Posted on 01/24/2008 4:32:32 AM PST by wgflyer
Conservatives have long understood that socialism and fascism are two sides of the same coin. They are both reactionary movements attempting to roll back the modern era to a simpler, less corrupt age driven by something higher than money, money, money.
Marx expressed this disdain in The Communist Manifesto:
"The bourgeoisie... has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.'"
The educated middle class read their Marx and understood what had to be done. They must lead the people back from moneymaking to the spirit of true community and soften the cruel oppression of the cash nexus.
"It takes a village" to realize full human potential, they realized, a global village led by people of good will like themselves.
And anyone that disagreed with them was a fascist.
For conservatives this gets old after a while. So Jonah Goldberg decided to write what became an immediate bestseller about fascism and call it Liberal Fascism.
You might call this a good idea. But they used to call it lèse-majesté in the old days of Majesty this and Majesty that. In our day it means you are not allowed to call liberals by naughty names. Some of them get quite upset. Here's one email reported by Jonah:
You are a liar. Your book is a lie. Your life is a lie. Your magazine is a nest of liars. What you are trying to do is a crime. Get out of the closet, faggot.
And so's your old man.
This much is certain. At the turn of the twentieth century there were two ideas competing to be the main bulwark against the bourgeoisie and its globalization program.
One was the idea of the nation state, the notion of a people united politically by a common language and culture. The other was socialism, the idea of a cooperative village economy scaled up to whatever dimension took your fancy: municipal, national, or international.
Socialism in one country: Five political geniuses of the early twentieth century figured out how to combine the two ideas. Their names, in order of rising to power, were Lenin, Mussolini, Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mao.
Unfortunately national socialism is a terrible idea. Nationalism works pretty well, provided it is mitigated by Anglo-Saxon ideas of limited government. It successfully replaces the age-old community of the kindred with the abstract idea of the community of language.
But the face-to-face economic cooperation of the village community just doesn't scale up. Every attempt to make it work requires compulsion. Every effort to correct its inevitable failures ratchets up the level of compulsion. In economic affairs there really is no alternative to the cash nexus.
And when you combine nationalism with socialism you better get out the body bags, tens of millions of them.
We all know that now. Anyone with half a brain knew it a century ago. But most people, they tell us, only use ten percent of their brain capacity.
The Germans, inhabiting the most advanced country in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, succeeded in implementing the most complete combination of nationalism and socialism attempted anywhere in the world. At the time, everyone was impressed.
The Americans, lacking an efficient Prussian bureaucratic tradition and inhibited by their Anglo-Saxon political culture, screwed up their attempt at a directed national economy when they tried it in the 1930s. God, it is said, takes care of children, drunks, and the good old USA.
The Germans were not so lucky. In their efficient way, they demonstrated to the world in graphic detail just how bad national socialism could be if pursued to its logical conclusion.
It was a close shave for America's progressives. So after World War II everyone who was anyone knew at once that the New Deal had nothing to do with fascism. So they all wrote in their diaries: "Dear Diary: I have always known that fascism stinks. I have always fought against right-wing ideas like racism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, and militarism."
But how could they prove it? They couldn't abandon their socialistic government programs; they couldn't abandon the "moral equivalent of war;" they couldn't let go of the national political power they had acquired. But they could fight endlessly against racism. They could schedule endless documentaries about the Holocaust on PBS.
And they could run away from the armed forces that had defeated fascism and repeat endlessly President Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.
Today's anti-fascist can prove it by posting angry denunciations in Amazon's Customer Discussion on Liberal Fascism.
Surely that answers the question: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a Fascist?"
Another decent review at:
http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011108A
Amazon listing has some interesting comments too:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385511841
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
by Jonah Goldberg
The author is right.
Liberals love to dwell on this one aspect common to all Fascism...i.e.-Fascism is anti-Socialist. However, only a really naive idiot would claim that anit-Socialism is the ONLY element of Fascism.
Liberals love this kind of one-dimensional interpretation of political phenomena. I don’t know if it is because they fully understand and refuse to admit there is MUCH more to the issue or because they are not capable or intellectually resourceful enough to see Fascism in a total perspective.
I have not decided yet... but I do know that it is politically VERY expedient for Liberals to perpetuate this tunnel-vision when attacking Conservatism. Unfortunately, public education in the US being what it is, Liberals are NEVER challenged for making such a shameless and intellectually insupportable correlation between Conservatism and Fascism. Lies, lies and more lies…!!!
Very true. I offer up the following quote, which I keep handy on my home page:
Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism." As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, "the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of un-freedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany."
No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom.
-- F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944
The closing paragraphs of the review just cited:
“I suspect that the attempt to get a conviction on charges of fascism reflects a fear that if the charge is romanticizing the state, the judge will be too lenient. When Goldberg writes “we are all fascists now,” he is admitting that all of us are guilty of romanticizing the state.”
“I think that a better approach for convincing the judge to get tougher would be to show more clearly the parallels between the quasi-religious views that lie behind today’s progressive agenda and the thinking behind past mistakes. In my view, they are linked by faith in unproven scientific fads, faith in technocratic elites, and faith that those who share progressive ideology have superior wisdom and moral standing that justifies ruling over others. I believe that the best way to insulate oneself against romanticizing the state is to recognize these faiths and their dangers.”
ring true to me (though it would be hard to think of a better title for stimulating sales). Romanticizing, or even deifying, the state is a malady all too common, even among many of the self-described conservatives here - - so protective of GWB’s sudden-found post-9/11 Wilsonian enthusiasm for “nation building” in a part of the world where the basic social order has barely risen above the tribal. It accounts for a lot (though admittedly not all - the fellow clearly is bereft of executive gifts) of the animus towards Ron Paul, who relentlessly opposes this sort of romanticism, mainly because of its persistently deadly effects.
An interesting side note on the Paul TNR hit piece:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=98634
This actually fits in quite nicely with the TNR history of publishing enthusiastic pro-Mussolini commentaries during the 1930’s.
Fellow Conservatives, especially those who joined up at the appeal of Ronald Reagan, pay attention, I strongly urge you, to pay attention to the tactics used by the Clintons against Obama today, and whomever emerges, regardless of Conservative pedigree, from the Republican field.
We are fighting a Mass Movement, and if you can get your hands on a copy of Eric Hoffer's True Believer, read it, and/or read it again.
The end game strategy of this almost formless Mass Movement, the Alinsky radicals and their formidible Democrat machinery, is to gross you and middle America out.
They don't care if they have a mandate. They want their hands on the abstract levers of power in Washington, and their goal is nothing less than the distruction of American Exceptionalism.
This is NOT an appeal to unite behind "our" nominee. I, myself, remain unsatisfied and uncommitted, and I believe this is what Primaries are for. This is an appeal for you to understand what we are fighting. These Liberals are counting on our Individualism, and integrity, and our refusal to dirty ourselves.
Bill Clinton's "angry outbursts" are designed, like the red flag before the bull, to distract you, to wear you down.
Hitler came to power by plurality, ultimately through democratic contest after democratic contest until he wore down his opposition and, through "compromise," they allowed him a seat at the table, hoping to be rid of him.
Did that quiet him down? No more than the Peace in our Time he sold to Chamberlain on the larger stage years later.
The best way to counter a Mass Movement is with another Mass Movement.
Whether you like it or not, the future of the country will, in the end, depend on you holding your ground.
In paraphrase: "You are the salt of the earth. Therefore have salt in you. If the salt in you has lost its effect, how can it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore but to be trodden under foot by men."
Whether sought or unsought, responsibility for defeating this new challenge from within is left to you, it is left to us, and us alone.
And informed by Judeao-Christian morality and ethics. Without those freemarket capitalism would never have got beyond local markets. The Hanse would never have arisen and the Industrial Revolution would not have occurred.
Sadly, the Republican party has come to believe that they can regain their prominence by moving left. What they will actually achieve will be their dissolution.
for later reading
Until the recent Republican overt moves to the left I found it difficult to understand why the facts and accusations brought eloquently forth in Ann Coulter’s book “Treason” were not publicly investigated. Likewise, this book “Liberal Fascism” will soon be forgotten, which disturbs me greatly.
These books are proactive. Pity that our “leaders” don’t take the ball and run with it. America could be great again.
Thanks. I enjoyed those links.
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A woman I know almost as cool as Anna told me she would fly to California and sleep with me if I paid for the entire trip... Sadly, I'm lucky when I can afford Starbucks... I have to go out with real commie girls who can look past this 'cash' stuff. (I hope they're hot, though...) |
“Thanks. I enjoyed those links.”
You’re welcome. Perhaps you also will get a kick out of some of the links I posted at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1959905/posts?page=11#11
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