War II version of things. Yes, there were men of aristocratic lineage such as the Georg von Moltke, who paid the ultimate price. Other notable Prussians from the Junker class who were executed were Field Marshal von Witzleben, General Ludwig Beck, and Major von Treskow. But an overwhelming number of senior Prussian officers sat on the fence and waited to see how the war transpired before they would throw in their hats. Generals von Braunstitsch and Halder (both ran the Army from 1939 through 1941-42) had more than ample opportunities to protest Hitler. These 2 men planned and executed Hitler’s most victorious campaigns and never once questioned his plans for the eradication of the Poles, nor Hitler’s notorious Commissar Order. Germany’s most able field commander, Field Marshall von Manstein, was present with other senior officers in an August 1939 meeting with Hitler, in which Hitler outlined his bloody plans for the Polish civilians. Goering was so happy he actually danced a jig. Manstein did record this meeting in his memoirs and only complained about Goering’s attire and behavior. Apparently, the mass execution of Polish Jews and civilian elites didn’t bother anyone in the least.<br /><br />I do admit that General Beck was planning a coup before the invasion of the Sudetenland, but the coup was forestalled by Chamberlin’s appeasement. Yet, even this should be seen in light of Beck’s concern about fighting a potential 2 front war, and not about the rights of the Czechs. The Prussians only became concerned and planned a coup when it became obvious they were going to lose the war. <br /><br />After the war there were many Prussian officers who attempted to rewrite history. They attempted to convince the world that they represented all that was best in the Germans - which they actually had much in common with Englishmen and Americans. They were after all conservative Lutherans who only wanted what was best for their country. They were victims of Hitler just like everyone else. The Cold War made this kind of revisionism necessary, I suppose. After the War, Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt was made into an icon - the last of the Prussian Old Breed, an officer and gentleman. Very few people outside of Russia even mention that in this “gentleman’s” area of operation whole-sale slaughter of Ukrainians and Jews occurred.<br /><br />The truth be known, the Prussians never really were that hot about democracy. The German prime ministers of the Weimar Era never really knew if they could count on the support of the Junkers. The Prussian aristocracy despised democracy, and welcomed the Nazis at least initially. Hitler was the only major German politician who promised to break the Versailles Treaty, and return the German Army to its glorious past. The Prussians made a deal with the Devil and even stood down when Hitler carried out his bloody Night of the Long Knives murders. (They even failed to utter a word of protest when the Nazis butchered one of their own -retired General Kurt von Schleicher). The Prussians no doubt were willing to go to great lengths to get what they wanted. It is ironic how a class of men, whose lineage goes back before the Hohenzollern Dynasty, was more than willing to partner with fascist revolutionaries.</p> </blockquote> <p>Me: This readers knows more about some of this stuff than I do. I do know that there was a very active effort to use the plot to kill Hitler as a useable past after the war. I'm sure that story is more romantic than the reality. Though you can hardly blame the German people for wanting to find a past that let them off the hook, if only a little.</p> <p>I agree that "the Prussians" made a deal with the devil. But, as I hope I at least suggest in my book, I think that deal stems in no small part from the deal they -- and the rest of Germany -- made with Bismarck fifty years earlier. Thanks to Bismarck, the democratic tradition in Germany was strangled as he delivered his "socialism from above." By the time Hitler came around, much of the fascist bargain had already been made.</p> <p>Update: A friend sends this along:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>[The reader above wrote:]It is ironic how a class of men, whose lineage goes back before the Hohenzollern Dynasty, was more than willing to partner with fascist revolutionaries.</em><br /><br />It's only superficially ironic. It actually came out of a profound confluence of goals, even if they might have dissented on Hitler's domestic program. The Junkers—the group of Prussians we're talking about here—were above all a military aristocracy. They dominated the Prussian Army, the military of the Kaiserreich, the General Staff, and indeed, the upper eschelons of the Nazi Wehrmacht, as Hitler (unlike Stalin) was smart enough to leave in place the guys who knew how the place worked.<br /><br />My non-expert, but reasonably informed, take is that political systems, per se, mattered not a whit to the Junkers, outside of an aristocratic disdain for democracy (and hence the Weimar Republic). When Hitler came along offering a more authoritarian system, this likely struck them as the restoration of being able to have the "right people" in unfettered charge—even if the Nazis themselves were a bunch of jumped-up, lunatic proles.<br /><br />As military aristocrats whose overriding value was honor, the Junkers were obsessed with avenging the shameful defeat of 1918. Whether or not any given person believed the Dolchstoßlegende or understood that they had lost the war on the ground, their absolute determination was to win the next one—which entailed having a next one. And Hitler, pretty much alone on the scene, was promoting a reinvigoration of the German military—and indeed the militarization of Germany tout court. So whatever distaste or disdain the Junkers might have had for Hitler and Nazism as revolutionary fascism—the end justified the means.<br /><br />There were exceptions to be sure (like Stauffenburg, a Junker on his mother's side, but significantly a Bavarian Catholic by upbringing, though even he was initially impressed with Hitler's apparent military acumen); but my sense is that because the Junkers wanted another shot at the hated English and French, they were more than willing to throw their lot in with the Austrian paperhanger.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjE0YmZlMzc3NmMwNjdmYmIwMzY4M2I5MGFiMWZhNGY= Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:06:22 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDFkOTczNDFjOTNkZjFhZjVlNzRjNDllY2ZkZjIzOGQ= <a href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=A1D8C917-18FE-70B2-A87EF3D3C781286B">Of course, Big Business finds a partner in Obama:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found a surprising number of places<br />to agree with President Barack Obama’s agenda and is negotiating the<br />specifics in daily meetings with the Treasury Department, the West<br />Wing and Capitol Hill.<br /><br />The Chamber, which calls itself “the voice of business,” is adapting<br />to Democratic control of the House, Senate and White House by finding<br />areas of agreement on health care reform and financial services<br />regulation, then fighting to prevent additions that could hurt the<br />group’s members. The Chamber is even willing to talk about climate<br />change legislation, although reaching agreement there will be harder.<br /><br />Thomas Donohue, the chamber’s gregarious president and chief executive<br />officer, said in an interview with POLITICO that his formidable<br />grass-roots and paid lobbying efforts are aimed at shaping, rather<br />than killing, legislation.<br /></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDFkOTczNDFjOTNkZjFhZjVlNzRjNDllY2ZkZjIzOGQ= Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:46:08 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGE4NzVlMmE5ZTIyZDQyZTVmYjExNzlkOWNlNzAxN2U= Zoiks.  As of 9:12 pm. Saturday night the hardcover version of LF is #23. The paperback -- out in June -- is 102. Thank you Glenn Beck.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGE4NzVlMmE5ZTIyZDQyZTVmYjExNzlkOWNlNzAxN2U= Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:14:02 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA4NTI2YzNlMGIwOGNiZmVjNGIzNjM4ZGJkZjk4N2I= <a href="http://thestraighthype.blogspot.com/2009/04/joys-of-jonah-blogging-by-numbers-time.html">The Straight Hype on yours truly.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA4NTI2YzNlMGIwOGNiZmVjNGIzNjM4ZGJkZjk4N2I= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:07:29 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGJmY2UxNTRjZTM0ODE5OTRiMjA2NDI5NjYzMDJhNjQ= This reader makes a point I think I made in here before, but he does it well:</p> <blockquote> <p>Have you read Joachim Fest's "Plotting Hitler's Death?"<br /> <br />It's a fascinating study of the German resistance from 1933-1945. He explicitly points out that the National Socialist movement was first and foremost a socialist movement. He also presents a fascinating look at why there was little resistance to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship - the opposition was prepared to resist a coup (the SDU in fact had formed a party militia larger than the Nazi SA) but were caught off guard when Hitler took control using constitutional forms - which he did by playing on the economic crisis of the Depression, resentment over the Treaty of Versailles, and dissatisfaction with gridlock in the Weimer parliament. (sound familiar?)<br /> <br />The other fascinating and telling thing is the composition of the Kriesenau circle and other members of the resistance core. They came from three major groups - conservative politicians and aristocracy of the Hohenzollern period (the Mayor of Liepzig, General Beck, etc.), evangelical Protestants motivated by religious objection to the Nazis (Martin Niemoeller, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Helmut von Moltke, etc.), and the military (Treckow, Canaris, Stauffenberg, etc). Of course, some overlap occurred - Stauffenberg, for example, could fit in any of the groups, von Moltke was a member of the Prussian aristocracy as well as an evangelical leader, etc. The point, however, is that each of the clusters is distinctively a group that would be considered part of the modern RIGHT, not the left. Granted, much of the communist leadership was sent to places like Buchenwald by the end of 1933, but the Left-wing constituencies - the labor movement, etc. generally acquiesed with or amalgamated into the Nazi movement. <br /> <br />By the way, if you haven't seen Valkyrie, I strongly recommend it - should have made that top 25 conservative movie list. The writers and directors did a wonderful job of communicating what I discuss in the previous paragraph. For example, when Stauffenberg is recruited into the Kriesenau conspiracy, it is in a church, and at every point he has to make a decision of conscience, the prominently display a crucifix he wears rather than the Iron Cross at his throat. The movie opens with a reading from his diary expressing his guilt at actively serving in an army that had sworn allegience to the man behind atrocities he had witnessed, and his hope for foregiveness.</p> </blockquote> <p>Me: While I do think some of this can be overstated (though not by this reader), I do wish I had discussed it more in my Hitler chapter.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGJmY2UxNTRjZTM0ODE5OTRiMjA2NDI5NjYzMDJhNjQ= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:34:54 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mzk1N2I5M2EwZGI4ZmMxYmEwOWRlOGJkNTBlMDllYWM= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br />I wish you would reform your blog post in response to James Wood as a letter to the Newyorker editor.<br /><br />I'm a fan of James Wood but his strength is textual and stylistic analysis of literary fiction. He is too to smart to have both read your book and made that snide comment about you in the Orwell piece. He needs to be called on it by someone if not his editor (who probably didn't read your book either).<br /><br />I've recommended your book to many people. I even bought a couple copies and gave them to a liberal friend and to my dyed-in-the-wool liberal father. I have yet to read a substantive disagreement with the simple idea that fascism is on the left because it is a species of statism. In fact many of my friends in academia agree with you and still go to sweaty-red-faced rallies to chant "yes we can."<br /><br />Call me naive but it still angers and saddens me when otherwise smart people turn their brains off momentarily to make an ignorant comment like Wood did.</p> </blockquote> <p>Me: Well, I'll ponder that. In the meantime the New Yorker is encouraging readers to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/ask/2009/04/questions-for-wood.html">ask him questions. </a> If  any LF fans do  avail themelves of that opportunity,  all I ask is that  you be as polite  as possible.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mzk1N2I5M2EwZGI4ZmMxYmEwOWRlOGJkNTBlMDllYWM= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:46:45 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjU5ZTZlOTgyOTAyZTE3ZmQ4YTNjMTkyMzJjZDI4ODg= I picked up <em>The New Yorker</em> while traveling this week. It has an <a href="http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2009-04-13#folio=058">essay</a> by James Wood on Orwell. It started very well, and I was enjoying reading it. Then I came upon this passage (which I had to actually retype because of <em>The New Yorker’s</em> blog-unfriendly system, so please forgive any typos as unintentional). Woods writes:</p> <blockquote> <p><br /><br />But there is a difference between being revolutionary and being a revolutionary, and journalists are not required to be tacticians. More striking is that Orwell premises the economic viability of his socialist planned economy on the economic success of the Nazi’s planned economy, and, in turn, premises the viability of the Nazis planned economy on its efficiency in wartime. Nazism worked, to use Orwell’s verb, because it was good at producing tanks and guns in wartime, but how good would it be at building hospitals and universities in peacetime? He doesn’t say. So the example of efficient Fascism is what inspires the hope of efficient socialism. Orwell seems never to have realized the economic contradiction of this, at least explicitly. Perhaps he did realize it, unconsciously, because later works, such as “Animal Farm” (1945) and “1984” (1949) worry away at the Fascist temptation inherent in the socialistic, planned, collective economy - the “classless, ownerless” society.</p> <p><strong> This is not to suggest, as contemporary neoconservatives like Jonah Goldberg absurdly claim that socialism is just fascism with a bleeding heart.</strong> Orwell never thought that. Despite the anti-totalitarian books, and his reputation’s later theft at the hands of the right wing, he remained revolutionary in spirit until his death, in 1950, at the age of forty-six. But he never really reconciled his hatred of what he called the “power instinct” with a candid assessment of the power instinct that would have to be exercised to effect revolution. As he saw it, the English Revolution would come about precisely to dismantle power and privilege, so how could it possible end up replacing one with another. The English just wouldn’t do that. An actual revolution, in Russia, with its abused of power and privilege, necessarily disappointed him, because it contaminated the ideal. Orwell became not so much anti-revolutionary as anti-revolution.</p> </blockquote> <p><br /><br />Now, I will admit that my initial response was somewhat dyspeptic. First of all, I sincerely doubt Woods has read my book. <br /><br />Second, though this is just as a side note, I doubt he could explain why he thinks I’m a “neoconservative” with any serious evidence or rigor to back it up. It’s not a big deal, I don’t mind being called a neocon, but it is so tiresome to see people use it this way. <br /><br />Meanwhile, this is the <a href="http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkyZmQzZDc3NjU3NGIwNmY3MTIyMDU0OGIyZDZkMWM=">second time </a>in the last month or so that <em>The New Yorker </em>has taken poorly considered potshots at my book. <br /><br />But after pondering it for a bit, I’ve decided that Woods’ swipe is very good news indeed. More on that in a moment. <br /><br />First, while, I’d rather not get into a big bloggy froth about the whole thing. There are a few points to be made in rebuttal. <br /><br />Again, Wood writes: “This is not to suggest, as contemporary neoconservatives like Jonah Goldberg absurdly claim that socialism is just fascism with a bleeding heart.”<br /><br />Just about everything in this sentence is addled. I don’t claim that socialism is just fascism with a bleeding heart which, again, he’d know if he read my book. But more importantly, what is Wood talking about? <br /><br />Why, after all this time, is it fine to uncritically suggest that socialism had a bleeding heart? Admittedly, it depends on which socialism we’re talking about, but the Soviets and Chinese Communists killed more of their own people than the Nazis did. And across the world that Orwell surveyed, it would be absurd to suggest that socialists were bleeding hearts. If we want to play the game of who was more evil, I’m fine with giving the Nazis - but certainly <em>not</em> the Italian Fascists -- first among equals status (I would have much rather have lived in Fascist Italy than the Soviet Union, at least until 1943). Moreover, even German fascism often displayed quite a bleeding heart, for the poor and working class, albeit of good German stock. Sure it was all shot-through with propaganda, but that’s hardly a distinction that separates Nazis from Soviets. <br /><br />What I claim, for the record, is that fascism and socialism were kindred and linked phenomena, <em>both residing on the left.</em> Both Bolshevism and fascism were “heresies of socialism” in the words of Richard Pipes. There are some important distinctions between fascism and socialism, and many unimportant ones. And, since it needs to be said, support for genocide, mass murder and the crushing of democracy aren't major distinctions between the most famous kinds of socialism and Nazism (which was "National Socialism" after all). But whatever the distinctions, they do not mitigate the simple fact that socialism and fascism have far more in common than not. <br /><br />What’s more intriguing is that Wood seems to be talking around the basic point. What Wood calls the “Fascist temptation” (that should be a lowercase “f” for the record) is very similar to what I call the “totalitarian temptation” and it seems clear to me that Orwell understood that it lurks in every human heart. What Orwell couldn’t reconcile is that you can’t give “experts” complete power of the society without removing all of the checks that restrain that temptation or “power instinct.” This reveals a very conservative strain within Orwell, in that he understood the need for institutions that restrain what is worst in men if what is best in men is ever going to find expression. At least that’s how I see it, but I’m no Orwell scholar.<br /><br />Also, Wood’s discussion of Orwell’s belief that the efficiency of Nazism proved that socialism could be successful is fascinating, though he doesn’t realize how much it bolsters my argument. If you recall, the title of my book is an homage to HG Wells who also saw the effectiveness of Italian Fascism and Nazism and wanted his fellow liberals and socialists to use the same methods. Orwell, likewise, believed that Nazism “worked.” They were hardly alone. Indeed, for reasons I explore in depth in the book, countless liberals, progressives and socialists had spent decades convincing themselves that the military mobilization of society - just like America had in WWI - was the most effective way of achieving progressive ends. It wasn’t that they loved all things martial, it was that they admired the efficiency of what the martial brings out in men. That’s the whole point of the progressive obsession with the moral equivalents of war. <br /><br />The only problem is that they were all wrong. War mobilization and metaphorical-war-mobilization do not “work,” not in the long run economically and not ever democratically. It may be necessary, in times of war, to suspend some democratic functions, but that is only justifiable because war is temporary and victory is necessary. Metaphorical war of the sort the progressives envisioned is endless. Regardless, it was a sign of the cancerous thinking of the time, that the success of societies could be measured by how well they enslaved their citizens into making tanks and planes <em>or how well they enslaved their citizens into making roads and hospitals</em>. That enslaving men to make hospitals is considered a major exoneration of socialism (which also made plenty of tanks and planes, by the way) is one of the most vexing aspects of 20th century -- and now 21st century -- liberalism. Its endurance reveals a tumor on the moral optic nerve of liberalism that so many on the left still can’t see this basic fact clearly. <br /><br />Anyway, I’ve gone on long. But I did say I thought that Wood’s article is good news. Why? Because it’s a sign that even at <em>The New Yorker</em>, even someone like Wood feels obliged to offer an opinion on the book. It means that the book is un-ignorable. Would it be nicer if Wood praised the book to the heavens? Of course, but this is the planet we live on.</p> <p><strong>Update</strong>: From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>I'm a big fan but isn't “totalitarian temptation” the title of a book by Ravel?[sic]</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes, it was. Didn't mean to sound like I was claiming authorship of the phrase. I just use it in the book.</p> <blockquote> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjU5ZTZlOTgyOTAyZTE3ZmQ4YTNjMTkyMzJjZDI4ODg= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:54:31 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM0ZDQwNTc5MWNlZDNjYTUyNzY4MDU4MDk1Nzc0OWY= Fred Siegel in <a href="http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=305">Telos</a> looks worth reading.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM0ZDQwNTc5MWNlZDNjYTUyNzY4MDU4MDk1Nzc0OWY= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:34:16 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM5MTBlY2E4YTM3OWIwZmQwMjQwNmJhMGFiNGExMzY= Some guy named Rich Lowry makes a <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/04102009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_tarp_state_163837.htm">great point</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>THE National Security Act of 1947, a reorganization of the foreign-policy and military apparatuses of the U.S. government, created what historians call "the national security state." Critics complain that the national security state vastly empowered government and cut the executive branch loose from legislative accountability. It marked the beginning of a hyperactive interventionism abroad.<br /><br />Domestically, all the same criticisms apply to the consequences of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which marks a new era in American economic policy just as the 1947 act did in foreign policy.<br /><br />Since last fall, we have seen the rise of the TARP state -- characterized by sweeping interventions in the economy undertaken by the executive branch on its own authority or in defiance of the legislature....</p> <p>[snip]</p> <p><br />Whatever he thinks of Obama's policies, former Vice President Dick Cheney should be delighted as an advocate of executive power. Obama has pocketed, in fact or in theory, all the presidential war powers defended by President George W. Bush, while expanding with relish the executive's role in the economy. In Obama, the national security state has met the TARP state.<br /><br />The national security state is necessary given America's pre-eminent global role. And some sort of rescue had to pass during last fall's financial panic. But TARP has become a disgraceful transgression of democratic accountability and the wedge for a retrograde, highly politicized industrial policy. Nothing good can come from the TARP state.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM5MTBlY2E4YTM3OWIwZmQwMjQwNmJhMGFiNGExMzY= Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:35:07 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjZhM2ZhNjZmMzZkNzE0NDUwMWY2NWIwYjFmNzgwZmE= Steve Malanga has an excellent column on <a href="http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/04/obama_and_the_reawakening_of_c.html">Obama's corporatism.</a> It doesn't mention a certain book, but it might as well have.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjZhM2ZhNjZmMzZkNzE0NDUwMWY2NWIwYjFmNzgwZmE= Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:00:13 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDQwMDJlMWU5MWIyYjgzMGYxMTcyZjAyNzdmNGY1MGU= I'm getting ready for a talk <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NGEyZmQxN2E5NjJiMDEwZjEwYzA5ZTZiMTI5OGZjMjI=">here</a> in Minneapolis tonight (hope you can make it), and I stumbled on <a href="http://www.ecofascism.com/">this site</a>. I haven't looked at it closely, so I can't vouch for anything on it. But it does seem interesting.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDQwMDJlMWU5MWIyYjgzMGYxMTcyZjAyNzdmNGY1MGU= Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:41:46 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OThkZTEzYjFkYWUzNGM3YzViZjE0MjI3ZWVmNGY4ZDU= Jonathan Tobin writes over at <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/tobin/61022">Commentary</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism got an unexpected boost on Tuesday in David Leonhardt’s Economic Scene column in the New York Times.<br /><br />Leonhardt and other liberal economic writers have been flailing away at Amity Shlaes’s history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man, for stating what historians have understood for decades: that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal didn’t work. But now that Barack Obama has decided to try and spend his way out of our current economic difficulties, FDR’s policies must be exhumed and defended. Indeed, according to Leonhardt and others, Roosevelt’s main flaw was that he didn’t spend enough. I’ll leave the dissecting of these bad arguments to Shlaes, but I found it fascinating that in the course of Leonhardt’s latest piece on this issue, he saw it fit to prove the genius of stimulus spending by pointing to the example of the Third Reich.<br /><br />That’s right. Leonhardt believes that Adolf Hitler’s building of the autobahn, facilities for the 1936 Olympics, and other public works projects such as monuments to the Nazi Party “helped Germany escape the Great Depression faster than other countries.” Unmentioned by Leonhardt was Hitler’s vast expansion of the German military (long before the United States expanded its own armed forces) as well as the wealth that accumulated to various official arms of the state from the theft of Jewish properties. Later in the same piece, Leonhardt also lauds America’s World War II mobilization as showing the genius of a stimulus, though he fails to mention that along with all the tanks, planes, and ships that were built, nearly 15 million Americans were also under arms during the war. That helped lower unemployment too.<br /><br />This doesn’t mean that Barack Obama is a card-carrying socialist or that he is plotting a rerun of Nazi Germany. What it does mean is that there is a slippery slope in arguments that assume statist economies and systems are a good thing. There is a price to be paid for putting so much power in the hands of government. Americans rightly tried to steer away from the excesses of the New Deal (such as the National Recovery Administration which arrogated to itself the right to decide virtually everything about the American economy). We repeat those mistakes or go further only at the peril of our prosperity and our liberties.</p> </blockquote> <p>I'm fine with Tobin's general point, but there's one clarification I'd make. The New Deal in fact involved a great deal of military spending before the National Socialists in Germany began their re-armament in earnest around 1935. From the book:</p> <blockquote> <p>Many New Deal agencies, the famous “alphabet soup,” were mostly continuations of various boards and committees set up fifteen years earlier during the war. The National Recovery Administration was explicitly modeled on the War Industries Board of World War I. The Securities and Exchange Commission was an extension of the Capital Issues Committee of the Federal Reserve Board. The<br />Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an updated version of the War Finance Corporation. FDR’s public housing initiative was run by the architect of World War I-era housing policies. During the war,<br />public housing had been a necessity for war laborers. Under FDR, everyone became in effect a war laborer. Presumably it is not necessary to recount how similar all of this was to developments in Nazi Germany.</p> <p>But it is worth noting that for the first two years of the American and German New Deals, it was<br />America that pursued militarism and rearmament at a breakneck pace while Germany spent relatively little on arms (though Hitler faced severe constraints on rearmament). The Public Works Administration paid for the aircraft carriers <em>Yorktown</em> and <em>Enterprise</em> as well as four cruisers, many smaller warships, and over one hundred army planes parked at fifty military airports. Perhaps one reason so many people believed the New Deal ended the Depression is that the New Deal’s segue into a full-blown war economy was so seamless.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OThkZTEzYjFkYWUzNGM3YzViZjE0MjI3ZWVmNGY4ZDU= Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:21:36 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWExODI3OWMyNDU3ZGViNDQ3YTBiNDYwYWU5OGQ0MTE= <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/02/il-duce-redux/">Quinn Hilyer in the American Spectator.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWExODI3OWMyNDU3ZGViNDQ3YTBiNDYwYWU5OGQ0MTE= Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:06:20 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTAwNzAxMzJkZjUwYTNkZDAzYWZmMGQ1YzU0NjkwMDk= I really liked this <a href="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/04/01/the-meaning-dodge/#disqus_thread">post</a> by Will Wilkinson on the question of meaning (even if I don't necessarily agree with all of it). It's in response to the argument that having kids is deeply meaningful even if it can't be quantified, which itself is a response to the current fad of pointing out that having kids allegedly doesn't make people happier. Quoting from an earlier piece of his, Will writes:</p> <blockquote> <p>Appeals to meaning are nice, but they just push the lump in the rug. What’s so great about meaning, anyway? For that matter, what is it? How does one validate that x is in fact meaningful, or more meaningful than y? If meaning is going to carry a justificatory load in weighty personal and political deliberation, we can’t just wave our hands about it. Intellectual virtue requires care. We need to get started on measuring meaning. There are many questions. How much is meaning worth to us in terms of happiness? How much is happiness worth in terms of meaning? There are no doubt many and varied sources of meaning. With science on our side, we are sure to discover that some of them are corrosive to other of our cherished values while some enhance them. Then we’ll be well-situated to say goodbye to toxic meaningfulness. Goodbye national identity? Goodbye God? Who knows what we might find? Science is a source of excitement as well as wonder.<br /><br />I don’t anticipate the new field of “meaning research” will be warmly received by those with a refined taste for meaning. Many of these fine folks say that the very attempt to measure happiness scientifically — not to mention the effort to put meaning itself under the microscope — saps life of… meaning. But how do you know? Anybody can say this. You can say it while waving a copy of The Closing of the American Mind. You can say it smoking a pipe. But it doesn’t help.</p> </blockquote> <p>Having spent a lot of time on "the politics of meaning," I think this raises a fascinating realm of inquiry. I think meaning <em>is</em> real. But one reason it is hard to quantify, I think, is that it is so diversely defined. We all have our own innate, but usually unarticulated, conception of meaning (or, as Rod Tidwell might say, "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fizqifumk">Quan</a>"). I have friends who consider their jobs to be Who They Are and I have friends who see their jobs as chores that merely provide the wherewithal to be Who They Are. Some people give their lives to the military or the church or "the movement." But for most people, meaning isn't found in giving yourself over to one thing, but finding the right balance between many things.</p> <p>The founding fathers understood better than most that it is impossible and, more importantly, wrong to try to impose on another a self-conception of meaning. You can try to persuade, educate and inform people about what constitutes the, or a, good life. But the pursuit of happiness is an individual and God-given right. <a href="http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.29531/pub_detail.asp">Charles Murray</a> in his recent AEI lecture "The Happiness of the People," quoted from Federalist 62, in which Madison says:</p> <blockquote> <p>"A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained."</p> </blockquote> <p>To which Charles adds:</p> <blockquote> <p>Note the word: happiness. Not prosperity. Not security. Not equality. Happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole.</p> </blockquote> <p>I think this happiness is essentially interchangeable with Wilkison's elusive meaning. The danger is when government tries to get in the business of providing -- or even imposing -- meaning or happiness on the people. It can't do that, because meaning and happiness cannot be given, they must be accomplished (the ultimate point of Charles' lecture). And to try is to transform citizens into subjects.</p> <p>Even organizations that provide meaning to large numbers of people -- the military, the Catholic Church, the Communist Party in years past -- rely on the voluntary enlistment of their members. Once someone becomes disillusioned with the cause they've signed up for, it's axiomatic that the cause no longer provides happiness or meaning. That's my chief problem with Barack Obama's "we're all in it together" philosophy. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention he tried to redefine the invidualistic pursuit of the "American dream" into a more collective, Crolyite, endeavor to achieve "America's promise." But for many of us, America's promise is not what we all do together via the government, but what we're all capable of achieving on our own when government gets out of the way.</p> <p>But the best the government can do is provide the means to <em>pursue</em> happiness. That's why the constitution doesn't promise to <em>give</em> people anything beyond basic security and common defense while guaranteeing that it won't get in the way of people trying to pursue their own understanding of happiness (The old Soviet constitution, by contrast, promised to provide everything people needed to be happy, and failed across the board).</p> <p>Again, the problem is when governments, or political movements seeking to take control of the government, seek to provide meaning to people. Hillary Clinton, recall, wanted to use her politics of meaning to redefine what it means to be a human being. Such an effort, by definition, becomes oppressive because one person's or one government's definition of happiness will inevitably be someone else's idea of Hell.</p> <p>Most Deweyan liberals don't really disagree with this, by the way, they simply think that the government should give people more junk (positive liberty and all that) and that will "empower" them to find happiness on their own. I think that's a serious and legitimate point of view, with some truth to it at the margins. But for the reasons Murray detailed in its his lecture, I think it's ultimately wrong.</p> <p>[Cross-posted in the Corner]</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTAwNzAxMzJkZjUwYTNkZDAzYWZmMGQ1YzU0NjkwMDk= Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:56:33 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGMyNmQzMmU5ZTJmYjU2NTI5YWRkNGU4Njk4N2RkMzI= From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Marvelously put! There is nothing “in vitro” about it. Liberal Fascism in America is a mature movement, now a century old. The astounding thing is that so many obviously bright folk can so egregiously deceive themselves about it. How many times must LF regimes accede to power in the United States before these intellectuals can admit to themselves the fact of it? Perhaps Will Wilkinson should read Paul Rahe’s new book, along with rereading your Liberal Fascism in the paperback edition:<br /></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><br /><br />Our new masters have it in their power to deepen the economic crisis and worsen our distress in the manner of Hoover and the younger Roosevelt. By instituting a second New Deal, as they would very much like to do—by sharply raising taxes on fossil fuels, dividends, and capital gains; by targeting the earnings of the well-to-do; by pursuing protectionism, expanding the regime of programmatic rights, and forcing workers into labor unions—they can discourage investment, curb entrepreneurship, reduce foreign trade, and decisively slow economic growth, or even bring it to a lasting halt, while offering to those consigned to the dole thereby a dependence upon generosity of an all-encompassing state. Just how ruthless they will prove to be on this occasion, just how far they intend to hustle us down the path we tread, remains as yet undetermined.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The only thing that is crystal clear is the direction of our drift and the nature of the threat we face. Walter Lippmann’s warning is as apt today as it was in 1937—for “the premises of authoritarian collectivism” are once again, as they were then, “the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms” behind “nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive,” and hardly anyone today “is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs.” Like the younger Roosevelt, our new leader poses as a secular Messiah; his minions believe, as did the progressives of an earlier time, that there has recently come into the world “some new element which makes it necessary for us to under the work of emancipation” achieved by our forebears and “to retrace the steps men have taken to limit the power of rulers”; and in the ranks of our compatriots they will find many prepared to sacrifice self-reliance and personal independence for a promise of security no government can keep. The hour is, indeed, late.<br /><br /> <br /><br />To those caught up in the maelstrom, recent developments may well seem dramatic, but, in truth, they serve merely to highlight the plight that we have been in for more than three quarters of a century. In consequence of our abandonment of our religious and moral heritage, of our rejection of the spirit of individual responsibility and the principles of limited government, over our own people today, as over the French, there “is elevated an immense, tutelary power,” whose aim it to take “sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate.” In America, as in France and in Europe generally, this power is “absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle.” It works willingly for our “happiness,” but exacts a price, for “it wishes to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness.” It provides for our security, it foresees and supplies our needs, it guides us in our principal affairs, it directs our industry, it regulates our testaments, it divides our inheritances, and it covers the “surface” of our society “with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform.” Generally, it is gentle; almost never is it harsh. “It does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them.” Only on the rarest occasions “does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it gets its way; it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies.” And, step by step, relentlessly, with every passing day, as we gradually succumb to the spirit of irresponsibility and self-indulgence, this power grows in influence and scope, making us more and more like “a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd” (II.iv.6, pp. 265—66). [Paul A. Rahe, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 269-270]</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGMyNmQzMmU5ZTJmYjU2NTI5YWRkNGU4Njk4N2RkMzI= Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:12:49 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzAzMGQyOTA3ZGU5YzkwYjEzOTRkMTY5YWFjZmI4ZGI= Steve Horwitz generously throws his two cents in:</p> <blockquote> <p>I think you're spot on with this one, at least in the way that all of a sudden it appears as though many of my libertarian colleagues are implicitly admitting your book was of more value than they earlier said, even as they refuse to just come out and say it.<br /><br />Let me offer a reason why so many libertarians were so hesitant, and it's also reflected in my review of the book in The Independent Review:  it was hard for libertarians to swallow whole a book that devoted over 90% of its fire on liberals/Democrats with really only the afterword noting that the Bush Administration (and, I would argue, other Republicans/conservatives) could be seen through the same lens, albeit with some different shadings.  Put differently, because LF had it sights mostly on the left, libertarians were not about to endorse it completely lest we imply that we shared that sense that the fascist temptation was nearly totally a left-wing phenomenon.  Which most of us don't.<br /><br />If libertarians have drifted left (or at least drifted away from the right) over the last decade, it's because the right has unfurled its fascist flag quite a bit more under Bush, as the afterword admits to some degree.   From our perspective, our drift to the left shows that we agree with your argument but just think it applies more broadly than you do!<br /><br />It's fair of you to raise the charge of "oh, so NOW you're implicitly admitting I was right," but if my explanation is correct, I also think a fair response from libertarians is "we didn't deny you were right, just that you were incomplete, which is why we didn't praise the book to the heavens."<br /><br />All that said, it's time for all of us who fear that this may be fascism in vitro/utero to name it for what it is and be unafraid to defend our use of that word.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Me</strong>: I think this is a fair criticism, but it's not one I didn't anticipate, though I may not have anticipated it sufficiently or to many libertarians' satisfaction. But look at it from my perspective. The central theme of my book is that fascism is a phenomenon of the left, which runs entirely counter to the mainstream received wisdom of the last 60 or so years. And so that is what I tried to demonstrate. Trying to give equal time to "both sides" would not only contradict my thesis, but would amount to something I don't believe.</p> <p>Now, to the extent Republicans (let's leave conservatives out of it for the moment), are fascistic (in the liberal fascism sense) it is because they try to be me-too Republicans, emulating progressives and embracing progressive assumptions. This was the main point of my afterword about Bush -- to concede that his compassionate conservatism and McCainism alike were really forms of rightwing progressivism.</p> <p>As for conservatives, I think many libertarians  look at conservatism's "Romantic" attachments, it's faith, it's belief in tradition and see echoes of fascistic "blood and soil" politics. Sometimes I think they're right. But most of the time I don't. Mainstream American conservatives are patriotic far more than they are nationalistic. To the extent they <em>are</em> nationalistic, I don't think that nationalism amounts to fascism. A little nationalism is a good thing, in my book (literally!). A healthy attachment to place and to culture  is a necessary precondition for preserving liberty. Americans defend freedom because they think that is the <em>American</em> way. I for one think it would be dangerous to lose that sense in riot of liberal <em>or libertarian</em> cosmopolitanism. Moreover, I think mine is a perfectly Hayekian position. Of course, where you draw the lines between benign nationalism and dangerous nationalism is a worthwhile debate. But there is a line in there somewhere.</p> <p>(Indeed, one could argue -- but I'm not! -- that the common (though not universal) libertarian desire to throw off the past and start over has more in common with fascistic animating passions than conservatism's fondness for what Chesterton called "democracy for the dead.")</p> <p>Of course, many libertarians look at Bush's foreign policy and the like and see fascism. On that score, I think we just have a difference of opinion. Bush's policies may have amounted to militarism, beligerance or some other form of folly, at least by libertarian standards. But I think the effort to make military "aggression" the defining feature of fascism confuses more than it clarifies. But that's both a reasonable disagreement and a separate issue.</p> <p>So, yes, to make a long story short, I may have lost some libertarians because I wasn't anti-Bush enough for them. But I think I was as anti-Bush as I needed to be, given the book I set out to write.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzAzMGQyOTA3ZGU5YzkwYjEzOTRkMTY5YWFjZmI4ZGI= Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:11:49 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTY2NGExYTdiODNkYjYwZGU2NWIyZjA2NjZiNWYwM2M= Tom Palmer, who not long ago <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjBmYmNmN2Q0NjkyYTNmOWQzNjU4YWJiOGRiZmM4NTk=">said all sorts of unkind things about me and my book</a>, is now proclaiming <a href="http://tomgpalmer.com/2009/03/29/welcome-to-a-fascist-country/">"Welcome to a Fascist….er, Managed Democracy?"</a></p> <p>Meanwhile, my friend Will Wilkinson, who was <a href="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/03/31/are-we-flirting-with-fascism/">intrigued but skeptical</a> about my book if my memory serves, now says its clear we <a href="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/03/31/are-we-flirting-with-fascism/">are seeing fascism <em>in vitro.</em></a></p> <p style="text-align: left;">And Arnold Kling who said my book was in fact written by three people -- "Goldberg the revisionist historian, Goldberg the outraged conservative child, and Goldberg the troll" [I can't get a direct link but it's findable over at <a href="http://techcentralstation.com/">TCS</a>] -- is now, as noted below, <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/03/progressive_cor_1.html">flirting</a> with the idea that fascism lurks in what we're seeing.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">I don't really want to start anything here with these guys. But I would make two points. I will confess that I was disappointed by the general libertarian reaction to my book. In many ways it is, one of, if not the most successful libertarian-themed book in a very long time. But for reasons that have to do with some of my older writings, the lurch to the left among many libertarians during the Bush years and, no doubt, some serious disagreements as well, it received something of a cold shoulder from many libertarians. This was hardly universal. Ronald Bailey, Charles Murray, Vox Day, Ed Driscoll, Steve Horwitz, and one third of Arnold Kling were kind to the book. Nonetheless, on the whole, the reaction from libertarians was disappointing not because I fleshed out some novel argumet but the reverse: because Liberal Fascism broke so little new ideological ground for libertarians.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">The idea that there's something fascistic to progressivism is hardly my idea, or even a purely a conservative idea (Heck, there are a whole bunch of Marxists who think it's <em>their</em> idea). Among the giants of the libertarian tradition, Albert Jay Nock saw it clearly. So did Murray Rothbard. Hayek at one stage or another would certainly have agreed with a vast amount of my book.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">Secondly, and more to the point, when Will says that we are seeing a kind of fascism <em>in vitro </em>it implies, I think, that we're seeing something <em>new</em>. But as many people have commented, what we're seeing flows almost perfectly from everything I wrote in my book. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that the events we're seeing amount to a kind of fascism -- a Wellsian liberal fascism -- <em>in vitro </em>as opposed to any kind of full-blown, mature classical fascism. We are not on the way to concentration camps and I've never said otherwise.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">But where I think I disagree with Will is that the gestation period began long before Barack Obama was elected. Indeed, Obama's invocation of the Progressives and FDR as his lodestars alone suggests that what we are seeing is not some <em>de novo </em>development.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">And that so many people can see it now should serve as something of a vindication of my book. No not for everything in it. But for the philosophical orientation of it. I'll get no such concession from my harshest critics, since most of them never really cared what the book said in the first place. Yet even for them, if pressed, they will at least have to explain why I am a fool for what I wrote when all of these reasonable folks are arguing in blog posts much the same thing in response to mere headlines of the day, while I fleshed out the same argument over hundreds of pages and in footnoted detail.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">Meanwhile, I hope that what we're seeing from libertarians in response to Obama's corporatism suggests not only an opportunity to reconsider my book but, more importantly, an opportunity to reconsider libertarianism's understandable but lamentable slide away from the right in recent years.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTY2NGExYTdiODNkYjYwZGU2NWIyZjA2NjZiNWYwM2M= Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:43:06 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NThhZmFiOWFlMzlhMjRjOGRhZGI5YmUxMDQyNDM2YjE= <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/03/obama_throws_th.html">Via Econlog</a>, here's part of Sheldon Richman's entry on <a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html">Fascism</a> in the Encyclopedia of Economics:</p> <blockquote> <p>Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society's economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the "national interest"--that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.</p> </blockquote> <p>Richman is right to note that the fascist economics weren't un-totalitarian, they were just indirectly totalitarian. I discuss this at length in the book, particularly in my discussion of the <em>gleichshaltung</em>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Fascism is the cult of unity, within all spheres and between all spheres. Fascists are desperate to erode the “artificial,” legal, or cultural boundaries between family and state, public and private, business and the “public good.” Unlike communist Jacobinism (or Jacobin communism, if you prefer), which expropriated property and uprooted institutions in order to remake society from the ground up, fascism pragmatically sought to preserve what was good and authentic about society while bending it to the common good. Interests or institutions that stood in the way of progress could be nationalized, to be sure. But if they worked with the regime, if they “did their part,” they could keep their little factories, banks, clubs, and department stores.<br /> It’s revealing that corporatism has many of its roots in Catholic doctrine. The 1891 papal encyclical <em>Rerum novarum</em> proposed corporatism or syndicalism in response to the dislocations of the Industrial Revolution. In 1931 an updated encyclical, <em>Quadragesimo anno</em>, reaffirmed the principles of Rerum novarum. The two documents formed the backbone of progressive Catholic social thought. The Church’s interest in corporatism stemmed from its belief that this was the best way to revive medieval social arrangements that gave man a greater sense of meaning in his life. In short, corporatism was in large measure a spiritual project. Both the cold impersonal forces of Marx’s history and the unloving dogma of Adam Smith’s invisible hand would be rejected in favor of a Third Way that let the “forgotten man” feel like he had a place in the grand scheme of things.<br /> The Nazis had a word for this process: Gleichschaltung. A political word borrowed—like so many others—from the realm of engineering,it meant “coordination.” The idea was simple: all institutions needed to work together as if they were part of the same machine. Those that did so willingly were given wide latitude by the state. “Islands of separateness” — be they businesses, churches, or people — were worn down over time. There could be no rocks in the river of progress. In effect, the entire society agreed to the fascist bargain, in which they bought economic, moral, and political security in exchange for absolute loyalty to the ideals of the Reich. Of course, this was a false security; the fascist bargain is a Faustian bargain. But that is what people thought they were getting.</p> </blockquote> <p><br />One of the great recent examples of a liberal gleichshaltung was NBC's "Green Week" in which the <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmZhODc1OGRmN2U1ZGJjMDM4YzE5M2VkZTA2ZGM5YzI=">GE subsidiary</a> agreed to propagandize environmentalism in order to seem like a "progressive corporation." No one on the left complained, because they <em>liked</em> the propaganda (note propaganda can be true or false, the truth of the Green Week message is irrelevant to whether it was propaganda). GE coordinated with the regime, and in turn stands to benefit greatly from the regime's policies.</p> <p>Arnold Kling calls what we're looking at today "progressive corporatism." It's a fine label as far as I'm concerned. But it's basically an updating on what Ron Radosh and others called "corporate liberalism" or what some libertarians called "<a href="http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/strombrg.html">liberal corporatism."</a> According to Radosh's corporate liberalism, "the dominant worldview of American political leaders was not one of laissez faire, but rather a managerial form of liberalism."</p> <p>More to the point, the economic similarities[*] between liberal corporatism, corporate liberalism and fascist economics aren't merely significant, they're profound. But, I should note, they aren't identical. Our political culture serves as a vital check on the inherently undemocratic and illiberal tendencies of corporatism. If it were otherwise, Obama wouldn't be constantly insisting that his takeover of business is only temporary. Whether he's lying or telling the truth (or simply doesn't really know) doesn't change the fact that in America, political realities demand that he say this is all temporary. Let's hope political reality leads to plain old reality.</p> <p>Update: <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTdjNTgyZGVjNTMzN2I3MmI4MGUzMWViNjQ4NDkxOTg=">Zoiks</a>!</p> <p>Update II: From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Dear Mr. Goldberg; Please explain and expand on your statements in today’s LF blog “More to the point, the economic distinctions between liberal corporatism, corporate liberalism and fascist economics aren’t merely significant, they’re profound.” To me they sound like they are rather similar. Interestingly you follow this up with “But, I should note, they’re not identical.” I guess not since they are profoundly distinct. I am profoundly confused. Yours, [Name withheld]</p> </blockquote> <p>I apologize if I was unclear. But to answer the question, brothers can have profound similarities but nonetheless not be identical, right?</p> <p><strong>[*]Update III: Woops:</strong> From a reader:</p> <blockquote> <p>Jonah,<br /><br /> <br /><br />Sorry if I’m the 100th person to point this out, but I think the confusion stemming from your last post in the LF blog may be the result of a simple typo.  You probably meant to say:<br /><br /> <br /><br />“More to the point, the economic similarities between liberal corporatism, corporate liberalism and fascist economics aren't merely significant, they're profound. But, I should note, they aren't identical.”<br /><br /> <br /><br />You wrote “distinctions”.</p> </blockquote> <p><br /><br />Yup all my boneheadedness. My apologies. I've fixed it above.</p> <blockquote></blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NThhZmFiOWFlMzlhMjRjOGRhZGI5YmUxMDQyNDM2YjE= Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:06:28 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTE1NzhkMGUzNTc3OWRlNzA0MWU1MTkxMmE2YWVlNDA= Daniel Hannan's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs">blistering  indictment </a>of Gordon Brown has already been discussed quite a bit over at the Corner. <a href="http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/03/interview-with-daniel-hannan.html">Vox Day interviewed</a> the European Parliamentarian. The whole thing is interesting, but for reasons that should be obvious, I liked this bit:</p> <blockquote> <p>VD:One thing that tends to confuse Americans is that the British National Party is not very popular despite holding what appear to be populist views on immigration and the European Union. Why do they enjoy so little support compared to the three major parties?<br /> <br /> DH:Because they are, contrary to the way they are described in the BBC, a party of the far left. They're in favor of nationalization, they're in favor of protectionism, they want workers' councils to run industry, they want a massive state program of rebuilding manufacture. Like Hayek said about the socialist roots of Nazism, they are a national socialist party and the socialist bit is very important to them. Plus, there is a line, a very important line in politics, between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. And they've crossed that line.<br /> <br /> VD: In a certain respect, they really are fascists, but in the Italian Fascist sense.<br /> <br /> DH: Yeah. I think most of these so-called “far right” parties are on the left by any normal definition. It's a brilliant media trick in Europe to always refer to them as “the far right”. The target of that is the mainstream right. Every time you read about the BNP in the press, it's always prefaced with “the far right BNP”, as though they were like us, but more so, which is the opposite of the case. When somebody reads that, it doesn't make them think any worse of the BNP, it makes them think worse of the right. Which, of course, is why they do it.</p> </blockquote> <p>[Cross-posted at LFB]</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTE1NzhkMGUzNTc3OWRlNzA0MWU1MTkxMmE2YWVlNDA= Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:03:57 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTYxYmE5N2JjMjZkMjU4ZTc2MDE4NWQ0Y2JmNDZkNWU= Given the news these days (and the paucity of posting around here; it'll pick up before the paperback comes out, I promise), as well as <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzRhNmQ5NjQwMTY3Nzk1ZGQ3OTk1M2Q1ZDkzMDQ0M2U=">Newt Gingrich's recent endorsement</a>,  I thought some excerpts from the economics chapter might be worthwhile (you might also check this <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTM3ZmI0MDA2ZjM5OWRkZDk5N2Y1Njk3NDkzZmE1NDY=">column</a>, or my <a href="http://nrd.nationalreview.com/?q=MjAwOTA0MDY=">cover story</a> in the latest issue). For instance, here's the bit explaining what I call the fascist bargain between big business and government:</p> <blockquote> <p>Many liberals are correct when they bemoan the collusion of government<br />and corporations. They even have a point when they decry special<br />deals for Halliburton or Archer Daniels Midland as proof of<br />creeping fascism. What they misunderstand completely is that this is<br />the system they set up. This is the system they want. This is the system<br />they mobilize and march for.</p> <p><br />Debates about economics these days generally enjoy a climate of<br />bipartisan asininity. Democrats want to “rein in” corporations, while<br />Republicans claim to be “pro-business.” The problem is that being<br />“pro-business” is hardly the same thing as being pro-free market,<br />while “reining in” corporations breeds precisely the climate liberals<br />decry as fascistic.</p> <p><br />The fascist bargain goes something like this. The state says to the<br />industrialist, “You may stay in business and own your factories. In<br />the spirit of cooperation and unity, we will even guarantee you profits<br />and a lack of serious competition. In exchange, we expect you to<br />agree with—and help implement—our political agenda.” The moral<br />and economic content of the agenda depends on the nature of the<br />regime. The left looked at German business’s support for the Nazi<br />war machine and leaped to the conclusion that business always supports<br />war. They did the same with American business after World<br />War I, arguing that because arms manufacturers benefited from the<br />war, the armaments industry was therefore responsible for it.</p> <p>It’s fine to say that incestuous relationships between corporations<br />and governments are fascistic. The problem comes when you claim<br />that such arrangements are inherently right-wing.9 If the collusion of<br />big business and government is right-wing, then FDR was a rightwinger.<br />If corporatism and propagandistic militarism are fascist, then<br />Woodrow Wilson was a fascist and so were the New Dealers. If you<br />understand the right-wing or conservative position to be that of those<br />who argue for free markets, competition, property rights, and the<br />other political values inscribed in the original intent of the American<br />founding fathers, then big business in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany,<br />and New Deal America was not right-wing; it was left-wing, and it<br />was fascistic. What’s more, it still is.</p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTYxYmE5N2JjMjZkMjU4ZTc2MDE4NWQ0Y2JmNDZkNWU= Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:53:13 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzQ5MTQyYWU0OTk2YTM4NWVhOTZmNzA4NzYyMjE5Yzk= A reader sent this:</p> <blockquote> <p><img src="http://www.magazine13.com/img/misc/vintage-war-propaganda-posters/vintage-war-propaganda-posters11.jpg" alt="" width="388" height="500" /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzQ5MTQyYWU0OTk2YTM4NWVhOTZmNzA4NzYyMjE5Yzk= Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:39:11 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGNlYzZmYmYwODJmYzJmNTQ3ZDNiZTg1N2QwZjZlOWY= The UK edition of Liberal Fascism has gone into its third printing.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGNlYzZmYmYwODJmYzJmNTQ3ZDNiZTg1N2QwZjZlOWY= Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:06:55 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkyZmQzZDc3NjU3NGIwNmY3MTIyMDU0OGIyZDZkMWM= He <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2009/02/fascists-under.html">writes</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>One of the signs that a political movement may be approaching terminal decline is when its more excitable elements begin to see “fascism” where none exists.</p> </blockquote> <p>He then goes on to attack yours truly, Michael Ledeen and others. In a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2009/03/round-the-bend.html">related post</a> he goes after Ron Radosh.</p> <p>I enjoy this sort of thing because I hear it so often from liberals who insist that no serious liberal ever used the term "fascist" to describe their political opponents. Anyone who has read my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197469169&sr=8-1">book</a> -- or who has even paid attention to politics -- over the last 30, 40 or 70 years knows this is simply not true. Off the top of my head, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, Charles Rangel, Alan Wolfe, nearly every Hollywood activist one can think of, and -- I'm sure if I looked -- numerous contributors to the New Yorker have made ad hitlerum arguments about the American right, which (broadly speaking) believes in limited government, free markets and traditional values (tenets loathed by fascists).</p> <p>Hertzberg goes on to say that unlike Michael Ledeen and yours truly -- supposedly major luminaries with posh billets on the right -- "the lefties [of yesteryear] who cried 'fascism' were marginal cranks, without the slightest influence in the Democratic Party or any Democratic Administration."</p> <p>So would that include Hugh Johnson, the man who ran FDR's National Recovery Administration and was hailed as <a href="http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19340101,00.html">Time's Man of the Year in 1934</a>? (Roosevelt himself was Man of the Year in 1933). This would be the same Hugh Johnson who distributed a memo at the Democratic Convention proposing that FDR becoming a Mussolini-like dictator? The same Hugh Johnson who handed out copies of <em>The Corporate State</em> -- an Italian fascist propaganda pamphlet -- to fellow members of FDR's cabinet? The same Hugh Johnson who hung a portrait of Mussolini on his office wall as head of the NRA?</p> <p>Admittedly, Johnson didn't "cry fascism" he cheered fascism (as did, to one extent or another, Herbert Croly, Charles Beard, Lincoln Steffens, Rexford Tugwell and other presumably marginal cranks who provided the intellectual framework for New Deal liberalism), but that shouldn't be a point in Hertzberg's favor. Norman Thomas, the head of the American Socialist party <em>did</em> cry fascism, as did many others to the left and the right of FDR, but I wouldn't call all of them marginal cranks and I certainly wouldn't say none of them had any influence over any Democratic administration.</p> <p>Indeed, was FDR a "marginal crank" when he acknowledged that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But we were doing them in an orderly way."</p> <p>Needless to say, I could go on.</p> <p>[Cross-posted at the Corner]</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkyZmQzZDc3NjU3NGIwNmY3MTIyMDU0OGIyZDZkMWM= Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:03:01 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRiMmQ5MDcwMWQ0ODAxN2FhMjc1YTA1NTQ3ZjFiNzk= From a <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE5231M820090304">Reuters story </a>on neo-Nazis in Germany:</p> <blockquote> <p>“…right-wing radicalism is still a problem in Germany, particularly in the former communist eastern part of the country where unemployment is nearly double the rate in the west.”<br /><br /></p> </blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZGRiMmQ5MDcwMWQ0ODAxN2FhMjc1YTA1NTQ3ZjFiNzk= Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:38:07 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTk5Mjk0NmE0MWViOTlmZDgyZTQ0NTNiYjkzNzkwZGE= Hey, if you're a <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/0141039507/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1">British Amazon </a>user, and fan of the book, maybe you'd be willing to offer a reader review? I'm coming up on 400 over at the US Amazon, and I have exactly one review across the pond.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTk5Mjk0NmE0MWViOTlmZDgyZTQ0NTNiYjkzNzkwZGE= Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:02:22 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjU5ZTk0NzEzZTliYWRmM2NlNGVhNGVjMDY0MmE5NjI= <a href="http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k13943&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup68722">Free market thinking is a mental defect, of course.</a></p> <p>Hat tip to <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/02/25/is-libertarianism-a-sign-of-mental-illness/">Dan Mitchell.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjU5ZTk0NzEzZTliYWRmM2NlNGVhNGVjMDY0MmE5NjI= Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:11:47 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzYwNzhkYTE1MzRlMjA0NjY5ZjQ1NjRjNGNhMTJjYWM= Robert Scheer, formerly of the LA Times (<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200512071123.asp">heh</a>), remembers that by the standards of his own intellectual tradition, what we are seeing is a kind of corporatism and corporatism is the <a href="http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/02/robert_scheer_b.html">economic doctrine of you-know-what:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>I don't think the idea of nationalizing, as it's now being called — which means bailing out these banks, setting them straight, then letting them go private again, which is the model that everybody is using, and the people who get screwed are the people whose retirement funds had common or preferred shares and they get wiped out, and these bankers come out richer than ever at the other end — that's not a leftist idea and it's not socialism. This is what we used to, in Comparative Economic Systems, call fascism. It's putting government at the service of the big financial interests. That's what happened in Italy, that's what happened in Germany, that's what happened in Japan.</p> </blockquote> <blockquote></blockquote><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzYwNzhkYTE1MzRlMjA0NjY5ZjQ1NjRjNGNhMTJjYWM= Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:09:52 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzlkMzU2MzdmMGQzMmM0MDZkOTI1YjY1NGRkY2E5Y2E= <a href="http://www.democrats.org/democracybonds.html">Make of them what you will.</a></p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzlkMzU2MzdmMGQzMmM0MDZkOTI1YjY1NGRkY2E5Y2E= Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:30:27 -0400 webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmRjNWNlYzhiZTFhM2E1M2ZhMGJkNzY0N2UwZDhhYzA= A friend sends this along:</p> <blockquote> <p>don't ask me how i just came across this 2006 crooked timber post, but it's DEFINITELY worth reading, especially the last <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2006/10/30/social-democracy-and-fascism-as-cousins-german/">paragraph</a>.<br /><br />incidentally, henry would end up becoming one of your most strident critics once your own book came out, without a single word conceding the fact that he pretty much agrees with, i don't know, 70 percent of your <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2008/01/19/a-goldberg-conjecture/">argument</a>.</p> </blockquote> <p>More <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTJlZjJhOTQzYjE4ZWNmNDA0M2I2YWZiNTIzNWI4Mzk=">later</a>.</p><br /><hr width=100% size=2><br /> http://liberalfascism.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZmRjNWNlYzhiZTFhM2E1M2ZhMGJkNzY0N2UwZDhhYzA= Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:02:46 -0400