Not so much Goldberg, who is a monumental halfwit even by his own sect’s standards.

Anyway the story goes that GBS was sat at dinner next to a standard bug eyed loon with a bee in her bonnet about homeopathy (some versions of the story substitute astrology, or some other deranged belief system).

Throughout the three course meal and on to the coffee the dinner guest expounded all the benefits and wonders and complexities and achievements of homeopathy. On and on and on she went while GBS murmured ‘really’ and ‘gosh’ and ‘hmmmm’. Eventually, four hours later she stopped, paused for breath, and asked ….

‘So Mr Shaw….now that you’ve heard what I have to say…..what do you think about homeopathy?’

‘Well….’ replied Shaw slowly. ‘It occurs to me that between the two of us we know everything there is to know about homeopathy.’

‘How is that?’ She replied, puzzled.

‘Well…’ said Shaw. ‘You see….you know absolutely everything there is to know about homeopathy…..except the fact that it’s all complete nonsense from start to finish.

And I know that!’

Likewise some of our commentators seem to know everything about the thought of Goldberg, apart from the fact that he’s a bug eyed loon and his book is worthless.

And I know that!

Is that what Goldberg is saying?

Thank you, as well.

Thank you, Mr. Arnold. My local library has a copy, and I will be picking it up before the weekend. (I’m pretty sure I’ll be adding the title to my personal library, but I’ve spent a lot of money on books in the last couple of weeks.)

i recommend reading the book, too. it’s one of the best things i’ve read on fascism, and a “political thought” classic in its own right. it actually covers much of the same turf as goldberg’s book, while avoiding the partisan gotchyas and embarrassing tendentiousness. it also avoids much of the naive presumptions of the liberal establishment, while still making an eloquent case for social democracy as success story. i happen to disagree with the woman on the final point, but what a great book!

In the book The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Joseph de Maistre and the Origins of Fascism” convincingly argues that de Maistre’s violent reaction to the Enlightenment, his thoroughgoing antirationalism, and his vision of absolute power, punishment, and bloodshed as the only true rulers on earth, anticipated totalitarianism a hundred years before anyone else. Maistre saw self-sacrifice before the hangman as the only possible workable organization of the world.

To quote only one of Berlin’s many different points, look at the explicit list of Maistre’s enemies of society:

“To the Protestants and Jansenists he now adds deists and atheists, Freemasons and Jews, scientists and democrats, Jacobins, liberals, utilitarians, anti-clericals, egalitarians, perfectibilians, materialists, idealists, lawyers, journalists, secular reformers, and intellectuals of every breed; all those who appeal to abstract principles, who put faith in individual reason or the individual conscience; believers in individual liberty or the rational organization of society, reformers and revolutionaries: these are the enemy of the settled order and must be rooted out at all costs… This is a catalogue which we have heard a good deal since. It assembles for the first time, with great precision, the list of enemies of the great counter-revolutionary movement that culminated in Fascism.”

From Berlin’s conclusion:

“..an order which Maistre regarded as the only remedy against the dissolution of the social fabric came into being, in our own time, in its most hideous form… and thereby, at inestimable cost in human suffering, has vindicated the depth and brilliance of a remarkable, and terrifying, prophet of our day.”

I’m not sure how the line you’ve quoted from me is related either to your “HOLY COW” or to the quote from Goldberg. I can appreciate your “whole point of the book” critique, but I’m not buying it.

It’s a shame. I read a lot of debate on the Internet. I find people on both sides of the political spectrum (the oversimplification: liberal/conservative) who are thoughtful, committed, and articulate. I also find people, again, on both sides of the spectrum, who are lowbrow and truculent, in a “gotcha” sort of way. (I’m not talking about you with that last sentence, or about anyone on this list, just to be clear.) A good part of what bothers me about Goldberg’s book is the pandering to lowbrow, “angry, white, males.” (I’ll concede that.) Is that sentence part of the pandering? I’m sure it’s calculated to be so.

I also find it ironic that Goldberg criticizes the knee-jerk cry of “Fascism” as a way to slander whatever it is someone doesn’t like (Hillary, Obama, Bush, Pat Buchanan), and yet Mr. Goldberg, himself, goes from zero to a violation of Godwin’s Law in 2.7 seconds.

Nevertheless, I don’t find that the above, alone, is sufficient to dismiss what he writes in his book. As to his blog—I don’t read it.

Now, as to the quote above. I don’t know that “Liberal Fascism” means everyone who votes Democrat. Is that what Goldberg is saying? I don’t think so, but if he is, he’s nuts. Is it an inflammatory exaggeration in poor taste to say that the white male is the “Jew” of Liberal Fascism? Yes, I believe so.

But, if that sentence were on an essay exam followed by the injunction, “Discuss,” could I take the affirmative and make some sense of it? I’m sure I could. Have you read the most radical pronouncements of feminists, environmentalists, and your assorted “oppressed peoples”? The most radical pronouncements? It may be just me, but it seems like there are still some “crazy uncles” who publish. (To be frank, the political Right has them, too.) I see plenty of criticism about white males being the root of all that plagues the “enlightened.”

With that said, I started only by criticizing what I thought was an unfounded, dismissive mention of this particular book in the original post and asking for something more substantive. (Whatever you may think, I assure you that I would not like to discuss it with Glenn Beck. I wouldn’t so much as let him shine my shoes, and I’m sure he’s enjoying it more for the lowbrow trolling than anything else.) In any case, I now have to wonder if I haven’t sent this thread completely off on a tangent. (Not without help, of course.) I am therefore content that I’ve said my piece, and that the polite thing to do would be to stop. Anyone who wants to comment on what I’ve said in this matter has my assurance of having the last word, with respect to me.

What I’m getting from the book, so far, is as follows. Fascism didn’t begin with Hitler.

Mario, please explain why anyone would defend a sentence like “The white male is the Jew of liberal fascism.” And then consider why it might be that the whole point of the book is contained in that sentence and the cover.

If you have the page number of that quote, I’d like to have it. Dead trees aren’t search-friendly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to believe that the quote comes out of the book. I’d just like to see the context for myself.

What I’m getting from the book, so far, is as follows. Fascism didn’t begin with Hitler. Moreover, the many of the key ideas that Mussolini espoused and implemented didn’t begin with him, but instead trace back to the Progressive Era in the United States and some elements within Pragmatism. Mussolini, and by extension, Fascism, were in fact greatly admired during the 20’s and 30’s by many intellectuals in the U.S., most notably those who identified themselves as Progressives, and later, Liberals.

But “Fascism” as a brand was eclipsed by the enormity of Hitler’s regime, and alienated from the Left by the far Left (aka, socialists) who even before Hitler worked his insanity on all of us began to identify Fascism as on the political Right, which it was, compared to Stalin, et al. Fascism, of course, was not anywhere near those actually on the political Right: namely, the “conservatives” (aka, classical liberals) who were for capitalism and small government. As an ideology, and especially in the promises it made and in the bogeymen it attacked (leave Hitler’s Jewish innovation aside for a moment), Fascism competed directly with socialism.

Now, I’ve said this before: I’m halfway through the book, and I, myself, have criticized the incidental trolling—the “partisan pot shots”—that I’m coming across as I read. I’m guessing that where he’s going with the book is to say that the central ideas of Fascism—which don’t include “final solutions”—trace their pedigree to the Progressives and can be found still as key ideas in the American political Left, today.

It should be noted, too, that Goldberg, later in his book, has a chapter entitled, “We’re all Fascists, now,” implying that these ideas can be found on both sides of the political spectrum. His main point though is that Fascism is not a phenomenon of the political Right, but instead of the political Left. That’s “wacky,” huh?

I’m going to sum up what I’ve read of his book in plain language, with an everyday image. Mussolini and Hitler are the “crazy uncles” of the political Left. I can understand the embarrassment and horror. One was a buffoon, and in no way a nice person; the other a monster. But, they never sat around the holiday table of the political Right; and it’s dishonest to try to say they’re from some other family.

Again, if you would find me that quote, I’d be obliged.

To which he replies with the even grosser oversimplification, “Leftism = Nazi”.

Then he tries to pretend he hasn’t said the stupidest thing yet said by saying “Of course, I don’t actually mean that Liberals are Nazis, but the fact that I just said that they are is, indeed, central to my point.”

You’ve convinced me, Mario! I’ll go pick up my armband from Obergruppenfuhrer Barney Frank today!

I have done some research on the pre-WWII period, and I am prepared to say that during that era everyone called everyone else a fascist. To specific, Roosevelt called Lindbergh a Nazi and Lindbergh called FDR a fascist. Senator Lundeen of MN was called a Communist in 1934 (by someone later convicted of collaboration with Nazis, a charge repeated by Arthur Schlesinger) and was called a Fascist in 1940 (because of his cooperation with the Nazi tool Viereck.) And of course, the Trotskyists called everyone fascists, but especially the Communists.

Because the right’s open program of “kill all unions, everywhere, all the time” couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the political leanings of a union! Naw, it’s all just about protecting incompetence. Why do liberals hate competence?

It’s also true that these are a long way from being the most serious problems in education. But blaming the politicization of unions on the left is a real howler.