As we get closer to 1/8/08, the day where we'll all be able to learn about liberal fascism from the master fascist apologist himself, Mr. Jonah Goldberg, it's satisfying to my undying curiosity masochism that tidbits like these gems are sneaking out.
Jonah's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning won't be out in time for Christmas, sadly. But it will be out in time to be given as a two-days-late Reyes present, which may have been the intent. Reactionary pulp-politics books are the traditional gift for such an occasion.
In case you want to see what a conservative starving for relevance will write in a day and age when conservatism is getting hard to push, the table of contents is after the jump:
(Via Sadly, no)
Oh my.
Oh my, indeed.
I like how FDR, Adolph Hitler, and first-name-less Mussolini are all rolled into one big cigar here. Because they didn't have any notable dispute with one another....
And how does fascism "take to the street" anyway? I mean, isn't protesting in the street the exact opposite of fascism, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as:
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
But revising history and the English language does take some time. Here's what he said back in March about why his book wasn't coming out on schedule:
My book isn't like Dinesh's latest book. It isn't like any Ann Coulter book. It isn't what the Amazon description says or what the Economist claims it is. Or what Frank Rich imagines it is. It is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
Because comparing Hillary Clinton to Adolf Hitler is so serious.
Here's the inside jacket:
The only thing "startling" about this book is that it makes you wonder why anyone's paying him for his opinion.
But I particularly like this bit:
The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine.
OMG organic farming and alternative medicine! How in the world will we ever survive these Nazi horrors?
And the back jacket:
Yes, yes, there's the quotation there that teachers are bigger fascists than "SS stormtroopers", but you've really gotta wonder what happened to someone when they are more than distrustful of education, they have a seething hatred of education. Maybe it's because critical thinking skills, knowledge of history, and information literacy all decrease the chance that people like Coulter, D'Souza and Goldberg will be able to make money off pulp-political fiction like this.
Or maybe he just had a really bad experience in school. I can hardly imagine why.
***
On an actually serious note, I should give a mention of how offensive the premise of this book is. I'm reminded of what Ellen Andersen said in response to Michael Savage's equation of lesbians with Nazis:
And that’s what Mr. Savage’s diatribe about Nazis and the Holocaust is all about: it’s verbal porn that dehumanizes its subjects—both the "lesbians" and the "oven stuffers"—for the voyeuristic pleasure of his audience.
And it’s dangerous, to boot, because it equates all disliked behavior to the systematic attempt to eradicate an entire population of people.
Being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I suppose, gives someone a different perspective on outrageous comparisons like this one.
And I'm sure the survivors of Mussolini's or Hitler's regimes would have similar thoughts about seeing the horrors they survived being compared to Hillary Clinton's health care plan or FDR's New Deal.