Book Review: Liberal Fascism / Jonah Goldberg
Special Note: for this review, I am going to make an exception to the normal policy for this journal. This is an open, public post. Comments won't be screened, and anonymous posts will be allowed. Since the announcement of the publication of Goldberg's tome, we have had whole Amazons of bullshit come cascading through the Intertubes. Liberal Fascism has been quite the obsession of weblogs, big and small, right and left. Over at Sadly, No!, a site search returns over two dozen posts devoted to this book, going as far back as last May. And that's just one web site; the hits just keep on a comin'. I've followed more links into more blogs than I can count.
Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilley, David Limbaugh: eat your hearts out. In terms of pure "buzz" and free advertising, Jonah Goldberg has indeed accomplished something extraordinary. Liberal Fascism truly is the book that opened a thousand assholes.
Introduction: Everything You Know About Fascism is Wrong
You can thank George Carlin for this cover illustration.
Carlin: When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts. Fascism -- Germany lost the Second World War, Fascism won it. Believe me, my friend.
(Liberal Fascism (2007); Goldberg, Jonah; pg. 1)
So now you know. Goldberg agrees with Carlin on this point. Likely, they are both right about how tyranny would in all likelyhood come to America. Not via marching feet in the street, but wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. There is another statement out there that pretty much paraphrases Carlin's comments in just such terminology. Next, Goldberg acknowledges the slippery nature of the terms, "fascist" and "fascism".
There is no word in the English language that gets thrown around more freely by people who don't know what it means than "fascism". Indeed, the more someone uses the wrod "fascist" in everyday conversation, the less likely it is that he knows what he's talking about. [...] It's an academic version of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: the more closely you study the subject, the less clearly defined it becomes.
(Liberal Fascism; pp. 2-3)
Goldberg is also correct in this. "Fascism" and "fascist" are what I call "thought stoppers", terms which, once invoked, stop any rational debate dead in its tracks. Like every other thought stopper, "fascist" is really quite devoid of meaning, but carries a considerable amount of emotional baggage.
It isn't the only term so used. Indeed, this problem of using another term as a thought stopper inspired this:
A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact:
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.
II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself...
(Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848); Engles, Frederick; Marx, Karl; p. 1)
"Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as fascistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of fascism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?" Thought stopper indeed.
Unlike the fascists, the communist response to the useage of the term "communist" as a thought stopper was the publication of this manifesto (commonly referred to as the "Communist Manifesto", though that is not its official title) which cleared up all doubt for all time as to exactly what "communist" meant. The manifesto not only describes in detail what the communist agenda was, but also what distinguished the Marxist version from all other socialistic and communistic philosophies and movements, either of the past or contemporaneous with it. There is no such thing as a "Fascist Manifesto". Given that, therefore, one wonders why use the term "fascist" at all, with the obvious exception of discussions about Mussolini and his Fascist Party of Italy? The only reason seems to be the fact that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan happened to have a military alliance, as the "Axis". Trying to force these disparate countries into the same ideological box just doesn't work.
Jonah Goldberg would have done us a great service in pointing this out, and then dropping the term completely, and advising others to follow his example, sort of a Goldberg extension to Godwin's Law. Unforch, he didn't do this, and we'll see why not later on.
Finally, since we must have a working definition of fascism, here is mine: Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism.
(Note: Emphasis in original)
(Liberal Fascism; Goldberg; p. 23)
This reminds us of another famous personage who played this very same game:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone. "It means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
If you've already acknowledged that the term has so little meaning that you need to tailor one to suit your arguement, then why not just make up your own word. Call it "blargism". Then you can write a book with the title: Liberal Blargs. Already, one senses a certain disengenuousness here.
Chapters One and Two
Mussolini: The Father of Fascism
Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left
I am going to treat these two chapters together since the same point applies to both. Goldberg describes Mussolini's origins. The full name is: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini. The names are after: Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary who deposed the emperor Maximillian and assumed the presidency of Mexico. Amilcare came from Amilcare Cipriani and Adrea Costa -- two lesser known figures of anarcho-socialism. Benito's father, Alessandro, was a flaming leftist whose customers at his blacksmith shop had to endure his political harangues before he'd take care of shoeing their horses. Joining Marx and Engles, Alessandro Mussolini was a member of the First International, and a local leader of a socialist council. Mussolini rose to the top of the radical circles of Europe.
Mussolini's career as a Communist came to an end with the coming of WW I. "Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!" It is with these sentences that the "Communist Manifesto" concludes. All that talk about how the working men have no country, and about uniting, were dashed to pieces with the coming of war. When war loomed over Europe, the workingmen lined up for the war effort. They did not see this as the opportunity to rid themselves of their alleged capitalist pig overlords, They weren't the onlyones. A great many of the leaders and agitators of the socialist and communist causes also forgot that they had no country, and supported the leaders of their various native lands as they prepared for war. About the only country where this did not happen is Italy, whose communist party was a good deal more radical than the parties of other European countries. Mussolini, seeing the handwriting on the wall, was one of the few who came out in favour of war, and Italian socialists responded with accusations that he was being paid off. He was summarily kicked out of the party which he had led. He then hooked up with the Fascio Autonomo d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, and once again, using his skills in oratory and organizing, rose to the leadership of this new party.
Socialism was predicated on the Marxist view that "workers" as a class were more bound by common interests than any other criteria. Implicit in the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" was the idea that class was more important than race, nationality, religion, language, culture, or any other "opiate" of the masses. It had become clear to Mussolini that not only was this manifestly not so but it made little sense to pretend otherwise. If Sorel had taught that Marxism was a series of useful myths rather than scientific fact, why not utilize more useful myths if they are available? "I saw that internationalism was crumbling", Mussolini later admitted. It was "utterly foolish" to believe that class conciousness could ever trump the call of nation and culture".
(Liberal fascism; p. 45)
Despite all the name calling, despite the most popular epithet, "Doughy Pantload", Goldberg is right: Italian Fascism really is a creation of the left. It's an outgrowth of the realization that Marx's class struggle wasn't the be-all and end-all of history. Mussolini was also an acolyte of Georges Sorel, whose main idea was that, in politics, truth didn't count for much. If a true paradigm worked, so much the better; if a fabricated myth could just as effectively motivate the masses, then it didn't matter if it was right or not. Sorel concluded that it made no difference whether Marx was right or not. Myths, symbolism, style, form over content: all the stuff of advertising of all kinds. That's essentially what Sorel was: an ad-man.
None of this is to say that Mussolini nwas a deeply committed ideologue or political theorist. As a pragmatist, he was constantly willing to throw off dogma, theory, and alliances whenever convenient. In the few years immediately following the formation of the Fasci di Combattimento, Mussolini's main governing themes were expediency and opportunism. [...] Mussolini asked the Italian people to trust him now and worry about an actual program down the road.
(Liberal Fascism; p. 48)
We also learn here that it didn't matter. Mussolini was in it strictly for Mussolini.
19For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
20And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
22To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
1 Cor 9 : 19-22
Like "Saint" Paul, Mussolini became all things to all people, depending on who he was addressing to sell his bullshit. There was no core set of principles at all. As with Hitler, he could preach leftist ideas when he needed to appeal to lefties. He was a rightie when that would further his interests.
So far as Hitler is concerned, Goldberg's case for making him a man of the left is a good deal less convincing. Hitler had no communistic bona-fides or history. Aside from a raging anti-Semitism, it doesn't appear that Hitler was political at all. Nor was he the original political thinker that Mussolini was. However, Hitler was the consumate salesman. He was good at street theatre, and his political rallies were quite the extravaganzas. He paid careful attention to symbolism, and to myth-making. He knew what people wanted to hear and he delivered. Certainly, the Nazi party was known as the National Socialist German Workers Party. After all, the war and the hyperinflation of the Wiemar years meant that capitalism left a bad taste in many a German mouth. Here, too, there was damn little substance and much form. Hitler, like Mussolini, was in it for Hitler. After all, the Holocaust served no purpose other than indulging Hitler's extreme hatred for Jews, and greatly damaged Germany's war effort. On the Eastern front, German battalions went undersupplied since the rollingstock was delivering Jews to the camps, instead of delivering guns 'n' ammo and fresh troops to the front. And let's not forget that driving all those brilliant Jewish physicists out of Germany cost Adolph The Bomb and the war. Dipshit.
No wonder people have a great difficulty in pinning down the fascist ideology. There is simply no "there" there. A lot of people out there aren't gonna like this, but I reiterate: Goldberg is right, Italian Fascism was a phenomnon of the extreme left. However, it is also a non-ideology. After Mussolini received his reality bitch-slap, he gave up on all ideology and guiding principle, save for one: all power to Mussolini for the personal self-aggrandizement of Mussolini.
Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism
This chapter alone is well worth the price of the whole damn book. After reading this, there can be no doubt as to who is the Worst. President. Ever. It isn't George W. Bush, or the odious Tricky Dick. It's Woodrow Wilson. Goldberg details for us just what a mega-scumbag this asshole was.
Wilson lied the US into a European conflict that served no US interest after having run on the promise that the US would stay out of it. At the time, Wilson readily admitted this: "There is not a single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause we are fighting for." There was no bigger fuck-up than getting involved in WW I. The consequences of this disasterous decision are still reverberating through the country, and likely will be for another century, at the very least. WW II, the Cold War, the empowerment of the Islamowhackos: all of it goes straight back to Wilson.
This was the first time that the US public at large was propagandized into pure, unadulterated hate. Not even during the War Between the States were the Confederate enemy so demonized and dehumanized as the Germans were during WW I, even though the WBTS was the first instance of total war, complete with strategic bombings of civilian targets. As in Orwell's 1984, the public had its daily hates. Not even young school children were spared the propaganda. Wilson equated dissent with treason. (Sound familiar?)
The Sedition and Espionage Act. Makes Bush's PATRIOT Act look like child's play.
The American Protective League: secret police, wide spread paranoia, neighbour spying on neighbour to report even the slightest deviation from the "party line".
The Justice Department created its own quasi-official fascisti, known as the American Protective League, or APL. They were given badges -- many of which read "Secret Service" (Note: The APL had nothing to do with the Secret Service) and charged with keeping an eye on neighbors, co-workers, and friends. [...] One of its most important functions was to serve as head crackers against "slackers" who avoided conscription. In New York City, in September, 1918, the APL launched its biggest slacker raid, rounding up fifty thousand men.
(Liberal Fascism; p. 114)
Palmer raids. Wilson's attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, rounded up some 6000 -- 10000 "radicals", mostly Italian immigrants, for summary deportation who had no recourse to due process.
This is just some of the douche-baggery Goldberg documents. The fact that the US remians a democratic republic today is due only to the fact that this bastard became too incapacitated during his second term (his wife actually conducted the bulk of presidential business behind the scene) and croaked not long after leaving office. Otherwise, I don't doubt that Wilson would have declared himself "president for life". Had Wilson dropped dead before 1914, the US would have been spared a whole bunch of grief.
Of course, what's important here is what Goldberg does not mention. Wilson didn't do these things without precedent. There is nothing Wilson did that Abraham Lincoln didn't do himself. If there is any meaningful difference, it's that Wilson was a good deal more efficient. Is this a case of IOKIARDI? Or is it simply that when Lincoln was in office Mussolini and Hitler hadn't been born yet? Lincoln couldn't've been a "fascist" since that word didn't even exist. Kinda puts a crimp in Goldberg's thesis, doesn't it?
Goldberg also fails to tell us that the Federal Reserve System, the income tax, and the WarOnDrugs™ also happened on Wilson's watch. He doesn't mention it because none of these faux conservatives have any intention of doing a damn thing about it. Abolish the Federal Reserve and return to a sound monetary system? Talk about ending the income tax? Legalize drugs? They'll fit you for a tinfoil hat, accuse you of being obsessed with "black helicopters" and fit you for a straight jacket. The MsM'll call you a "kook" for daring to challenge the orthodoxy. So it's no surprise Goldberg shoves this bit of Wilsonian history down the MemoryHole™
One other thing that doesn't get much mention is that Wilson was what was called at that time a "Progressive". American Progressivism was an incoherent hodge-podge of conflicting ideologies. They weren't liberals as we understand it today, even though they did some "liberal" things, such as child labour laws, the eight hour day, environmental protection, trust busting, food and drug purity regulations. They were also vicious racists who would today find a warm welcome from outfits like Stromfront or Aryan Nations. Wilson, himself, praised the Reconstruction era Ku Klux Klan -- not for its opposition to corrupt and douchy carpetbaggers and scalawags -- but for its racial policies, and promoted by means of a special White House screening D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, which led directly to a resurection of the Klan after the war.
Progressives were also militaristic, and warmongers who believed that it was their Dog-given right to invade other countries at will to spread "democracy" (Sound familiar?). They were responsible for a military build-up beyond all necessity for national defense. In those days, the strategic weapon was the capital ship. They built far more than were reasonably necessary to serve the purpose of "Gunboat Diplomacy" (another Progressive innovation). This was the beginning of the MilitaryIndustrialComplex™ that Ike would warn us about.
The Spanish American war gets only a very brief mention here (and a mention is really all it is). This was a war started by lies. The Spanish were said to have been responsible for the destruction of the Maine as it was anchored in Havana harbour. The "Rupert Murdoch" of his day, William Randolph Hurst, and his "FOX News" (yellow journalism tabloids) was the pro-war noise machine of its day. (Sound familiar?) The Spanish American war largely failed in its objectives since the public at large was a good deal more politically aware, and not nearly so dumbed down. They recognized it for what it was, and opposed it. All the US got out of the deal was temporary dominance of the Phillippens, and, of course, Puerto Rico.
Progressives were also religious nutters. William Jennings Bryan, of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" infamy, was a long time fixture in Progressive politics. You can't read about what he did during the trial of Thomas Scopes for teaching Evil-u-shun without concluding that Bryan was absolutely batshit. He wasn't alone. These Progressives saw themselves as the instruments of their god (yet another arguement for separation of church and state).
These assholes are not the ancestors of today's liberals, but rather the neo-"cons". No wonder Goldberg doesn't want to talk about it.
Franklin Roosevelt's Fascist New Deal
FDR. New deal. Fascism, fascism, fascism.
Goldberg seems to have forgotten all about a little dust-up called "World War II". Against whom did FDR prosecute this war? Secondly, if FDR were already a "fascist", then how come a cabal of right wing industrialists and reactionary organizations tried to overthrow his presidency?
[Major General Smedley] Butler [USMC, (Ret.)] claimed that on 1st July 1934, Gerald C. MacGuire a Wall Street bond salesman and Bill Doyle, the department commander of the American Legion in Massachusetts, tried to recruit him to lead a coup against Roosevelt. Butler claimed that the conspirators promised him $30 million in financial backing and the support of most of the media.
Butler pretended to go along with the plot and met other members of the conspiracy. In November 1934 Butler began testifying in secret to the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities (the McCormack-Dickstein Committee). Butler claimed that the American Liberty League was the main organization behind the plot. He added the main backers were the Du Pont family, as well as leaders of U.S. Steel, General Motors, Standard Oil, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
This incident really happened. Take a good look at those involved. Is it any wonder that this, too, has disappeared down the MemoryHole™?
Kinda makes it a tad difficult to hang the albatross of fascism around FDR's neck, doesn't it?
There really isn't a helluvalot more that can be said here, but I shall explicate anyway.
Hence some in the black press said that the NRA really stood for the "Negro Run Around", the "Negro Removal Act", and "Negroes Robbed Again". At a rally in Harlem a protester drew a picture of the Blue Eagle and wrote underbeath: "That Bird Stole My Pop's Job"
(Liberal Fascism; p. 156)
Goldberg gives one the impression that it was just those pesky brown people who opposed the Messiah's PlanOfSalvation™. This is simply not true. A significant porportion of the public didn't like this "New Deal" one damn bit. Here are the lyrics of a popular protest song:
I'm so tired - Oh so tired - of the whole New Deal;
Of the juggler's smile; the barker's spiel.
Tired of taxes on my ham and eggs;
Tired of payoffs to political yeggs.
I'm tired of farmer's goose-stepping to laws;
Of millions of itching job-holder's paws;
Of Fireside Talks over commandeered mikes;
Of passing more laws to stimulate strikes.
I'm tired of the hourly-increasing debt;
I'm tired of promises still to be met;
Of eating and sleeping by Government plan;
Of calmly forgetting the Forgotten Man.
I'm tired of every new brain-trust thought;
Of the ship of state - now a pleasure yacht.
I'm tired of cheating the courts by stealth;
And terribly tired of sharing my wealth.
I'm tired and bored with the whole New Deal;
With its juggler's smile and barker's spiel.
-- I'm So Tired of it All / 1940s Protest song, UK
And a bonus haiku:
A Red New Deal with a Soviet seal
Endorsed by a Moscow hand,
The strange result of an alien cult
In a liberty loving land.
Furthermore, it is not possible to mention opposition to the New Deal without mentioning Al Smith's The Facts in the Case. Who was Al Smith, you ask?
Now, I am here for another reason. I am here because I am a Democrat. I was born in the Democratic Party and I expect to die in it, and furthermore that no group of men owned it, but, on the other hand, that it belonged to all the plain people of the United States.
I must make a confession. It is not easy for me to stand up here tonight and talk to the American people against the Democratic Administration. That is not easy. It hurts me. But I can call upon innumerable witnesses to testify to the fact that during my whole public life I put patriotism above partisanship. And when I see danger -- I say "danger", that is, the "Stop, look and listen" to the fundamental principles upon which this government of ours was organized -- it is difficult for me to refrain from speaking up.
(The Facts in the Case (15 Jan, 1936); Smith, Alfred, E.)
Note: It would seem that this speech by Al Smith has disappeared down the MemoryHole™. If you'd like to see it, I have a *.pdf that I can e-mail you. I highly recommend it.
Smith's complaint is that FDR totally ignored the platform of the Democratic party, and blatently broke his campaign promises. Goldberg can't piss in that well without simultaneously pissing in the GOP's. One of the malignant aspects of the Roosevelt legacy is that party platforms, and hence party conventions, have become meaningless formalities. The Republicans lagged a bit, but they are no different in this regard. The barefoot 'n' pregnant fetus fetishists fight like hell to keep the Human Life Amendment plank in the GOP platform. It's been there since 1980; where is that HLA? Why do the Christers even bother?
BUSH: Well, I think they ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn't matter who you are or how you're raised or where you're from, that you can succeed. I don't think they'll look at us with envy. It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And it's -- our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we have to be humble. And yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. So I don't think they ought to look at us in any way other than what we are. We're a freedom-loving nation and if we're an arrogant nation they'll view us that way, but if we're a humble nation they'll respect us.
--Second Bush/Gore Debate
How did that promise work out? How many Republicans who voted for Smirky McFlightsuit ended up feeling just like Al Smith? "No new taxes", "Humble nation, but strong" -- like father, like son. You just can't trust a Bush, or any other fucking R or D. Thank you Franklin. Thanks a whole bunch!
I would like them to re-establish and redeclair the principles that they put forth in the 1932 platform. Even our Republican friends -- and I know many of them, they talk to me freely, we have our little confidences amoung ourselves -- they have all agreed that it is the most compact, the most direct, and the most intelligent platforms that was ever put forth by any political party in the country.
The Republican platform was ten times as long: it was stuffy, it was unreadable, and in many points, not understandable, and no administration in the history of the country came into power with a more simple, a more clear or a more inescapable mandate than did the party that was inaugurated on the 4th of March in 1933.
And listen, no candidate in the history of the country ever pledged himself more unequivocally to his party platform than did the President that was inaugurated on that day. Well, here we are. Millions and millions of Democrats just like myself, all over the country, still believe in that platform, and what we want to know is why it wasn't carried out.
(The Facts in the Case; Smith)
Smith goes on to critique Roosevelt and his New Deal in the most uncompromising of terms. And not once does Smith accuse FDR of being a "fascist", as does Goldberg. Remember, this is a life-long and prominant Democrat speaking here.
You also can't mention the opposition without also revealing who the real conservatives are and what authentic conservativism looks like. The contrast between a genuine conservative Democrat, such as Al Smith, and the neo-"con" counterfeit would be way too obvious. It will not do to show us what the Republican party used to stand for. So Goldberg doesn't mention it. Inconvenient truths, anyone?
At this stage of the game, the rest of the chapters become pretty tautological. Same stuff, only the names of the particulars involved change after this chapter.
Conclusion
Jonah Goldberg is just a bundle of contradictions. Right from the get-go, he lays out a perfectly good case for simply dropping the whole fascism business entirely. Then he goes on and tries to hang the albatross of fascism on "liberals", and by extension, one may assume, the Democratic party. He says that FDR is like Hitler, but not really. He says that liberals are fascists, except when they're not. He's constantly making these overblown accusations, then immediately taking them back. One gets the impression that he'd like to be intellectually dishonest, but his conscience keeps getting in the way.
Really, though, Goldberg is just covering his ass. How many casual readers are going to remember his disclaimer from the introduction by the time they're half way through this tome? It allows him a defense against axxusations of demonization, but it's with a wink and a nod. He is demonizing the Democrats by constantly repeating that word "fascism" multiple times on just about every page. It's dog whistling to the wingnuts.
This whole book is really an exercise in misdirection. It has become obvious to all but the comatose that neo-"conservativism" has failed miserably. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. The Taliban may have been chased out of Afghanistan, but they are stronger than ever, having set up a de facto Taliban state of Waziristan (sp?) in the Pakistani "tribal areas" bordering Afghanistan. Due to Smirky's negligence and interferance in internal Pakistani politics: Benazir Bhutto would never have returned if Bush hadn't strong-armed Musharraf. As a result of sticking his nose where it did not belong, the danger that Pakistan will fall to the Islamowhackos, and that terrorists will get The Bomb are greater now than ever. Goldberg wants you to forget just who it was that did that. He doesn't want you to realize that the Iraqi adventure traces its lineage back to the Spanish American War and WW I -- all of which were fought for the very same reason: an American Empire, Pax Americana, a New American Century. All of which used the very same pretext: a nonexistant "threat", and our Dog-given right as Americans to ram "democracy" down the throats of all those lesser peoples and inferior countries. For their own good, of course.
This is not the agenda of liberalism.
This is not the agenda of genuine conservativism.
It is the agenda of neo-"cons" -- regardless of whether they call themselves "neo-conservatives", "Progressives", or "Compassionate Conservatives". All of them are cut from the same cloth.
If anyone in America deserves the label of "fascist", it is not the liberals. It is not the "left". To be sure, liberals have plenty that's wrong with them. (I have my share of disagreements with their agenda, with the whole liberal philosophy. I am, after all, a conservative.) No. It is the neo-"cons". Goldberg would have you look the other way to prevent your seeing that. Animal rights: fascist! No cigarette smoking in your favourite pub or restaurant: fascist! Reproductive choice for women: fascist! Gay marriage: fascist!
Bomb the shit out of countries that never did a damn thing to the US of A? Unprovoked invasion and occupation of one country for what another country's citizens did to us on 9-11? Threatening to nuke Iran? Promises of neverending warfare? Bush doctrine? PATRIOT Acts? Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Look! Over there! Fascists!
BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!
In all the torrents of verbiage this book has inspired, whether coming from the left or the right, of all the countless weblogs I have visited, there is one thing that I have yet to see. The fact is that labels like "liberal" or "conservative" are not really that definitive, and never have been. The only true differences of political philosophy is between those who believe that power should reside mainly with the State and its governing apparatus, or whether power should mainly remain with the people with the bare minimum of power to the state to just the extend necessary to secure our rights. Statists or Individualists, all the rest is detail. These days, what passes for political debate is just a cat-fight over who gets to pull the levers of State Power. Seldom is the question asked if it's really such a swell idea to be investing the state with that much power in the first place. This, too, is another kind of misdirection. Goldberg documents in a great many ways how the "progressive" or "liberal" is frequently statist and authoritarian to the core. So why not simply name it for what it is? Goldberg would rather pin a swastika on statists and authoritarians whose policies he doesn't like. To do otherwise would force him to recognize the authoritarianism of the right, with which he is perfectly content. As always, the faux conservative reveals himself to be in disagreement only with who gets to command the apparatus of State Power, and to which ends that power is being commanded. The Limbaugh Bros., Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilley, and now Jonah Goldberg: just one more asshole in the parade of bullshit, authoritarian, faux conservative assholes.
Statist "liberals" or statist "conservatives": makes no difference since both groups believe themselves to have a divine right to drag the rest of us, kicking and screaming, into the Promised Land. It doesn't matter whether that "Promised Land" is Jesusland or the Workers' Paradise. Both will just as readily put you up against the wall if you dare to disagree with them, if only they could get away with it.
Here we are. Born to be kings,
We're the princes of the universe.
Here we belong. Born to be kings,
Princes of the universe. Fighting and free
Got the world in my hands
I'm here for your love and I'll make my stand.
We were born to be princes of the universe.
This is from the theme song of The Highlander. It could just as well be the theme song of every statist, because this is the song they sing. Doesn't matter whether it's "liberal" Bill Clinton...
The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system. For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life characterized by both practical political ability and concern for rapid social progress. It is a life I still feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous and inadequate it has been in recent years. (The society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing, and if that is true we are all finished anyway.)
(Note: Emphasis mine)
Bill Clinton's Letter to ROTC Director
..Or "conservative" Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney, or George "Top Gun" Bush, &c. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. People like this see themselves as these superior beings. It didn't bother their consciences in the least knowing that their ducking service in Vietnam meant that some other poor schlubs without the political connections had to go in their places. Indeed, they saw it as their patriotic duty not to serve, and take the chance they'd get their asses shot off in some rice paddy half way around the world. How would we make social progress if such a superior being as Bill Clinton had been lost in 'Nam. Or Cheney, or Bush, or any other draft-dodging chickenhawk? This is how they see themselves: superior beings, "Princes of the Universe" and "Born to be kings", and they are certain of their entitlement to rule over us. For our own good, of course. What can we say about Bush's Iraq clusterfuck other than that it was marked by hubris from the get-go: from disregarding the Army War College's estimate as to how many troops it would require on the ground, from promises that compliant Iraqis (three mutually hostile groups: Sunni, Shia and Kurd) would settle down into a "democracy" within a few months, and that they'd be so grateful that we Americans would be swimming in cheap gasoline. When Smirky McFlightsuit stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and pronounced "Mission Accomplished", I believe he really believed it. He really believed that within a year all those Middle Eastern leaders would join in on a round of Kumbayah and make a peace that's eluded the region since, well, the dawn of recorded history. How could such a superior being advised by superior beings possibly be wrong? "Mission Accomplished", "War to end all wars", "Remember the Maine": different lyrics but the same fucking mouldie oldie. Goldberg is the willing toady seeking to bask in the reflected glory of TheGreatOnes™.
Well, I, for one, have heard enough of that tune. Like the man said sixty years ago, "I'm so tired of it all, of the juggler's smile and the barker's spiel": of these fucking neo-"cons", of these asshole Christers and theo-"cons": they want to live in a theocracy? Hell, I'll pay for a one way ticket, nonstop to Teheran, for them. They ought to like that: no fagg0rz, no Gayagenda™, no birth control or abortion, no uppity wimminz. An added bonus: you can legally yiff goats over there.
The opposite is the distrust of State Power, which should be strictly limited. "That government governs best which governs least", the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, and the principle embodied in the Constitution. The idea is at once the authentically conservate and authentically radical. For the bulk of history, the vast majority have been subservient to various overlords.
Here is the choice: will you be a serf, or will you stand as a free (wo)man? Or will you simply choose which overlord to serve? In the light of this analysis, the whole frufraha over "liberal fascism" dissolves into irrelevance. That no one has thought to explain it in these terms, in all those multitude of words concerning this book, is a damn shame. Indeed, it is more than a damn shame, and just another indication as to the danger to the continuance of the American experiment that began in 1776.