Oh, well, um, uh, oh yeah?

Well, uh, maybe you're the fatcyst!

How do you like that?

Never anyone made the preceding point with such care, or in such detail.

I didn't love the Holbo or the Neiwert reviews because, to my mind, nothing short of having Goldberg's (and my) socialist, anarchist, communist, jewish ancestors rise up from the ashes and kick his spotty ass to hell would serve as the correct response to that piece of shit.

I was amusing myself reading Diana Mosely's non apologia for her wartime fascism until I got to the part where she explained that really hitler wasn't so bad, that the communists were worse, and that the death of all those jews was merely the side effect of the failure of the international jewish conspiracy to remove the jews from Nazi germany when the germans, quite rightly, decided that they couldn't move the country forward with all those dirty little eastern european jews clutting things up.

My point here is that *even noted fascists* and there are quite a few *don't harbor the illusion* that fascism is a liberal thing. They are and always have been explicitly pro facist because *its not liberalism* and *its not socialism* and *its not jewish* and *its not gay.* They haven't cared much about environmentalism or vegetarianism one way or the other because at the time that fascism and nazism were born those things *didn't have a counter cultural/anti nationalist* valence.

But what I really logged on to say is that I wrote a diary about the stirrings of this equivalence a few months ago over at Kos--the Boston Globe had printed an essay (probably by jeff jacoby) accusing Rachel Carson of essentially being a Nazi because the Nazis were environmentalists. The struggle to push the evil that conservativism has wrought onto everything but the backs of its own avatars is a far reaching one.

Jonah's book isn't the tip of the iceberg, its really the icing on the cake. they've passed the work of pushing this meme down to almost the lowest level of thought. Expect to see it next in Mallard Fillmore.

aimai

Oh, and hey, El Cid, fabulous Bourdieu reference on the Sadly, No! thread about Megan McCardle. My books are still packed, as are my brain cells, and I was late to that fair but boy was I thinking about bourdieu (and the other striving, priviliged, middle class new yorkers I know) when I read megan's stirring defence of her not-priviliged position.

aimai

Gracias, aimai usted es muy amable.

Hey, I hear Hitler was meticulous about his oral hygiene. I guess that means dentists are fascists.

Jason C.
You would be surprised to find out (not) that Diana Mosely's attack on the veracity of accounts of Hitler that she didn't like is that "those people" didn't know him because, among other things, he is sometimes described as having uncombed hair and she never saw him that way.

aimai

Goldberg is a snide fool who, like all the right-wing revisionists Neiwert mentions, wishes to elide liberals and the Left (not to mention revolutionary and democratic Leftists). This is a sloppy and dishonest (and wearisomely familiar) move that ushers in a tidal flood of specious argumentation.

As the National Review would surely agree, two of the most compelling examples of totalitarianism today are those of radical, political Islam and Baathism, so why is Goldberg wasting our time with this shit? And assuming radical Islam and Baathism can be shoe-horned into a right/left system of measure, they are certainly not exclusively one or the other.

The shorter version of the book can be found in any AOL political chatroom archive from 1996: "The Nazis were also called National Socialists. DUDE IT'S GOT SOCIALIST RIGHT IN THE TITLE." Now they've found their doughy standard-bearer, and not a moment too soon... Sweden looks towards world domination!

Ezra, read the book or at least quote someone who has read the book because your boy Holbo hasn't. Try reading it and you might learn something!

Goldberg's point is that it's no coincidence that the Nazi party was the National Socialist party, and that the Italian Fascists were also social democrats. The fascists were many things, but classical liberal, limited government-types they were not.

Strictly speaking, one cannot be a fascist if one thinks that the welfare state should be dismantled, and that our modern administrative agencies are hard to reconcile with a constitutional regime featuring checks and balances. One might still be wrong to believe these things, but not fascistic.

On the other hand, just because all fascists are social democrats, that might not mean all social democrats are fascists.

Oops?

I don't know that I would call references to smoking bans "blather." It is a primary example of the rise of the administrative state and authoritarian control over the private actions of individuals and businesses. If references to smoking bans are "blather," I suppose you would say complaining about restrictions on abortion are "blather" too, regardless of their authoritarian nature. Both are assaults on personal freedom and choice. But, whenever I read my issue of the "American Prospect," it seems to be a publication that is less concerned about freedom, and more concerned about societal control over others. Sounds eerily like the road to fascism to me...

Reading books, particularly nonfiction books, takes a really long time. It's hard, and it's boring, and I say this all as an effete liberal intellectual who likes reading long, boring books but can't, like everyone else I know, seem to finish them. I'm pleased to get through one or two a month

You have a hard time reading more than two books a month and you consider yourself an "intellectual" ?

Wow. Maybe you should stick to cooking that mean stir fry.

It's starting to get annoying that Ezra keeps blogging about Liberal Fascism without having read the book.

Yeah, yeah -- I know -- we're not supposed to validate Goldberg by taking his arguments seriously, or by engaging him on any sort of intellectual level, or even by paying any attention to him whatsoever. I call bull**** on that.

Why don't you read the book and then review it on the blog? If you don't like the book *after reading it* than I can totally respect that. But right now, you are just coming off as gutless or lazy (or both).

Reading books, particularly nonfiction books, takes a really long time. It's hard, and it's boring, and I say this all as an effete liberal intellectual who likes reading long, boring books but can't, like everyone else I know, seem to finish them. I'm pleased to get through one or two a month.

Whatever you do, don't go to graduate school. You'd last about 2 seconds. We read about two books a week during slow periods. And, it really isn't that hard to read and finish non-fiction... if most people you know have that problem, you should get out more.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't "individualism," well, the polar opposite of totalitarianism?

Try reading it and you might learn something!

Oh, I'm sure you'd learn a thing or two after reading Jonah's book, all right. I'm not sure it's worth slogging through 500 pages just to become familiar with the exact contours of Jonah's douchebaggery, though.

It's starting to get annoying that Ezra keeps blogging about Liberal Fascism without having read the book.

Yeah. And you better damn well not make fun of Carrot Top unless you've watched "Chairman of the Board" from start to finish, either.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't "individualism," well, the polar opposite of totalitarianism?

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

From professing the divinity of Obama to expressing his disdain for reading, Ezra has shown himself to be one of the true intellectual titans of our error.

Whatever you do, don't go to graduate school. You'd last about 2 seconds. We read about two books a week during slow periods.

WOW! That is SO impressive.

Whatever you do, don't get a job. You'd last about 2 seconds. Stay in grad school where it's safe.

Also notable is that Goldberg fluffers like JD are fixated on the fact that Klein hasn't read the book but seem unable to address the substantive critique in, say, Neiwert's review.

I'm not sure it's worth slogging through 500 pages just to become familiar with the exact contours of Jonah's douchebaggery...

Jason C. makes a salient point here.

I'm not sure it's worth slogging through 500 pages just to become familiar with the exact contours of Jonah's douchebaggery...

Jason C. makes a salient point here.

To be fair, the last 80 pages or so are index and references so it would really less than 500.

I see Goldberg's own post has started carrying folks over - Hi! :)

All this talk of "seriousness" being measured in lengths of books, numbers of books read,etc... are really kind of silly. There are brilliant thinkers in grad schools, and lousy ones, there are avid readers who learn nothing and occasional readers who learn a lot from the small selection they choose. Reading for understanding and exposure to ideas isn't a math problem... it's a thinking problem.

My own take - and no, I haven't read it, 400+ pages of something I don't have an interest in is a bit much, but I may slog anyway at some point - is that Goldberg protests too much (witness that absurd vanity blog NRO has give him to mostly cite approving fanmail). He bristles at anyone who suggests the book is unserious or light or simply poorly considered - and who wouldn't, given all the time and energy he put into it. But seriousness and thoughtfulness aren't merely about effort, they're about result, and the results I've seen - whether in quotes, reviews or in Jonah's own defenses - seem more faux intellectual than actually deep. Goldberg knows the big words and cites the big names... but nothing, really, has been proved, fromwhat I can see.

Except possibly that fascism is a nebulous term, thrown around a little too casualy, and indiscriminately. As well, the pains Jonah has to take to narrow his "liberalism" to some unique notion most professed liberals don't recognize is a sgnature element of his writing - he tends to be the "reasonable" conservative because he tries, so hard, not to be broad brush... so that he can offer overly generalized analysis of that small group of "liberals" that seem to be the cause of all trouble in the world, or at least America, or at least some city where they just banned smoking.

And look, a smoking ban isn't fascism, smoker whining notwithstanding. It hasn't stopped the sale of cigarettes, hasn't stopped anyone's avid pursuit of lung cancer should they so choose, and no one, no sane one, anyway, is doing violence to smokers to force them to stop. And calling the elimination of smoking from public spaces, in defense of lung cancer and emphysema (no, I don't care about second hand smoke, simply that smoking causes both) may seem brave and anti-authoritarian, but mostly it's kind of silly. Smoking could always be un-banned.. it's just not likely to be; and most on-smokers aren't really going to miss it. But of course Jonah is serious, and so is smoking. And thoughtful. Naturally.

To be fair, the last 80 pages or so are index and references so it would really less than 500.

Oh, I'm sure there's some douchiness buried in the endnotes as well.

How would things change if we substituted "fascist" for "tyrannical"? Is Goldberg merely arguing that the Left and American liberals who share many of their goals, should simply call America's conservatives "tyrants" because "fascist" is not quite accurate?

On the other hand, but pointing to "liberal fascism" is Goldberg doing a bit of the same thing. One can make an argument that the trouble with nationalized health care is that once government pays for our hospital visits it has an interest in telling us what to eat, and how to live our lives (so as to minimize the cost). In that sense, there is a danger of tyranny lurking in the desire to have the government pay for health care--of which the anti-smoking campaign is a part.

the trouble with nationalized health care is that once government pays for our hospital visits it has an interest in telling us what to eat, and how to live our lives (so as to minimize the cost). In that sense, there is a danger of tyranny lurking in the desire to have the government pay for health care

Yes, truly the tyranny of the food pyramid is a fate worse than death due to lack of health care.

Jason. How does your comment logically follow?

Rickersam - you stated that government provided health care meant the government would take an interest in what we eat and how we live our lives (smoking, etc.).

Unless you really think the government is going to start shoving asparagus down your throat, my point was just that nutritional guidelines, warnings on cigarettes, etc., (a) already exist, and (b) are pretty mundane kinds of things to deserve a label like "fascist."

My point was simply that we have to make sure it stays so benign. As the costs of health care pile up, the incentive to keep people from getting sick will increase, and thus the temptation for government to push people to eat a certain way, exercise, and to avoid risky behaviors.

Warnings are benign. But they could slide into commends, if we're not careful.

"Goldberg's point is that it's no coincidence that the Nazi party was the National Socialist party,"

Yes, it is no coincidence. The Nazis wanted power and had to appeal to the working class, most of whom supported the social democrats and communists. Given the radicalism of the 1920s it makes sense for them to take the label "socialist" to hide their agenda.

I should note that Hitler spent a lot of time convincing big business to fund his party and assuring them that "socialist" was just a label. Which it proved to be.

"and that the Italian Fascists were also social democrats."

A few fascists came from the social democrats (Mussolini, most obviously). Some Marxist-syndicalists also. But the great bulk of the left remained anti-nationalist and anti-fascist. The fascists, of course, denounced and attacked them all.

The resistance to fascism in Italy was done by the left -- primarily by the anarchists and syndicalists. But why let facts like that get in the way?

And, of course, in the 1920s and 1930s it was the right who supported fascism across the world.

"The fascists were many things, but classical liberal, limited government-types they were not."

right-"libertarian" Ludwig von Mises, hater of all things socialists, praised fascism in the 1920s. He, like other right-wingers at the time, was well aware of its role and its right-wing credentials.

Sadly, this kind of "argument" really is a case of "The Nazis had socialist in their name, therefore they were leftists" By that logic, the People's Democratic Republic of China is both democratic and a republic...

You're like some sort of super-dunce, Ezra.

And regarding fascism and socialism disliking each other...duh. Fascism was the original "Third Way"," not socialism redux.

The two, though functionally similar, have very different rhetorical and psychological aims. Of course they dislike each other, never mind their similarities.

It's like Eurasia and Oceania going to war. Or was it Eastasia?

Yeah, yeah -- I know -- we're not supposed to validate Goldberg by taking his arguments seriously, or by engaging him on any sort of intellectual level, or even by paying any attention to him whatsoever.

And here I've gone and actually listened to an argument before dismissing it out of hand. We'd better not engage the other side in any sort of serious intellectual level EVER, so we can all sit around and jerk each other off in a big like-minded soggy biscuit.