On MSNBC, Jonah Goldberg claimed "you can draw a line" from Mussolini to Clinton and Obama
SUMMARY: Discussing his most recent book on MSNBC's Morning Joe, National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg said that Benito Mussolini is tied to the American liberal movement because he "was a socialist." When co-host Joe Scarborough asked whether he was suggesting "you can draw a line from Mussolini" to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or to Sen. Barack Obama, Goldberg replied, "Well, I'm saying you can draw a line, but it's not a straight one."
On the January 10 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, discussing his book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Doubleday, January 2008) with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg said that Benito Mussolini is tied to the American liberal movement because he "was a socialist" and that "[t]he Nazis were the National Socialists" who "ran as socialists" and "said over and over again, 'We are socialists.' " Goldberg added that "in the 1920s, American progressives like at The New Republic, still around today, were objectively pro-Mussolini" and that "[y]ou had the founder of The New Republic defending Mussolini against his critics." Scarborough then asked Goldberg: "But you're not suggesting in this book though that you can draw a line from Mussolini to [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] or Mussolini to [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL], are you?" Goldberg then replied: "Well, I'm saying you can draw a line, but it's not a straight one. It goes all sorts of different places. I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism. I'm saying it's sort of like the great-grandniece once removed." Goldberg added, "They have some common DNA, some common themes, some family resemblances that come up."
At the end of the interview, Scarborough asked Goldberg to appear again on the show, adding: "[T]his is fascinating and it deserves more than five minutes."
From the January 10 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
SCARBOROUGH: So explain your theory, because obviously, we've always heard that communism and socialism were the precursors to modern American liberalism post-war. How do you tie Mussolini to the liberal movement?
GOLDBERG: Sure. Well, part of the problem is that we now believe that fascism and communism are opposites, that they lie on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, and that's essentially the product of Soviet propaganda. Mussolini was a socialist. He said he was going to live to the end of his days as a socialist. He earned the label "Il Duce" as a socialist. The Nazis were the National Socialists. They ran as socialists. They said over and over again, "We are socialists." And what the reality is, is that fascism and bolshevism, which led to the Soviet Union, were both heresies of socialism. They were different kinds of socialism. One was international socialism, one was National Socialism.
And in the 1920s, American progressives like at The New Republic, still around today, were objectively pro-Mussolini. You had the founder of The New Republic defending Mussolini against his critics. You had Lincoln Steffens, you know, the famous muckraker, who goes to the Soviet Union and says, "I've seen the future, and it works." The year before, he went to Mussolini's Italy and said, "That place was the cat's meow." They did not see at the time that what Lincoln Steffens called "the Russian method and the Italian method," they called them the Russian-Italian method as if they were part and parcel of the same thing.
SCARBOROUGH: But you're not suggesting in this book, though, that you can draw a line from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton or Mussolini to Barack Obama, are you?
GOLDBERG: Well, I'm saying you can draw a line, but it's not a straight one. It goes all sorts of different places. I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism. I'm saying it's sort of like the great-grandniece once removed.
[laughter]
GOLDBERG: They have some common DNA, some common themes, some family resemblances that come up. But we also have them in the Republican Party today. I think compassionate conservatism is essentially a right-wing progressivism, and it's very scary which way that can go.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh my gosh.
SCARBOROUGH: We have certainly seen that. Jonah --
BRZEZINSKI: He's great.
SCARBOROUGH: -- thank you so much for being with us. NRO [National Review Online] is just, it is must reading every morning for me, and now I'm going to go out and buy the book with the smiley face and the Hitler mustache.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, I'm glad I contributed to the interview for you.
SCARBOROUGH: I seriously am. I am gonna -- now, I didn't even want to get you in it, Mika. I just thought it would be safer that way.
BRZEZINSKI: Aw, that's really mean.
SCARBOROUGH: Jonah, can you come back sometime and talk to us about this?
GOLDBERG: I would love to come back.
SCARBOROUGH: OK, because we really -- this is fascinating and it deserves more than five minutes.
GOLDBERG: I can do the rank punditry or I can do the book, whatever you like.
BRZEZINSKI: I get the feeling, yeah, he's flexible.
SCARBOROUGH: We like it all. All right, Jonah, thanks a lot. Hey, good luck on the tour.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
;-)
My first thought is, why do we even bother to take remarks like this seriously? The anser is that we do have to address them because some people buy the inference, however stupid.
You make too much out of what was, again, just a minor correction. However, to answer your question, I'm suggesting only that Gates Sr. is quite capable of speaking his own mind and I'm not prepared to assume Gates Jr.'s tax philosophies from someone else's words rather than his own.
I also can find nothing to indicate that Gates Sr. testified about the estate tax as a representative of the foundation, nor can I find anything at the foundation's website about the estate tax. It's simply not an area the foundation addresses.
You aren't suggesting that Gates Jr. exercises dictatorial control over every position expressed by his father ... are you?
(Footnote: I did, however, find a news article that said Gates Jr. agrees with his father about the estate tax. Still, he's not the one who testified about it and wrote a book about it.)
Good for you, researching and finding the truth. It's all I could ask.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
Its amazing how ignorant idiots like Goldberg get air time and find publishers
Mussolini broke with his initial Socialists leanings when he championed Italy's entry into WWI and became an ultra nationalist. His Faciast party imprisoned Socialists intectuals like Antonio Gramsci and assasinated elected socialists leaders. Democratic Socialism had a long history in Italy and Europe that predated by many years the Leninism of the Bolsheviks. Mussolini like Hitler was allways on good terms with big business. Goldberg's linking the Nazis to Socialism because of the name of their party was really ludicrous. Hitler had always been a right wing agitator and spy from the beginning, and the use of Socialimus in the NAZI party name was without real substance. Indeed, party leader Ernst Rohm did take the socialist appelation seriously, and he was murdered with many of his SA colleagues. Idiot Goldberg never read books like "The Behemoth" which analyzed how oppressive the weekly work routine was for the average German worker under the a NAZIS, while industrialist like Krupp and Farben bankrolled the Party and then made fortunes. Why does a country that has the highest percentage of college graduates in history give precious time to such a fool.
Its amazing how ignorant idiots like Goldberg get air time and find publishers
Mussolini broke with his initial Socialists leanings when he championed Italy's entry into WWI and became an ultra nationalist. His Faciast party imprisoned Socialists intectuals like Antonio Gramsci and assasinated elected socialists leaders. Democratic Socialism had a long history in Italy and Europe that predated by many years the Leninism of the Bolsheviks. Mussolini like Hitler was allways on good terms with big business. Goldberg's linking the Nazis to Socialism because of the name of their party was really ludicrous. Hitler had always been a right wing agitator and spy from the beginning, and the use of Socialimus in the NAZI party name was without real substance. Indeed, party leader Ernst Rohm did take the socialist appelation seriously, and he was murdered with many of his SA colleagues. Idiot Goldberg never read books like "The Behemoth" which analyzed how oppressive the weekly work routine was for the average German worker under the a NAZIS, while industrialist like Krupp and Farben bankrolled the Party and then made fortunes. Why does a country that has the highest percentage of college graduates in history give precious time to such a fool.
Foolish Doughy Pantload. He still draws lines with poop lumps pulled out of his diaper.
His book is beneath contempt, so enjoy yourself and use this opportunity to mock him and any mouthbreather that defends mommies little lump of Cheetos. Any drooler that calls a progressive a fascist is a double dip Mountain Dew flavored fascist. To try to make sense of pantload pretzel logic is to waste that time.
If you think vegetables, and seatbelts are good things then you are a fascist. If you think Blackwater is cool and Tom Delay is infallible, then you are a Jonah Goldberg neolibrul. Now you dont have to by the book.
The bizarre thing about the above-quoted portion of the sentence is the writer makes out something negative ("workplace racism") to be something positive (the "harmless" adjective) and something positive (people watching "their mouths when they're at work") to be something negative.
"This idea (liberalism is fascism) is what talk-radio is all about."
Which is a good reason to avoid listening to talk radio.
A few quotes from Il Duce:
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. "
"Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace."
"Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail."
"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building."
Um...can you say "neo-con?"
What exactly is an example of "harmless" workplace racism, BRPINEDO7715? Good grief, you do realize you're using the word "racism" in a positive context, don't you? As for the second quotation, by your use of the term "forcing," you mean "not allowing people to keep their jobs if their language around their fellow employees makes Andrew Dice Clay sound like Mother Angelica," then I have no problem with that. That's a good way to run a workplace, not "fascism."
"This idea (liberalism is fascism) is what talk radio is all about."
That's why people should not listen to talk radio.