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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.533
EAN: 9780767917186
ISBN: 0767917189
Label: Broadway
Manufacturer: Broadway
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: June 02, 2009
Publisher: Broadway
Release Date: June 02, 2009
Studio: Broadway
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“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.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
"Liberal Fascism" is an example of a genre of right-wing tracts, in which the author takes a radical or absurd idea, assembles a bunch of factoids that seem to support it, and sees how far he/she can go with it. The tone of this one is more intellectual and less vicious than certain others (Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al.), but the formula is the same. "Liberal fascism" is, of course, an oxymoron; fascism is by definition illiberal or anti-liberal. Fascism is generally characterized by authoritarianism, dictatorial one-party rule, suppression of dissent, extreme nationalism, racism, militarism, aggressive foreign policy, and central economic control (but private capital). Liberalism is generally characterized by democratic government, tolerance and acceptance of minorities, civil liberties, an orientation toward peace and international law, and moderate economic regulation by government. Liberalism is NOT socialism or communism. Goldberg never manages to precisely define what he means by either fascism or liberalism, which is one reason that the result is such a muddle.
Goldberg's entire argument can be demolished in two words: Francisco Franco. If you do not understand why this refutation is so devastating, here is a nutshell sketch. In the early 1930s, a series of centrist to left-wing governments, generally known as the Republic, were elected in Spain. Franco was a general in the Spanish Army and led a military revolt against the Republic in 1936, eventually achieving victory in 1939. Franco ruled Spain as a repressive dictator until his death in 1975. Although he did not call himself a fascist, Franco was clearly ideologically, as well as politically and militarily, allied with Fascism and Nazism. Franco was supported by conservative sectors of Spanish society--e.g., landed aristocrats, industrial interests, the military, and the Church. He was opposed by "Republicans": liberals, labor interests, socialists, and communists. Hitler and Mussolini supported Franco, to the extent of sending tens of thousands of "volunteers" to fight, while liberals and leftists generally opposed him. Interestingly, socialists and Trotskyites were much more enthusiastic supporters of the Republic than was Stalin. Other than Germany and Italy, most western governments adopted a policy of neutrality. "International Brigades" of volunteers were formed to fight for the Republic and many foreign liberals and leftists, including Americans, gave their lives for the cause. The very title of Goldberg's sophomoric exercise is an insult to their memory.
Here is what Goldberg has to say about Franco: he did not deport Spanish Jews the way Hitler wanted him to. That's it. Goldberg's mentor, William F. Buckley, was a big fan of Franco. It is impossible to believe that Goldberg did not notice this elephant in the room of his thesis. The fact that he has next to nothing to say about it is a tacit admission that he has no answer.
Rating:  -
Jonah Goldberg has written a very important book in "Liberal Fascism, the Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change."
Goldberg carefully documents (there are hundreds of footnotes) the close ideological, tactical, and even linguistic connections between European fascists and the American Progressive movement of the late-1800s through Woodrow Wilson's "War Socialism" and Roosevelt's New Deal. That this is not well known today is largely due to the American left's selective amnesia and the Stalinist tactic of labeling as "fascist" any leftwing movement not under the direct control of Moscow. Hence, Moscow even labeled Leon Trotsky and Franklin Roosevelt "fascist."
In fact, Goldberg points out, that communism, socialism (including Hitler's Nazi Party, "Nazi" standing for the National Socialist German Worker's Party), fascism, the American Progressives, and modern American liberals, all stand for the same thing: control in the name of improving society. Mussolini himself, Goldberg reminds us, coined the term "Totalitarian." At the time, "Totalitarian" wasn't the bad term it's come to mean. For Mussolini "Totalitarian" was defined as: "Everything inside the State, nothing outside the State." A totalitarian world view meant that all is within the State's interest: religion, health, culture, and even people's private lives.
In "Liberal Fascism" Goldberg asserts that Hitler's Nazis can't be defined solely by their irrational hatred of Jews that led to the Holocaust. Rather, if one strips away the uniquely German aspects of Nazism, or the uniquely Italian aspects of fascism, one is left with a core set of beliefs that elevate the State above the individual - for the supposed good of both.
And what are those core beliefs that Goldberg so readily identifies? From the start, American Progressives and European fascist theorists admired each other and exchanged ideas. From William James to Georges Sorel, from eugenics to the militarization of society ("War on Poverty" anyone? It was William James who penned the "Moral Equivalent of War" in 1906), both the American left and European fascists sought to remake society using crises to urge action to justify bigger government at the expense of individual liberty.
Ronald Reagan had it right in 1981, when he remarked that Roosevelt's New Deal had much in common with Mussolini's fascism, including frequent words of praise from Roosevelt's brain trust directed towards Italy in the 1930s.
So, read "Liberal Fascism" and be confident that, if you're an American conservative (meaning that you're a classical liberal) and a modern-day liberal/progressive calls you a "fascist" that they truly have no clue of what they speak.
Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, a California State Assemblyman, he served as a Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Department of Defense from 1986 to 1988, retired from the Army National Guard as a lieutenant colonel, and is the co-author of "China Attacks."
Rating: -
This is a brilliant, well-written book that makes you envy the erudition of the author. As a long-time National Review subscriber, I can be accused of a conservative bias but this well-researched book clarified in my own mind what a fascist really is. And it ain't 21st Century conservatives whose highest value is freedom. Sure, we believe in the rule of law but we are also suspicious of the all-powerful state, which President Obama is obviously building.
Goldberg traces the roots of fascism back to Mussolini who in retrospect seems to be very close to the liberals in power today. Then he follows up with an examination of the American progressives in the early half of the 20th Century, which I found very interesting, never having studied that period. It seems Silent Cal Coolidge was an oddity back then with his credo, "The business of America is business." He was overshadowed by Presidents Wilson and the two Roosevelts who obviously believed that the nanny state was the ideal and they vigorously set out to overturn the republic established by our founding fathers. It is obvious that President Barack Obama wants to continue their efforts in a blind, ultimately disastrous, drive to remake our society.
Context is important and I recommend every concerned American read this book. It traces the seeds, dare we call them Acorns?, of the totalitarianism that is looming today, thanks to a party and a president who are forcing us all to reeducate ourselves to the real meaning and source of fascism today. Hint: It isn't conservatives or the GOP.
Rating: -
All I can add to the already voluminous comments about this superior book is
that I wish it had been available years ago, during my own social-political
indoctrination. What ignorance and sheer foolishness it would have
saved me! Instead, my painfully slow liberation from all the "common wisdom",
"it goes without saying" Boomer-and-before biases that pollute our popular and
faux academic culture would not have crept along so confusedly.
Thank you, Jonah Goldberg, for having finally and authoritatively put it all
together for me. And for you, if you have the curiosity, patience and objectivity
to rewind history to the late 18th century and reexamine the roots of everything
we have been so smugly led into revering as enlightened, progressive, tolerant and
morally superior. Here, at last, is our history, hidden in plain sight for so long,
that simply must be learned in order to counter all the offensively puerile dogmas
that assault us from so much irrelevant yet pernicious mass-media and incompetent
educational "systems".
Do yourself a favor. The times have not changed all that much.
Rating: -
Jonah Goldberg's very well researched book "Liberal Fascism" will open your eyes to both the true ideologies and intentions of the Liberal Left. Just as importantly it will enlighten the reader as to the true history of the Leftists & "Progressives". Funny thing, once Americans actually understand what the Progressives see as "progress" Hillary Clinton's claim to be an "early 20th Century Progressive" really means, most see her and other Liberals & Progressives for the threat they really are. "Liberal Fascism" should be required reading by all freedom loving Americans.
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