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Wenesday 2 July 2008
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
Its cover and its author's reputation for humor and sarcasm might lead one to think that this is a frivolous book, but instead it is intellectual history of the first order. In some senses it might be considered a successor to The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek.
"Contrary to what most people think, 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."
Goldberg gives once-hilarious (nowadays clearly hysterical [actually nowadays deceased]) George Carlin credit for predicting that "smiley-face fascism" will come to America. In fact, to a certain extent it's already here, albeit "a milder, more friendly, more 'maternal' fascism." Carlin himself of course most likely had no serious intellectual understanding of what he was talking about, because the fact of the matter is that "fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been , a phenomenon of the left."
The book then reviews fascism's roots in Rousseau, the French Revolution, and of course the Italian Socialist (sic!) Mussolini, then how the Nazis took over the German left. Hitler was obsessed with Social Justice.
By the way, "liberal fascism" is not of his coinage but of H.G. Wells, the famous English socialist.
It is breathtaking to read of Woodrow Wilson’s contempt for the reverence many Americans have for the Founders and indeed of Wilson's contempt for the Constitution itself. More of this in Rich Lowry's review on National Review Online.
Highly, highly recommended.
There is a blog associated with the book as well as a review of it in The New York Times.
A response by Jonah Goldberg to another review is also worth reading.
Monday 16 June 2008
Moment of Truth in Iraq
Subtitled "How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers Is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope", former Green Beret Michael Yon's ferociously honest book is riveting, from its heartbreaking cover photo to its end where he makes a plea for a sensible not precipitate drawdown.
It opens with a dispatch he posted from Baqubah just over a year ago, just before Operation Arrowhead Ripper. The book quickly brings us to the low-point. "And then, at the very last moment, we stepped back from the edge. And the story changed. We came to the moment of truth. Today, though that moment is not yet surely gained, it remains within our grasp as long as we are true to ourselves. For it is our values that can win this war, for us and for the Iraqi people, just as betraying those values very nearly lost it."
Blurbed by David Petraeus, it has reached #6 on Amazon, and #2 on Barnes and Noble. According to his blog he has just finished his book promotion tour and has returned to the war.
"Brutalized by Saddam for decades, Iraqis hungered for strength entwined with justice and tempered by mercy. The American soldier delivered."
By the way, Townhall magazine has a special offer on this.
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