More perversion of history by the neocon Right

By Christopher E. Renner

Recently a friend brought to my attention the most recent chapter in the neoconservative war on history. Noecon pundit, Jonah Goldberg, has published a new book: Liberal Fascism - The Secret History of the American LEft, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. As someone who lived in the former fascist state of Italy for seventeen years and saw first hand the lingering effects fascism has had on the society, I feel some comment needs to be made about Goldberg's distortion, no perversion, of history to suit his own agenda.

From the book review at Amazon.com:

Goldberg seeks to identify who the real fascist in our midst are. Liberal Fascism claims to offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, Goldberg claims that the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National Socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Excuse me - a contributing editor to the National Review and a former employee of the American Enterprise Institute - the flag ship of neoconservatism and Bush and Cheney's biggest supporter along with the Heritage Foundation - is calling liberals Fascists???? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! (Oh, and lets not forget who his mother is and what launched his career as a pundit: his mother Lucianne Goldberg, was the one who advised Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and to save the dress which led to the Clinton sex scandal. This coming form good old Lucianne who would know about such affairs since she reported to anyone within ear-shot that she had had an affair with both Lyndon Johnson and Humbert Humphery. Both of whom denied the affair, but that didn't keep Lucianne from loudly spreading the fact that she had.)

Goldberg obviously doesn't understand the first thing of political ideology - yes the Nazi's began out of the socialist workers movement, but it's policies, which quickly took on nativist and hyper-nationalism tones, were reactionary and placed it on the opposite end of the political spectrum; in the same league as the Czar of Russian and other depots.

I totally disagree with his comment "they loathed the free market" - whereas in socialist economies the state controls most, if not all, of the economy for the benefit of the workers, under fascism the state control was to prop up a pre-existing capitalist elite which, for pledging to support the politicial agenda of the Nazis, directly benefitted from state contracts and slave labour while they were protected from competition based purely on political ideology - much as what the Bush/Cheney administration has done. This is hardly analogous with the economic model used in socialist-based economies of Sweden or Denmark or even in Japan's "pink" economy - where a "capitalist elite" has been difficult to form.

As someone who lived in a country that had been ruled by the fascist, I can tell you Goldberg's claims are only half turths - yes the Italian fascist did provide the first nationalisze health care systems and pension plans in Italy, but people were denied such benefits if they were enemies of the state, which any member of the Communist, or even the more moderate liberal democrat parties were labeled. Neapelotians starved because they consistently voted against the fascist - and Mussolini moreover rewarded them by building a steel mill on once of the most pristine beaches in all of southern Italy and imported fascist workers form the north to work in it. A legacy which only recently was finally tore down and the first attempts were made to address the environmental damage which will take generations to clean up.

Goldberg's claim that the fascist "purged the church from public policy" is also wrong. While many modern fascist are atheists, in the 30s the church was entwined, as it always is, with the political power machine the fascist built. They supported Mussouli in his colony building in Lybia and Albania, and his leaders were in the front pews each Sunday. The Church, as in Spain, became a partner with the fascist against modernism, socialism and the radicalization of young people to the facilities of religious belief.

Goldberg's (isn't that a historically Jewish name???) assertation that the Nazis "maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities" is placed to attack affirmative action in our modern times. But he misleads the reader. The Nazi matrix was to prevent a whole class of people, the Jews, form attending university, not make sure that people who had suffered historic discrimination - African Americans, Hispanics, and women - were part of each Freshman class. Goldberg, in true neocon fashion, perverts history to to support his own propaganda. Shame on him.

Goldberg's whole effort with this book is to deflect the attention the Left has been placing on the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration and the neoconservative war on civil (and human) rights while rewarding a capitalist elite, just like the fascist they are!