Memo to Jonah Goldberg: Mussolini belongs to your side

January 19, 2008

Guest Post by Morbo

I haven’t read Jonah Goldberg’s new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, since I make it a rule to try to avoid projectile vomiting as much as possible. But I could not help but be intrigued by the subtitle.

Mussolini? Really, Jonah, Mussolini? I hate to break it to this guy, but Mussolini belongs to his crowd, not ours. I know this because I did something Goldberg has apparently not had the time or inclination to do: read a few books about Mussolini.

It’s true that Mussolini was once a Socialist and even edited a Socialist newspaper. But as any of his biographers will tell you, Mussolini repudiated these views after falling out with Socialist leaders over Italy’s entry into World War I. Mussolini entered parliament in 1921 as a far-right member and was backed by major industrialists who were eager to find a way to end revolutionary activities among factory workers.

Once in power, Mussolini’s views were in no way liberal. Liberals have respect for the institutions of government and believe in the power of the state to improve people’s lives. Mussolini did not subscribe to this philosophy. He built the state into a type of cult of personality, claiming to personally run several departments himself. (Despite popular belief, he was inept at managing government. The trains did not actually run on time.) Rather than actually run the government to serve the people, Mussolini spent most of his time furthering his cult through propaganda.

Liberals support the right of workers to organize and form unions. That was the last thing Mussolini wanted. Mussolini crushed trade unions and formed a “corporate state” that was designed to place all workers into government-approved professional associations that would have no real power.

Liberals support freedom of the press and respect the right to dissent. Mussolini was a master propagandist who required newspaper editors to be licensed. The average citizen was expected to show unquestioning loyalty to the state.

Liberals promote a foreign policy where aggression is used only when justified. They seek cooperation among nations and do not support wars of conquest, the chief aim of which is to add territory. Mussolini was an extreme nationalist and would-be empire builder who invaded weak countries in North Africa and established a puppet regime in Albania.

Mussolini, of course, did align with Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party. But even the dimmest historian will tell you that there was no actual Socialism in that party. Hitler did include some vaguely Socialistic ideas in the party platform early on to win over struggling lower economic classes. Socialism was a popular political ideology in Germany in the 1920s, and Hitler wanted to tie to his movement to it — but in name only. As William L. Shirer makes clear in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, this Socialist rhetoric was never taken seriously. Hitler considered it embarrassing and abandoned it as soon as he came to power.

In a perfect world, I’d like to keep both Mussolini and Hitler out of contemporary political debates. I think we can all agree that the political ideas expressed by these men were evil. Nazism and Corporate Fascism are not seriously espoused by many Americans today except for skinheads, “White-power” racists and other cranks. But the right wingers keep bringing the two up.

That’s odd, because Fascism has always been a political philosophy tied to the extreme right. That does not mean it is espoused by American conservatives today any more than today’s Democrats promote Communism. It would be nice if we could move beyond name-calling, but Goldberg started this one by dragging Il Duce into his book title.

Goldberg’s book is quite an achievement. You don’t even have to read beyond the cover to start seeing errors. Surely that sets some kind of record.

Jonah Goldberg is committing and using (repeatedly) the common error of logic called “the error of the undistributed medium.” For example: “Cats have two eyes, CB has two eyes, therefore, CB is a cat.” It’s an example of using ‘logic’ to prove a truth. Logic can not prove truth, logic can prove only falsehood – what can’t be proven false is assumed to be true. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop propagandists from trying.

  • Beyond certain nut cases, no one since World War II, has been a self-described Fascist. The word has gone from being descriptive to being simply a slur. When their ire is up many Democrats refer to many of today’s Republicans as fascist (lower case is appropriate here). I have no objection to idiots like Goldburg (kept alive only by the corporate press) hurling the term back at us. Translate “fascist” as “bad” and it all makes sense. Added benefit: it lowers your blood pressure to deflate the word.

  • Goldberg’s appearance on Stewart’s “The Daily Show” was quite a spectacle. It’s a must-see. This guy, Goldberg, is an embarrassment and the more light that is shined on him the better to see just how shallow and obvious his agenda is

  • If you haven’t seen it, C&L has a nice summary of an interview Goldberg did for Salon, in which he says,

    the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I.

    To quote Nicole Belle,

    Um, actually, not so much. Mussolini was dubbed a fascist because he founded the Fascist Party, you big, fact-ignoring dope.

    That was a ROTFLOL moment for me! There were a number of such howlers in Goldberg’s interview.

  • Ed, #2, makes a good observation here, and yet, the confused “group think” of Goldberg’s crowd is troubling when it is projected upon unassuming audiences who wouldn’t know liberalism from a hole in the ground. -Kevo

  • Jonah seems to be trying to preemptively steal the thunder of critics of the Bush administration who have very substantive evidence of the similarities between the Bushists and 20th century fascists. By making his spurious accusations of liberals and progressives of being fascists, he diminishes the criticisms of his beloved far right wing.

    Stephen M. in #1 accurately describes Jonah’s methods which are flimsy, tangential coincidences rather than real proof of a connection. By lobbing this load of feces over the wall, Jonah’s hoping to turn valid comparisons of America’s right wing to authentic right wing fascists into a he-said, she-said type of debate that lets people believe what they want to believe a la Fox News.

  • I know it’s easier to judge a book by its cover, but in this case you may be wrong.

    In fact, within the first 20 pages of the book, he discusses the confusion that results in this post and most of the comments so-far.

  • re: “Nazism and Corporate Fascism are not seriously espoused by many Americans today except for skinheads”

    I am curious – what term you would use to describe a governing philosophy of object servitude to corporate interests obscured by assertive militarist nationalism and derision of liberals as traitors?

    The irony of denying the present existence of fascism while reviewing the work of a fascist accusing liberals of fascism, during the presidency of a fascist …

    E

  • As some have already pointed out, it’s easy to “prove” any specious thesis when all you have to do is change the definition of the terms being used to support the premise. False sylogisms aside, Der Pantenloeden is a mediocre propagandist at best if his assertions can be disproven so easily.

    Sorry, Dough-nah Jonah. This emblematic screed just doesn’t rise to the level of polemic. You should rename it to “The Little Engine That Couldn’t”.

  • Petorado has it right at #6, I think. By blowing a lot of “anti-fascist” hot air, American right-wingers undermine the possibility of the more accurate diagnosis of their own fascist traits and tendencies.

  • Stephen at #1 accuses Goldberg of “using (repeatedly) the common error of logic called “the error of the undistributed medium.”

    Good point, although I would argue that for logic to prove something the premises must be true and the argument must use a valid sequence. His example does not provide the valid sequence, as it would if it had said, “only cats have two eyes”.

    That said, by subtly redefining words, Goldberg commits the “fallacy of the fourth term.” For example, this is my dog, this dog is a mother, therefore my mother is a bitch. Since “my” has two definitions (it is used to show possession in the first premise, but relationship in the second premise and conclusion), the conclusion is invalid.

  • Liberals have respect for the institutions of government and believe in the power of the state to improve people’s lives.

    That sounds like something right out of Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”. Government/State was what our Founding Fathers were trying to limit and to get away from, when they wrote the US Constitution. Fact is, Communism, Socialism (“one step from Communism”), and Fascism are all forms of a doctrine that promotes Government/State over the Individual’s rights…and, it’s the same doctrine that the Democratic Party promotes and supports. Government/State/Village over the Individual may sound nice or look good on paper, but such forms of control or rule usually prove to be disastrous.

  • The whole situation is much more complex than Seaberry (#12) presents it. Government can be the source (the only source) of much good, e.g., the Federal Highway Program or, when free-enterprise failed in the early ’30s, the WPA employment programs. It can also be an effective counter to large corporate control (SEC, FCC). Communism, at least in theory (the overthrow of Tzarist Russia was not a test), is opposed to government power.

    We have socialized police forces and fire departments and school systems. We’re timid about advancing socialized medicine (perhaps simply because we haven’t learned to think of it as “public health service” the same way we do “public education”).

    I find all these arguments tiresome. Seems to me the option of free enterprise capitalism versus pure communism (or pure socialism) died about 1883, along with Karl Marx. Everything since then has been some blend which 19th century proponents and opponents could never have dreamed of. Read, e.g., Peter Drucker (writing over the last half of the 20th century).

  • Easy Goldberg logic. Plato was a homosexual…plato was a greek…ergo…all greeks are homosexuals…easy. Tries so hard to be unique…oooh he’s so smart…liberals are fascists…who would have thought?

  • Not to mention that Mussolini was NOT AN AMERICAN, so he couldn’t possibly be part of the “American Left.” Oh well, facts are stupid things.

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