Beware the liberal fascists

Daily Mail ^ | 1/4/09 | Jonah Goldberg

[jobim]

"Militarism during the first third of the 20th Century was seen as the best means of organising society. Since then, liberals have been searching for a moral equivalent of war that would inspire citizens to drop their personal ambitions and, in President Woodrow Wilson's words, 'marry their interests to the state'."

[jobim]

"Liberal Fascism" is one of those watershed books that will foster greater understanding of an issue that is about to, perhaps, remake our nation: the Left's wielding the reins of government, using crisis as rationale toward statism - and calling us the fascists. Thomas Sowell has said this was the most important book of 2008.

Goldberg has done exhaustive research, fully documented, on his thesis that fascism is a creation of the leftist primordial swamp, and was attached to the right by Stalin when Hitler turned against him.

The opening chapter on Wilson is a sobering analysis of who he was, what he really undertook, and how this is eerily a prologue to much that we are about to witness in the coming administration.

It is briefly discussed on another thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2158448/posts

[xcamel]

Beware 7/10’s of the US Congress?

[SandRat]

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

[Clintonfatigued]

“President Woodrow Wilson’s words, ‘marry their interests to the state’.”

These words do not reflect favorably on Wilson.

[BOBTHENAILER]

He absolutely nails it.

[Old Sarge]

The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

Chilling.

[Stepan12]

My sister borrowed "Liberal Fascism" from me to read. I needed to read it twice to get some of the information there into my head.

My sister has it now and won't give it back.

[SeeSharp]

The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

True. But Goldberg is being remiss by not also looking back in history to find the ancestors of what he is calling liberal fascism. That line of inquiry leads straight back to Lincoln.

[inpajamas]

If what he was saying was true there would be others saying it too - And there is. here's just one:

Skarbutts

[chpmass]

Fantastic book. I had no idea what to expect when I read it about a year ago, but EVERYONE should read this book. I also highly recommend The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes.

[american_ranger]

Blame Lincoln and totally ignore the greater travesties against freedom committed by Jeff Davis.

We will never know what Lincoln would have done after the war was won because he never had the chance.

[SeeSharp]

But we do know Lincoln's philosophies and we do know who later justified their actions by referring to Lincoln.

Why would any statist dictator ever praise the Confederacy? Secession is the greatest nightmare for any centralized state.

[Emperor Palpatine]

Wilson was a disaster and doesn’t deserve ANY favorable remembrances. After Carter and FDR he was our worst and most dangerous president. he had one of the most evil men ever to breathe working in the shadows for him...Edward Mandell House.

Wilson was an unmitigated disaster. Of course this is what happens when we let college professors and intellectuals anywhere near the seat of power.

[Revolting cat!]

I haven’t read the book, but I have read the articles, summaries, reviews. Enough of them.He’s right on target. I have one complaint though- it’s not ‘liberal’. Sam Nunn was a Liberal, JFK, RFK, Moynihna, you get my drift; the current “liberals” the fascists, call themselves “Progressives”, and that is the term we must expose and devalue. Goldberg ought to understand that the cultural war is a linguistic war as much as everything else. And they are winning it, having redefined pederasty as a synonym of merriment, having redefined infanticide as a synonym of free choice, having redefined Communism as progress, and who among the citizens of this country is against merriment, choice and progress?! (See those euphemisms thoughtlessly used here and weep!) They are not “Liberals”!

[SandRat]

Even farther back. Suggest you read..

[Wil H]

Goldberg is spot on.

The NAZI Party’s real name was the NSDAP which translated to the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”

Doesn’t sound very conservative to me....

[Tax-chick]

I read that this past month, because Anoreth had checked it out and it was in the closet when I was reaching for a book. Excellent writing and research, kept me up late for a week.

[SeeSharp]

I have it. Thanks.

It is with the Lincoln administration that the ideologies that would become fascism and socialism first gained permanent power in the US. It happened with the French Revolution in Europe.