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talkpolitics2010-09-28 09:42 am
underlankers.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2010-09-28 09:42 am
On Liberal Fascism:
As this book keeps recurring as a topic in this community, I'll remind the apologists for this particular piece of fishwrap what exactly it is that they're trying to claim as high scholarship on international fascism of the 1920s through the 1940s:
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.
_______________
So, let's have a look-see. WEB Du Bois is this guy:
......
Yes, I totally see it! The guy who invented modern civil rights tactics would be absolutely fond of a pan-German Jew hater like Hitler.
Wilson hardly could have espoused fascism given that it didn't exist until the HARDING Administration and by then he was insensible from strokes. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, invented the movement. I suppose Wilson also had magic voodoo powers to influence events before they even happened.
I also hardly think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America counts as "friendly."
Someone also ought to talk to Goldberg about his misogyny issues. I mean, really, a schoolteacher giving a hug is equal to Babi Yar. *snerk*.
And that Irving Berlin song?
It goes like this:
In Japan our hands are tied, ve don't like it.
Mussolini's on our side, ve don't like it.
So those on this community that reference this particular book that could more or less define the TVTropes Critical Research Failure on its own........this is what you're referencing. And this, BTW, is why I have a hard time taking anything the Goldberg apologists say seriously.
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.
_______________
So, let's have a look-see. WEB Du Bois is this guy:
......
Yes, I totally see it! The guy who invented modern civil rights tactics would be absolutely fond of a pan-German Jew hater like Hitler.
Wilson hardly could have espoused fascism given that it didn't exist until the HARDING Administration and by then he was insensible from strokes. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, invented the movement. I suppose Wilson also had magic voodoo powers to influence events before they even happened.
I also hardly think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America counts as "friendly."
Someone also ought to talk to Goldberg about his misogyny issues. I mean, really, a schoolteacher giving a hug is equal to Babi Yar. *snerk*.
And that Irving Berlin song?
It goes like this:
In Japan our hands are tied, ve don't like it.
Mussolini's on our side, ve don't like it.
So those on this community that reference this particular book that could more or less define the TVTropes Critical Research Failure on its own........this is what you're referencing. And this, BTW, is why I have a hard time taking anything the Goldberg apologists say seriously.
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
Yes, you cited one conservative publication - unless you're trying to make the case that The New Yorker was a conservative publication, which is silly. That one publication got it wrong doesn't mean much.
Henry Luce saw the Nazis precisely the way everybody else at the time saw the Nazis. And he was not prone to the "enemy of my enemy fallacy" as his distaste for Joseph McCarthy indicates.
If he has a distaste for McCarthy, that kind of proves my point - being anti-Communist trumped being anti-fascist.
As for Henry Ford -- oh come now. I've posted facts that indicate the Nazis admired Ford for his anti-Semitism.
Nazis, yes. Hitler? Didn't appear to be a top reason, although I'm positive it didn't hurt.
And the fact that Jonah Goldberg says something does not make it "a fact." During his trial in 1923, a witness referred to Hitler's admiration for Henry Ford as "a great individualist and a great anti-Semite."
"A witness." For what it's worth, Goldberg's sourcing has been better than yours on this, and he's not trying to perpetuate the "fascist = right" myth, so I'm prone to take his scholarship more seriously at this point.
What "friend of my enemy" are you talking about here? Franco was a fascist. The leftists then as now were sworn enemies of fascism. The Spanish Civil war was regarded then and remembered now as a battle between leftism and fascism. Franco was not a "friend of leftism's enemy." He was the enemy.
Again, being anti-Communist trumped being anti-fascist. Keep in mind the American mindset of the time, which was significantly reversed during the war.
The book doesn't talk about important facts that disprove its silly premise.
Assuming it disproves anything, sure. You call it important - that doesn't make it so.
What Goldberg is doing is lying his fool head off and counting on young readers not knowing anything about the Third Reich.
Odd, then, that so many people who know so much about the Third Reich agree with his premise.
And the Nazi ideology on women, race, labor unions, and art put them firmly on the side of the right.
Highly disputable.
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
Your comments about Henry Luce and Time indicate the extent to which the kind of historical revisionism you've embraced just leads to more and more historical revisionism. There' s no question about Luce being a conservative Anti-Communist, and if you'd said differently back then (or indeed as recently as ten years ago) you'd have been laughed out of the room. Are you seriously saying that anyone who disliked Joseph McCarthy must have been a commie sympathizer? Including Whittaker Chambers?
And again -- do you consider Henry Ford to have been a leftist?
I am plainly much more familiar with the "American mindset" during the Spanish Civil War than you are. Actually having met and spoken to people who were alive then (at least one of whom actually went to Span and fought there) helps. And no, I'm sorry, it is not "highly disputable" that Nazi ideology on women, race, labor unions, and art "put them firmly on the side of the right." Hitler loathed the advances women had made under the liberal Weimar Republic and rolled those advances back. His profoundly conservative, "let's-hearken-back-to-a-Golden-age" attitude towards art also reflects that of the right wing, as did his arresting labor union leaders -- something that gladdened the heart of his wealthy contributors and convinced them they'd found an ally.
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
Well, the Goldberg book is all about this. Besides, you act as if consensus entirely matters here - that a largely liberal media (even then) would try to hang it on the right should shock no one.
Your comments about Henry Luce and Time indicate the extent to which the kind of historical revisionism you've embraced just leads to more and more historical revisionism. There' s no question about Luce being a conservative Anti-Communist, and if you'd said differently back then (or indeed as recently as ten years ago) you'd have been laughed out of the room. Are you seriously saying that anyone who disliked Joseph McCarthy must have been a commie sympathizer? Including Whittaker Chambers?
You seem to have utterly missed my point.
I am plainly much more familiar with the "American mindset" during the Spanish Civil War than you are. Actually having met and spoken to people who were alive then (at least one of whom actually went to Span and fought there) helps
To a point. It also hurts - you're speaking from a place that you may be too close to.
And no, I'm sorry, it is not "highly disputable" that Nazi ideology on women, race, labor unions, and art "put them firmly on the side of the right." Hitler loathed the advances women had made under the liberal Weimar Republic and rolled those advances back. His profoundly conservative, "let's-hearken-back-to-a-Golden-age" attitude towards art also reflects that of the right wing, as did his arresting labor union leaders -- something that gladdened the heart of his wealthy contributors and convinced them they'd found an ally.
And if you consider those conservative-only viewpoints, well, it sure fits your predisposed notion.
So do you have anything of substance here or what?
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
When you're talking about terms like "right wing" and "left wing", yes, consensus matters. It's called "common usage" and it's the very basis of language.
bdj: that a largely liberal media (even then) would try to hang it on the right should shock no one.
Except that the only way you can argue that this was all a liberal conspiracy is by defining pretty much every other diarist, letter writer, journalist, travel author, and commentator of the time as "liberal." Not to mention every historian.
"Hitler was seeking in MEIN KAMPF to establish sole and undisputed claim to the leadership of the volkisch Right." -- Ian Kershaw, HITLER, (1999)
"In little more than a year the party had become a respected force in Bavarian right-wing politics, largely because of Hitler's magnetic personality and obsessive drive." -- John Toland, ADOLF HITLER, (1976)
"But the heaviest responsibility of all rests on the German Right, who not only failed to combine with the other parties in defense of the Republic, but made Hitler their partner in a coalition government." -- Alan Bullock, HITLER, A STUDY IN TYRANNY, 1952.
If the Nazis were "liberal," why has Glenn Beck found Nazi sympathizers like Elizabeth Dillings so appealing?
And again -- do you consider Henry Ford a leftist?
bdj: you're speaking from a place that you may be too close to.
I'm speaking from a place much closer to reality and the actual facts than you are. So far you've given no indication you've read anything at all on this subject than Jonah Goldberg's whoppers.
bdj: And if you consider those conservative-only viewpoints, well, it sure fits your predisposed notion.
They sure as Hell aren't typical left wing viewpoints -- certainly not here in the US, and not in Europe either then or now.
So are you ever going to cite a few contemporaries of Hitler and a few respected historians who refer to him as "leftist?" And are you ever going to answer the question I've already asked a couple of times -- Was Henry Ford a leftist?
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
Common wisdom is not always common. Many people believing something false does not make that thing true.
Except that the only way you can argue that this was all a liberal conspiracy is by defining pretty much every other diarist, letter writer, journalist, travel author, and commentator of the time as "liberal." Not to mention every historian.
Not at all. That the left drives the media, thus drives the narrative, means that those ideas come to the forefront. Many conservative writers, surely, latched onto that narrative for a variety of reasons.
I'm speaking from a place much closer to reality and the actual facts than you are.
Not that you have much in facts to go on so far. You're arguing fact via consensus, not fact via evidence.
So far you've given no indication you've read anything at all on this subject than Jonah Goldberg's whoppers.
One does not need to have read Liberal Fascism to come to these conclusions. But, then again, if you're operating under the incorrect premises about the right the the way you have been for however many years now, it's a problem that goes deeper than simply dismissing the evidence that doesn't suit you.
You assume that those who do not share your viewpoints aren't well-read. It may be that we are well-read, and that's where we've come to our conclusions, and not the other way around.
They sure as Hell aren't typical left wing viewpoints -- certainly not here in the US, and not in Europe either then or now.
Yikes.
Re: Shortened Version of What I Posted back in 2008:
Was Elizabeth Dilling a leftist?
What have you read on the Third Reich and Hitler aside from Goldberg's book?
PFT: They sure as Hell aren't typical left wing viewpoints -- certainly not here in the US, and not in Europe either then or now.
bdj: Yikes.
Got any facts to offer, or are you just planning to emote?