I saw this guy try to hawk his book "Liberal Fascism" on the daily show, and John Stewart made mincemeat of him. Using the words "Nazi" and "Fascist" as adjectives for the group of people who brought us the civil rights movement, is quite a feat of the imagination. There is no question that certain political ideologies can use civil rights concepts in order to strong arm policy, but to conjure up connotations of wartime Italy and Germany is really pathetic. In this segment, Alan Colmes actually goes on the offensive:
Here are the basic points of Goldberg's argument. Note that he goes out of his way to insist that he is not *really* comparing liberals to Hitler et al. Whatever.
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3 comments:
Yeah,
I saw this book several weeks ago in my local bookstore. I reviewed it on Amazon but, for some reason, the review never made it through to the web page. Not that it matters, other reviewers made precisely the same point. (I wonder if Amazon thought we were all the same people?)
My point was that Goldberg seems to deliberately gloss over the real driving force behind fascism, which is authoritarianism, and while authoritarianism is certainly not unique to either the Left or Right, it is unquestionably more identified with the right and for good and ample reasons.
As George Lakoff puts it, the conservatives and the Republicans are the party of the "strict father". Authoritarianism runs in their blood. Authoritarianism is the lifeblood of American Protestantism, Evangelism, Mormonism and American Christianity in general. Just look at the behavior of Bush and Cheney, their imperial attitude toward the other two branches of government. Bush: "I am the decider." Of course, that's horse-shit, all that Bush can do is yea or nay the legislation that is put on his desk (unless he has a rubber stamp Republican Congress.)
In short, Goldberg gets it all wrong. What he wrote was a political hatchet job, not a scholarly book. The fact that Hillary pops up repeatedly throughout the book gives his real agenda away.
I don't mind that, but the fact that he's trying to pass himself off as some kind of objective scholar is just rubbish. He's either a liar or too stupid to know it.
The mostly unfunny John Stewart also hosted the Oscars, and it rcvd the lowest ratings ever. Oh, I'm so not enthralled and or amused by what he says. Too bad not all the reviews at Amazon line up with yours, but don't worry son, Consensus doesn't make fact, however, the folly of youth is a constant. And of course, anyone you two don't agree with are "either liars or stupid." right}:-
Anonymous Coward, U Suck Dick!
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