Jonah Goldberg: The Toughest Whore in Opposite Town

The great flaw in the liberal tradition is the obligation to respect other people's arguments, even when that other person is a nitwit.

It's the downside of the dialectic. We're expected to engage with everyone, whether or not their facts are wrong, their ideas are immoral or they're obviously just using the vocabulary of politics to express problems at home. Result: Laura Ingraham.

And, you know, Plato's Republic.

Point, counterpoint. It's an intellectual duty, like cleaning up after your dog. That's why, starting next week, we're expected to get our pants in a bunch about Doubleday's proud new contribution to the discourse: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

Or, A German-Owned Publisher Calls a Rabbi a Nazi and That's Just the Title.

(Doubleday is Bertelsmann. The phrase "politics of meaning" was coined by Tikkun founder Michael Lerner. Creepy? Sure. But it's all just for fun.)

The author is our old friend Jonah Goldberg, whose other intellectual achievements include being the fat guy who knows every episode of The Simpsons by heart, and rising to the dizzying heights of the KCIA's National Review from his humble origins, being born in a whorehouse.

And that's not really fair. The Korean CIA doesn't technically run the National Review.

It's more of an imprint. Like Doubleday and Bertelsmann.

Where was I?

Jonah Goldberg, the lovable contrarian gadfly, is looking to push your buttons, and from the available excerpts and the reviews so far, it seems he'll be doing it by sticking it to Woodrow Wilson, who's been getting a free ride for far too long.

You're next, William H. Seward.

Woodrow Wilson? We're supposed to get steamed that someone is talking smack about Woodrow Wilson? It's like blaspheming against Phar Lap.

You think Jonah Goldberg must be joking, but that can't be it, because he's not quoting The Simpsons, and he doesn't have dip on his hands. And you're not thinking: I hate this party, I want to go home.

How did Goldberg get stuck with the unenviable task of trying to be irreverent about Woodrow Wilson? Because the Kennedys and FDR are played out. Christopher Hitchens has already done Mother Teresa and Ann Coulter cashed in on re-evaluating the last polarizing historical figure a few living people could actually pick out of a police line-up, Joseph McCarthy.

(One advantage Goldberg has over Coulter? His tits are real.)

So it was Woodrow Wilson or nothing. Hillary had better get elected soon, or conservatives will have nothing to hate but themselves.

But there's more to "liberal fascism" than just the iron heel of the League of Nations. Goldberg's secret history also proves that everyone who wasn't a fascist really was a fascist, pacifism is violence, secularism is religious oppression, social security is Stalinism, compassion is censorship, black is white, anarchy is totalitarianism, slavery is freedom and the only right more precious than racism is mining.

It's that book again.

It's not an argument, exactly, but it will make your teachers dread having to teach you, and attention is good.

The whole point of a book like Liberal Fascism -- besides degrading publishing so TV doesn't look so bad - is to make liberals mad. Cornel West says, "You have got to engage," but sometimes you don't. Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away.

Forget it, Jake. It's Opposite Town.

--

Wait, something about the book's cover just jumped out at me.

Ooooooo! See, he's subverting the Happy Face! (Take that, 1963!) My blood is boiling so hot I could tie-dye a shirt in it. But it isn't even an original twist. Remember the white supremacist sister act, Prussian Blue? Here they are four years ago:

Not liberal fascism. Just plain old fascism.

Jonah Goldberg is so tragically lame, to sell a book he'd steal a logo from a racist child.

Comments

[MO-Mike]

Shouldn't Jonah be properly referenced as "Manager of, The Aristocrats!"

It's nice Jonah is able to put food on his family and all, but this thing is going to be more expensive than Charmin and not nearly as pleasant.

[WilliePilgrim]

Thanks Chris. Great points, all, and needless to say way over the heads of the nitwits who run the media circus, the purpose of which is anything but enlightenment. Arbiet macht happyface!

[OlongapoEd]

Jonah Goldberg (and others of his ilk) should not be ignored, they should be treated like the political/religious smut peddlers they are. However, to a considerable extent (far too considerable), it is not socially acceptable to state the unpleasant truth about such people here in Gopd's Holy Nation.

[flashlight]

Kelly's the funniest writer on Huffingtonpost.

[chimezatmidnight]

Sigh.

So many wondrous neocon dauphins here in NYC! But only one guillotine -- on display in a church -- near the the Museum of Natural History. And you know these brats will be worse on line than the ones at the Planetarium or whatever the hell they renamed it.

However... of all these boys from Evereverlame the Do!phin is truly special. Unique. Even worthy of study.

Because you get squeezed through an hemaphroditic mother's urinary tract and there's just all sorts of crazy brain damage!

Hey! What's your excuse, Pod Boy?

[amosduncan]

Ah, it's funny (strange) you should mention Hitchens; because his wacked out fantasyland version of America is just a nuanced version of Goldberg; the liberals are the real menance; ISOLATIONISTS who pass on constructive international exchange like invading Iraq. Alturnative rag fruitcake Marc Cooper serves up another version; they're ALL evil and he'll explain it to you whenever he's not plunging his thumb down on the scale in favor of Republicans with all his portly might.

Anyway, I take a more moderate posistion with the opposite Towners: engage, then ignore, rince, repeat. They're total idiots I'll talk to, they're total idiots I'll talk to not.

It's still a lose/lose, but it's the best you can do.

[TheCult]

Goldberg's history lessons are puerile propaganda. He seeks to prove that "liberalism" is fascism, and to prove that he informs us that the biggest "liberals" not only supported Mussolini, but also that they share common political goals.The huge problem with his revisionist history lies with Mr.Goldber­g being a dilettante historian. He is ignorant of, or purposefully ignores, history which completely undermines his thesis e.g the history presented in Gabriel Kolko’s “Triumph of Conservativism” or in Murray Rothbards "The Origin of the Federal Reserve" ( read it at http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:XgDs6x7wDOcJ:www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae2_3_1.pdf&hl=en )

According to Goldberg corporate-state goals (fascism) are synonomous with "liberalism" because famous "liberal" leaders were corporate-statists. Therefore we should see "liberals" and "leftist" politics as fascism? Why not claim that "conservatism" is about a big intrusive wasteful government because the current administration call themselves "conservative"? Talk about revisionism gone amuck.

[southernlib]

Goldberg's secret history also proves that everyone who wasn't a fascist really was a fascist, pacifism is violence, secularism is religious oppression, social security is Stalinism, compassion is censorship, black is white, anarchy is totalitarianism, slavery is freedom and the only right more precious than racism is mining.

Do you ever get tired of people telling you you're a genius with words?
(BTW, What's it like?)

[Thad]

So, um, how many words did you just spend on a post whose point is, you claim, that we should all just ignore this thing?

Oh, and incidentally, if you're going to pepper your post with a bunch of "Really? THAT'S the best you could come up with?" snark, you might want to use fewer fat jokes.

[gmatts]

"The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning"

Mussolini was American?????? I have to hand it to Goldberg, that is a pretty big secret/lie.

From amazon.com's review of the book:
"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."

He's right. The parallels between an SS Storm trooper from 1930's Germany armed with a machine gun and a 2nd grade teacher armed with a B.A. are just too obvious to ignore. I remember one day during recess when my 2nd grade teacher rounded up all the 9 year old gypsies, gays and jews and forced them to attend Swarthmores summer poetry camps - just like Hitler did.