On Liberal Fascism:
28/9/10 09:42![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
underlankers.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsAs 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.
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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: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 20:46 (UTC)(*reads the 14 points and ROFTLMAO).
Okay. What's your actual argument here? Do you have evidence that militarism was not progressive at that time? Think long and hard about this one.
(Yes, because the movement that pioneered breaking heads as a solution to social problems gives a damn about humanness).
Clearly, it did. It's like saying that Hugo Chavez isn't terrible because, hey, the Venuzuelans are eating. The beauty of fascism is that it so easily can be masked in good deeds. "At least the trains ran on time" and such. It's why the modern idea where force is not by gun but by fiat is still fascistic in nature - you're too focused on the part you think defines a fascist as opposed to the parts that actually do define fascism.
(Statler and Waldorf go DO-HOHOHOHOHOHO about a fat man whining about diets).
Okay, but the point?
(Pahahahahahahaha. Wilson was an authoritarian ass but he was no Lenin).
So you can't have one person be more fascist than the next? Barack Obama's a liberal, but he's no Alan Grayson, right? You don't seem to be disputing Goldberg's point about Wilson at all.
(wrong, it was viewed by the Right as restoring national pride in Germany and Italy, including by many notable leaders of the European mainstream conservative movements).
That, again, doesn't dispute anything. Perhaps there were some on the right who viewed it that way - since you don't tell us who those people are, I couldn't tell you if it's true. But even if some on the right viewed it as such, it does not change the fact that it was "widely viewed as a progressive social movement," or do anything to dispute his claim.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 20:57 (UTC)It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments and the cooperation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe, and the question of limiting naval armaments opens the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of armies and of all programmes of military preparation. Difficult and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost candour and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its wings, and come to stay. Peace cannot be had without concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponderance armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest points consistent with domestic safety.
"Domestic safety" clearly implies not only internal policing, but the protection of territory against invasion. The accumulation of armaments above this level would be a violation of the intention of the proposal.
What guarantees should be given and taken, or what are to be the standards of judgment have never been determined. It will be necessary to adopt the general principle and then institute some kind [of international commission of investigation] to prepare detailed projects for its execution. '
________________________________
Yes, this is entirely the same attitude that the real militarist regimes like Wilhelmine Germany and Imperial Japan had.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:12 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:19 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:02 (UTC)Namely that http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar.
I do dispute his point. Wilson did nothing that Abraham Lincoln and John Adams didn't do. Unless we're willing to call the Washington Administration, the one that repressed the Whiskey Rebellion with a whiff of Grapeshot, the Adams Administration, the Lincoln and Jackson Administrations, and the Truman Administrations all fascist too.
Winston Churchill and Stanley Baldwin for just two of them. Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, the Silver Shirts, Douglas MacArthur and George Patton for other examples.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:15 (UTC)Much like the progressive left.
Fascism was always honest that it was a movement of brutal thuggish SOBs.
Yes, and Goldberg discusses how we've moved to a kinder, gentler fascism. But it's still fascist.
I do dispute his point. Wilson did nothing that Abraham Lincoln and John Adams didn't do. Unless we're willing to call the Washington Administration, the one that repressed the Whiskey Rebellion with a whiff of Grapeshot, the Adams Administration, the Lincoln and Jackson Administrations, and the Truman Administrations all fascist too.
I would suggest he would be. I have no qualms doing as such, Washington excluded. In fact, Goldberg cites that very argument as how the left justified their love of Mussolini on page 103.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:20 (UTC)Kinder and gentler weren't fascist virtues. They emphasized hardness as kindness toward the future. That was one of the biggest reasons they lost the damned war.
Washington led an army on the field to repress a bunch of tax revolts. Surprised a libertarian would defend that.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:22 (UTC)I won't prove points I didn't make and don't share, sorry.
Kinder and gentler weren't fascist virtues. They emphasized hardness as kindness toward the future. That was one of the biggest reasons they lost the damned war.
Yes. Fascism modernized, however.
Washington led an army on the field to repress a bunch of tax revolts. Surprised a libertarian would defend that.
Who said I'm defending it? Can you stick to what I say, and not what you think you're hearing?
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:29 (UTC)I can't agree with that given the actual Neo-Fascist movements like the Aryan Nations still want to refight WWII for the losing side.
You said that Jackson, Lincoln, and Adams were all fascists but Washington, who actually personally oversaw armed repression of revolutionaries was not.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:34 (UTC)You've provided no citations for your claims anywhere here. You're the one trying to claim Goldberg's a crank, but have zero to support it. I have no issue with Goldberg's claims, and have referred you directly to information that supports them. Your move.
You said that Jackson, Lincoln, and Adams were all fascists but Washington, who actually personally oversaw armed repression of revolutionaries was not.
One action does not a fascist make.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 21:38 (UTC)But FDR is a fascist despite having done everything possible to sabotage international fascism and allying with the USSR and the UK? *eyeroll.* Yeah, and I suppose you've a nice used car, too.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 28/9/10 22:46 (UTC)When did I mention Obama? Again, focus on what I do say, not what you think I say.
But FDR is a fascist despite having done everything possible to sabotage international fascism and allying with the USSR and the UK? *eyeroll.* Yeah, and I suppose you've a nice used car, too.
one does not fight fascism by embracing it.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:31 (UTC)The Soviets actually beat the fascist Blitzkrieg with their own similar idea, so your conclusion is debatable.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:38 (UTC)Didn't mention Democrats, either. Please keep up.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:54 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 01:54 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 01:55 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
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Date: 29/9/10 00:11 (UTC)You are sitting here saying Apples are Red and since that isn't red it isn't an apple while completely ignoring the fact that the person you are talking to is saying that A pear has a lot in common with an apple.
No one serious (yes there are always demogogues and idiots who don't know any better) is saying Obama or the modern Progressive movement are NAZI's, they are saying that their policies are closer to Fascism than any other ism that we currently have a term for.
Fascism is not defined as "Pan German Nationalism", that was the way that Fascism manifested in Nazi Germany.
Further the point you consistantly refuse to address is that everyone from Goldberg on down to the posters you are arguing in here are saying that the Fascism of the 1930's is dead, however many of it's central features (No not all, and no Pan German Nationalism is not one of them, that is merely one way it was expressed) have been resurrected in the modern Progressive movement.
That resurrection of course is not a clone but an evolution. Nationalism has been replaced by Globalism, Rigid discipline has been replaced by infantilization and paternalism, and Racial purity has been replaced by political correctness and so on. That said the point stands that many of the policies and platforms would have been equally home in Germany/Italy/Spain of 1935 as the Democan national convention of 2008.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:34 (UTC)Fascism is defined as paramilitary nation-statism, but nobody ever brings up the Ustase, the Arrow Cross, or the Legion of the Archangel St. Michael, the only ones commonly mentioned are the Italians, WHO ACTUALLY INVENTED IT, and the Germans.
And they're full of shit until they can point to the analogue of the Fascio de Combattimento or the SS/SA or the Legion.
Internationalism is more a Communist vice, fascism is nationalist statism. Internationalism is something actual fascists then and now attribute to them ebil Jews.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:41 (UTC)That it is a juicy seed bearing fruit that grows on a flowing tree is irrelivant, all that matters is that the skin isn't red and therefore it cannot possibly be compared to an apple.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 00:55 (UTC)Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 02:35 (UTC)Those are the red skin I am referring to, or are you claiming those are the ONLY features that define Fascism?
If so...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism
1) ( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
It seems that the official dictionary definition includes more than just ethnic focus and paramilitarism
www.m-w.com
1) often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
It seems as if the official Dictionary definitions of Fascism disagree with you. In fact even in the second Nationalism is not a prerequisite, merely placing the nation as supremely important over the individual qualifies in that definition.
So now, about that Red Skin, are you ready to admit that apples have more than 1 defining property?
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 11:26 (UTC)Note also that the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a popular dictionary where I'm arguing from the specific subset of history dedicated to studying interwar and WWII-era fascism, with my main sources those of Michael Mann, as they're the most recent analysis of *all* the historical fascists.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
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Date: 29/9/10 19:52 (UTC)