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Neiwert on Goldberg, Illustrated [Dan Collins]

1) “the depredations of revisionist historians
  

2) “inexplicably published by a mainstream house”
  

3) “Goldberg, who has no credentials beyond the right-wing nepotism that has enabled his career as a pundit”
 
 
4) “like something from a comic-book alternative universe“ 

5) “The title alone is enough to indicate its thoroughgoing incoherence: Of all the things we know about fascism and the traits that comprise it, one of the few things that historians will readily agree upon is its overwhelming anti-liberalism.”
(Should have been titled “‘Liberal’ Fascism” argument)

6) “noting that the author of 1984 once dismissed the misuse of “fascism” as meaning “something not desirable.”

7) “proceeds to define everything that he himself considers undesirable as “fascist.” This is just about everything even remotely and vaguely thought of as “liberal”: vegetarianism, Social Security, multiculturalism, the “war on poverty,” “the politics of meaning.”

By whom?  Question authority, man.

8) “Along the way, he grotesquely misrepresents the state of academia regarding the study of fascism, which, while widely varying in many regards, has seen a broad consensus develop regarding certain ineluctable traits that are uniquely and definitively fascist: its populism and ultranationalism, its anti-intellectualism, its carefully groomed culture of violence, its insistence that it represents the true national identity, its treatment of dissent as treason, and what Oxford Brookes scholar Roger Griffin calls its “palingenesis” — that is, its core myth of a phoenix-like rebirth of the national identity in the mold of a nonexistent Golden Age”

 

9) “the fascist insistence on action for its own sake means that “it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

 
“The things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand.”–Steely Dan

10) “And the notion that liberal humanism — with its long history of rationalism and reliance on logic and science — has anything whatsoever to do with the fascist approach is, once again, an almost comical upending of reality.”
 

 Primacy of Intellect

11) “in that it employs the same historical methodology used by Holocaust deniers and other right-wing revanchists: namely, it selects a narrow band of often unrepresentative facts, distorts their meaning, and simultaneously elides and ignores whole mountains of contravening evidence and broader context. These are simply theses in search of support, not anything like serious history.”

12) “This is a telling omission, because the continuing existence of these groups makes clear what an absurd and nakedly self-serving thing Goldberg’s alternate version of reality is. Why dream up fascists on the left when the reality is that real American fascists have been lurking in the right’s closet for lo these many years? Well, maybe because it’s a handy way of getting everyone to forget that fact”

   

59 Replies to “Neiwert on Goldberg, Illustrated [Dan Collins]”

  1. TomB says:

    I want whatever you’re having, Dan.

  2. Dan Collins says:

    Glass of cheap cabernet.

  3. Techie says:

    Damn, I didn’t think I’d start hitting the Yellow Tail till later, myself…

  4. marcus says:

    Now I see where Sadly, No are getting their talking points.

  5. Raymond says:

    I followed the Link to Dave Neiwert’s reply to Goldberg that Jeff had posted earlier today. I must say that that Neiwert is even more verbose and boring than Gleen Greenwald. What is it about poof’s that they can’t be direct and succinct? Before I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan, I noticed that his language had become more florid than when he wrote regularly at The New Republic, and often it would now run on at interminable length. Given their “lifestyle orientation,” I wonder if this focus on length in what they write is some form of overcompensation for, shall we say, “shortcomings” in other areas…

  6. Jeff aka Alcyoneus says:

    Fucking brilliant use of antithesis.

  7. Jim in KC says:

    Nice boobies, though, I feel somewhat compelled to point out…

  8. Bill Ramey says:

    “The title alone is enough to indicate its thoroughgoing incoherence: Of all the things we know about fascism and the traits that comprise it, one of the few things that historians will readily agree upon is its overwhelming anti-liberalism.”

    That’s *classical* liberalism that fascism is against, not modern liberalism. Indeed, both fascism and modern liberalism reject classical liberalism.

  9. Pablo says:

    “the fascist insistence on action for its own sake means that “it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

    IMPEACH NOW!

    “And the notion that liberal humanism — with its long history of rationalism and reliance on logic and science — has anything whatsoever to do with the fascist approach is, once again, an almost comical upending of reality.”

    That thing is just full of gutbusters.

  10. Mikey NTH says:

    “And the notion that liberal humanism — with its long history of rationalism and reliance on logic and science — has anything whatsoever to do with the fascist approach is, once again, an almost comical upending of reality.”

    “Three generations of imbeciles is enough.” – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  11. Rob Crawford says:

    The title alone is enough to indicate its thoroughgoing incoherence:

    Except that it’s a freaking quote, taken from one of the prominent “intellectuals” of the Progressive movement in the English-speaking world. If the ‘tard had actually bothered to READ THE DAMNED BOOK, he’d know that.

    But that would require effort, and might have punctured the ‘tards precious wittle world view.

    (I’m short on temper and coherence this week; already put in 44 hours at work, expecting to break 56 before I go home tonight.)

  12. Dan Collins says:

    Ugh. Do you have a bit of malt at home?

  13. phoebe says:

    Funny how Pantload blends left and right socialism, but sees conservatism as monolithic. Drawing a straight line from Mussolini to Clinton makes about as much sense as connecting Pinochet to George Washington. Doughys’ thesis is drawn directly from Stalin. Social Fascism was Stalinist construct, before Wells, and Der Pantload, ironically, is preaching Comintern propaganda. Is the criticism of Goldbrick one-sided? Read this review from a conservative. Standing with Doughboy is standing with a fool, and mockery serves him well.

  14. McGehee says:

    Suggestion to infrequent commenters: nicknames for other people may be used, but it’s probably best if you MAKE IT APPARENT WHO THE @#$!! YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.

  15. Carin says:

    McGehee – if you EVER read liberal blogs, you would know that Doughy Pantloads is one of the cute nicknames they give Goldberg. If anyone ever read my blog (sob) you would know this stuff. Cute nicknames and slurs can be found here.

    A totally honest review by a “former Republicans” can be found referenced here.

  16. Carin says:

    Phoebe – check again on that “conservative” label you’ve put on Bramwell.

    But “conservatism” has no mystical essence. Rather than a magisterium handed down from apostolic times, it is an ideology whose contours are largely arbitrary and accidental. By ideology, I mean precisely what Orwell depicted in 1984. I do not mean, of course, that conservatism is totalitarian. Taken as prophecy, 1984 has little merit. Taken as a description of the world we actually live in, however, it is indispensable. 1984 reveals not the horrors of the future but the quotidian realities of ideology in mass democracy. Conservatism exemplifies them all.
    *****
    Whatever its past accomplishments, the conservative movement no longer kindles any “ironic points of light.” It has produced fewer outstanding books even as it has taken over more of the intellectual and political landscape. This trend will only continue. Worse, no reckoning will be made: they hope in vain who expect conservatives to take responsibility for the actual consequences of their actions. Conservatives have no use for the ethic of responsibility; they seek only to “see to it that the flame of pure intention is not quelched.” The movement remains a fine place to make a career, but for wisdom one must look elsewhere.

    THAT’s some conservative!!!

  17. phoebe says:

    Carin,
    It’s not a label I put on Bramwell, it is his own self-identification. Go beyond the first link you googled, at least to #2…
    A former National Review trustee surveys the wreckage of contemporary conservatism.

  18. Carin says:

    I did go beyond the first link I googled, and I *did* read more. But, thanks for your concern. A conservative who has basically broken from the ranks of conservatism … isn’t exactly a conservative, now is he?

  19. McGehee says:

    if you EVER read liberal blogs

    If you loved me, you wouldn’t be suggesting I jettison my sanity.

  20. Andrew says:

    Ooooh, the American Conservative, the place that makes us tremble. Most of that article was bitching about Iraq, which is hardly a difficult thing to do. And on that subject, Bramwell is all sound and fury, signifying nothing: he dings the NR crowd for not thinking carefully about what “victory” means and specific policy choices, but neither does he offer any of his own. Typically empty war-is-bad soap-boxing.

    Wait, I misspoke. On every subject in the article, Barnham is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. How else am I to take his breathlessly lame 1984 analogy with his seeming beleif that Big Government is a thing of the past? Or how am I to take this:

    Anyone who expresses too vociferously too many of the following opinions, for example, cannot expect to make a career in the movement: that the Soviet Union was not the threat that anti-communists made it out to be, that…[long list of dubious assertions passed of as established fact snipped]…Whether these opinions and others are correct or not matters little to the movement conservative, even if he knows next to nothing about the topic at hand. If you do not reject these opinions or at least keep quiet, you are not a movement conservative and will be treated accordingly.

    Ahem. Don’t ideologies get to decide what they do and don’t believe, and if you buck the trend on a particular ideology, doesn’t that make you not a member? Exactly what is malicious about any of this? Are we to pretend that you can belong to something defined by ideas while rejecting those ideas? Is there a shred of intellectual honesty here?

    Finally, how am I to take the closing comment, “for wisdom, one must look elsewhere.” Which would be WHERE, exactly? Un-said. Un-argued. For all we know, un-considered.

    Sorry, but that’s my criterion for an un-serious person. Erudition is not character, nor is it wisdom. Goldberg’s book may be overreach at points, but he’s hit a fine point, a reality that cannot be argued away, any more than Barnham can declare that socialism is dead. Things don’t die because they know defeat. If they did, the Germans would have never taken over Rome.

  21. phoebe says:

    A conservative who has basically broken from the ranks of conservatism … isn’t exactly a conservative, now is he?

    This is the sort of idiocy Jonah has wrought. Socialism can be comprised of a left and right faction, but Conservatism is a monolithic club! Look at Jonah on his own blog, braying that even White Nationalist Trash recognize Hitler was a Socialist… while ignoring that the Trash he cites clings to Conservative economic principles! Everyone on the Left is a blend, but Conservatism is,…. Truth, Justice and The American Way! Pay no attention to the White Nationalist Trash in the corner who studies Milton Friedman.

  22. Ric Locke says:

    Bull***, phoebe. Take a look at the title of the book. You see anything there about conservatives? The man has a particular subject, and expands on it. References to anything else are in passing, as expected. You can get expositions of the faults and divides of conservatism, real, imagined, and manufactured, elsewhere.

    Regards,
    Ric

  23. phoebe says:

    Ric,

    The title of the book reveals only the mendacity of one J. Goldberg.
    Here is another title: The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini.
    A man with a particular subject, who expands on it:
    “Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State.”

  24. B Moe says:

    “Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State.”

    Are you at all familiar with the history of modern socialism, phoebe?

  25. phoebe says:

    B. Moe,

    Yes, so according to Jonah, Benito was a “right-wing socialist”. But White Nationalists who buy supremacy on the wings of conservative economic principles are not “right-wing conservatives”, because… well, why? Because Jonah says so!!!!

  26. Pablo says:

    phoebe, what exactly are the economic principles of white nationalists? Got a link?

  27. B Moe says:

    I was referring to Benito’s assertion that “Socialism … confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State.” I would say that distinction proved to be wrong.

  28. phoebe says:

    Pablo,

    Jonah, just yesterday, featured the issue himself.
    Free Market Aryans Vs. National Socialist Aryans Plus Sales Incentives
    Why shouldn’t that White Nationalist be considered a “right-wing” conservative? Because he makes Jonah feel icky, that’s why!

  29. B Moe says:

    Here you go, phoebe:
    http://www3.stormfront.org/ns/nsprimer.html

    A couple of snippets:

    National Socialism is the manifestation of the Laws of Nature in harmony with the collective spirit of the People, or Folk, who are the highest entity of the Nation, above the State and other man-made institutions.

    National Socialism today, in the Aryan tradition of strict reverence for the natural Order and its Life-giving elements, aims to curtail the everywhere pervasive Nature-destroying consumptionism. To remedy the environmental disasters caused by the Capitalists’ mad quest for profit, National Socialists advocate implementation of sustainable, organic agriculture, responsible methods of resource extraction and use, and reduction and eventual elimination of toxic substances in our nourishment and throughout the environment.

    National Socialism is the diametric opposite of monopoly Capitalism. The World Manipulators and other socio-economic elitists have hated and feared National Socialism since its inception, for the National Socialist Vision represents a viable alternative to the Tyranny of Money’s inequitable compensation for productive labor and its criminal usury-debt-based finance system, which oppresses working people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

    Does any of that sound familiar at all?

  30. B Moe says:

    “Why shouldn’t that White Nationalist be considered a “right-wing” conservative?”

    From the link:

    “Melvin Costa: A neo-nazi holds Hitler’s beliefs to be true down to a T. I don’t. I believe in Hitler’s point of view as far as racial consonance but I don’t believe a lot of things as far as controlling an economy.”

    So he is not representative of the movement, he is just a racist.

  31. Pablo says:

    Wanna try again, feebs? A guy who dismisses certain tenets of white nationalism and admits that he is doing so is not really representative of white nationalists. Aside from the fact that he’s telling you what they think and where he differs. That is not a win for your argument.

  32. phoebe says:

    Nope. You all are conflating neo-nazi with white nationalist. Read the question put to the guy again:
    “Q: Can you talk more about the difference between a white nationalist and neo-nazi?”
    Melvin Costa:” A neo-nazi holds Hitler’s beliefs to be true down to a T. I don’t. I believe in Hitler’s point of view as far as racial consonance but I don’t believe a lot of things as far as controlling an economy. He wanted to control every single aspect of people’s lives. He wanted to control the press. He wanted to control what people wore. I don’t believe in none of that. I think that we should be allowed to live freely. “

  33. phoebe says:

    Just to be clear…

    All of these maddening distinctions existed on the Left in the early 20th century that Jonah writes about. But Jonah doesn’t hesitate to blend them all together and draw a straight line from it up to modern liberalism. However, when it comes to his own hands, they are forever clean and pure. American Conservatism exists in a vacuum.

  34. Pablo says:

    You need to read B Moe’s Stormfront link, feebs. They seem to be doing the same conflating, and they seem to be both neo-nazis and white nationalists.

    You also haven’t answered my question as to the economic principles of white nationalists, other then to offer a quote from a guy who fights for a living. Couldn’t you find a garbageman to explain it?

  35. Pablo says:

    BTW, have you read Goldberg’s book, feebs?

  36. Dan Collins says:

    “American Conservatism exists in a vacuum”
    That’s because Proggs suck so hard.

  37. B Moe says:

    But he has a SWASTIKA tattooed on his ARM!

  38. JD says:

    It is like a storm of stupid every time the ditzy blonde from Friends comes around.

  39. JD says:

    But, but, but … REthUgliKKKanZ aRe tEh RAcisTs !!!

  40. JD says:

    phoebe – Bull Conner, Gov. Wallace, Sen. Byrd, Gov. Huey Long, FDR, fought lynching laws, fought voters rights, fought civil rights, Fulbright … what do all of these people and actions have in common? Hint. It ain’t conservatism.

    Not that it matters, since you do not listen to anything but the voices in your head, but one skinhead nazi fucker talking off the cuff about economic policies does not make them representative of the Rethuglikkkan party. How hard is it for you to remember to breathe?

  41. phoebe says:

    Fine, then. Go ahead and snark on this:

    “The central question that emerges … is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.”
    National Review 1957

  42. phoebe says:

    and more…

    “National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct… It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.”

    National Review 1957

    so, tell me… how did Jonah’s racist progressives react to such an editorial in 1957? how did a Liberal Fascist like Thurgood Marshall react?

  43. Pablo says:

    Put those goalposts back, feebs. Still waiting for an explanation of white nationalist economic principles. Don’t change the subject.

  44. phoebe says:

    Here is what the House Paper of American Conservatism wrote in 1957:

    “The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class… Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.”

  45. phoebe says:

    So, you tell me, how did Liberal Fascists respond to these sort of statements?

  46. JD says:

    phoebe – Facts are now snark? That is kind of like Tarquin or one of those other loonwaffles referring to their onw version of the truth.

    You have tried that same thing with the NR article before. You fell on your face then, and you are going to splat spectacularly again this time.

    I am interested to hear what some skinhead racist neo-nazi white supremacist has to say about economic policy. I cannot wait for you to enlighten us. Hint, the fact that a lot of well read people round here – A) do not know what economic policies skinhead fucks espouse, and B) do not care what economic policies skinhead fucks espouse ought to make you wonder, just a little, if they are not really representative of conservative thought.

    But, that would require you to think.

  47. Pablo says:

    You’ve got a question to answer before we move on.

  48. JD says:

    How did the liberal fascists react? The put a KKK member on the Supreme Court. They elected a Grand Kleagle to the US Senate for the next 120 years. They had their governors turn fire hoses on people trying to attend college. They fought lyinching laws. They tried to filibuster voting rights legislation. They tried to filibuster civil rights legislation.

  49. phoebe says:

    you want more Conservative opinion from that year in National Review?

    “The September 28, 1957 issue contained a piece by James Kilpatrick called “Right and Power in Arkansas,” in which he endorsed Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus’ call-up of the National Guard to prevent forced integration at Little Rock’s Central High School. Defending a community’s right to keep the peace, he wrote that “the State of Arkansas and Orval Faubus are wholly in the right; they have acted lawfully; they are entitled to those great presumptions of the law which underlie the whole of our judicial tradition.” Predicting a “storm” of white resistance he wrote, “Conceding, for the sake of discussion, that the Negro pupil has these new rights, what of the white community? Has it none?”

  50. phoebe says:

    what sparked my rant? maybe it was this:
    Comment by JD on 1/25 @ 6:17 pm
    phoebe – Bull Conner, Gov. Wallace, Sen. Byrd, Gov. Huey Long, FDR, fought lynching laws, fought voters rights, fought civil rights, Fulbright … what do all of these people and actions have in common? Hint. It ain’t conservatism.

  51. kelly says:

    Isn’t it time you had a cocktail or three, feebs?

    Citing NR from 1957 again? Really?

  52. Pablo says:

    Still waiting for the subterfuge to subside…

  53. B Moe says:

    “Citing NR from 1957 again? Really?”

    Apparently it is the only thing she has read.

    “All of these maddening distinctions existed on the Left in the early 20th century that Jonah writes about. But Jonah doesn’t hesitate to blend them all together and draw a straight line from it up to modern liberalism. However, when it comes to his own hands, they are forever clean and pure. American Conservatism exists in a vacuum.”

    Hermetically sealed in 1957.

  54. phoebe says:

    Pablo, I really feel sorry for you. You keep asking for a return to the topic of white nationalism, without realizing that every one of those quotes from Nat’l Review exemplifies white nationalism, right along with Bull Conner and Gov. Faubus and Lester Maddox and the rest.

    This Liberal Fascist is hungry. And a cocktail or three does sound good…

  55. Pablo says:

    Don’t feel sorry, feebs. Answer my question. You said:

    But White Nationalists who buy supremacy on the wings of conservative economic principles are not “right-wing conservatives”, because… well, why? Because Jonah says so!!!!

    Are you running away from that, or should we just believe it because phoebe says so!!?? Where are the white nationalist economic principles you speak of?

  56. phoebe says:

    Pablo,

    What, do you suppose, were the economic principles of William F. Buckley and J.J. Kilpatrick in the 1950’s?

    I need a brandy.

  57. B Moe says:

    More fun facts about phoebe’s hero: http://tinyurl.com/28efvd

  58. phoebe want a cracker?

Comments are closed.