When I first heard the term I thought it was an oxymoron, turns out Jon Stewart feels the same way. An interesting series of events led me to to posting this video. First, a respected Newsblogger reader informed of the term and it's author Jonah Goldberg a couple days ago, I googled, but didn't bother looking deeply into it, Jonah simply sounded like a nut and I couldn't really commit to learning about him. Next thing I know our favourite commentator
Robert O'Kane wrote that "me and my liberal fascist friends have blood on our hands!" Before I could get back on my chair he wrote a
second comment that included the phrase "liberal fascist" more then once, sounds like the think tanks are pushing a new slogan. Suddenly I am more interested in "liberal Fascists" since I'm accused of being one.
Luckily Jon Stewart and I are tight and he invited Jonah Goldberg on the show, the interview was 18 minutes long so it was heavily edited to fit into the 22 minute program. So for anybody who was as confused as I was, here is your explanation for "Liberal Fascism."
*Edit Added: Good eye Todd, Jonah is the son of
Lucianne Goldberg, someone with a lot of Political Scandal history.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 7)
1. Crazy OKane, Jeff! LOL, He wouldn't have an original idea if his life depended on it! Rediculous republicans looking for Limbaugh or Fox to tell them what to think. Jom Stewart just tears this guy apart "rediculous", thank you Jon, but it feeds into OKanes psyche. Stay liberal, or progressive and think for yoursels and speak your mind. It's whats made this country great.
Dennis at 7:45AM on Jan 17th 2008
2. Is the Guest talent pool on strike also? What bottom of which barrel did you find this moron??This supports the Clinton's theory of before and after school programs to educate and mentor future
"guests"...This cat has got "latchkey-ism","premature ejaculation(ism)"..an over abundance of "Twinkie-ism" written all over "him-ism"!Did the staff put him in a cab to Foxnews-ism?
ron cook at 8:21AM on Jan 17th 2008
3. I don't understand what is so hard to understand about the term "liberal fascist".
They are just defining fascist as someone who says do it my way...or else. You must adhere to a certain code of values and morals...or else. You must follow these guidelines...or else.
Do Liberals really think they are not doing that? No, they never tell anyone what to do or say or how to behave, uh huh.
Many people are worried about what kind of ultra-pc society someone like Barak or Hillary would create.
I can give you a great example. Around Halloween some contract employees of a big company in this city were fired because they hung a noose in their work area. Some people asked, well wait a second, how was the noose hung? Was it in a theme of the old west or merry olde england or what? NO, it was assumed that the noose was about lynching black people. There was no question, no debate about it. I was told in a message forum, time and time again, told point blank that a noose, used in ANY way is a symbol of racism and must NEVER be used. It does not matter what the theme is, the object now has an exclusive meaning. There is no old West, there is no olde England. People have never been hung with nooses for ANY reason other than racial.
Okay it's a silly example (well people may have lost their jobs for no reason so not that silly) but it is a perfect example of "liberal fascism".
It simply means that you are so far to the left you are now on the right. Facts don't matter, logic doesn't matter, context doesn't matter.
It's not a technically correct term, but it's sure applicable with people like Stewart and Hoard. They really are "Liberal Fascists". Right now they must make fun of anyone who does not agree with them, but given any real power, what would they do?
PS. Hoard really should change his picture. He even looks like a smug "liberal fascist". Don't you just know he thinks he knows everything.
DavidG at 8:40AM on Jan 17th 2008
4. Really DavidG? We just point out your duplicity and laugh at you. You're still free to do it. Your type lables and name calls. If we don't think like you we're called unpatriotic and treasonist. Get it? Yeah I didn't think you would.
Dennis at 8:46AM on Jan 17th 2008
5. MACON (AP) -- A worker at a plant that makes paper board products has been fired for hanging a noose there. Graphic Packaging Corp. did not identify the employee, who is white. But a spokesman for the company said the man was fired after an investigation showed he hung the noose on a paper machine at the company's south Macon plant last month.
I guess Macon Georgia has no association with nooses? DavidG???
Dennis at 8:51AM on Jan 17th 2008
6. Here we are in the twilight of what could easily be considered the most dreadful presidential administration in American history, and somehow, for whatever reason, out from the woodwork crawls these misguided, pseudo-intellectuals and their little tomes of revisionist history. Since when did reality, and the events and people of the past become such a malleable thing for these so-called authors to twist to suit their partisan agendas?
Goldberg's book is a poorly written disaster-piece of cobbled together reasoning built around the fallacy of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc," and even though a cursory examination of his work, it becomes patently clear that, rather than remain in the framework of reality, history and simple logic to create his argument, he's using correlations which exist only in the minds of the truly paranoid (Hiya, Bobby O'Kane!).
I think John Scalzi put his finger soundly on the extent of Goldberg's academic shortcomings here:
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=300
And here:
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=303
The fun part will be watching Jonah Goldberg dig himself deeper and deeper into this disaster as a result of his own arrogance and stupidity.
Dan at 8:53AM on Jan 17th 2008
7. This was in Houston, TX, not Macon GA.
How quickly you all started name calling?
What would you do to me if you had any real power?
Liberal Fascists.
DavidG at 8:56AM on Jan 17th 2008
8. A simple google search of noose and fired along with the time frame gave you away, yeah, thats a silly excuse, musta been a halloween decoration, right!
Dennis at 8:56AM on Jan 17th 2008
9. Where did I name call? Just an observation I think you're hearing things, LOL.
Dennis at 8:58AM on Jan 17th 2008
10. There was a highschool prank in pearlland from a houston paper, 11/8/07. I assume this is what you meant?? No one was fired, again just a google search. Are you just making things up DavidG????
Dennis at 9:03AM on Jan 17th 2008
11. Hey Hoard,
You have to upgrade your source of information. John Stewart is just a cable version of Howard Stern, Don Imus and Kathy Griffen.....agenda driven humor.
Willet at 9:13AM on Jan 17th 2008
12. Hey Willett it was the guest he was discussing, get it?? I didn't think so. LOL!!!
Dennis at 9:22AM on Jan 17th 2008
13. #3 - DavidG - A swastika can also have many meanings (see paragraph from Wikipedia entry below), but when I see it spray-painted on the side of a building, I don't think geometric motif. Some symbols are so strongly linked to certain cultures and ideas that no one with any understanding of local culture could fail to see the problem with applying one of the other meanings. Having said that, there is a formal definition of fascism, the corporation running the state.
"Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period. An ancient symbol, it occurs in numerous indigenous Asian, European, African and Native American cultures; sometimes as a geometrical motif and sometimes as a religious symbol. It has long been widely used in major world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism."
alan at 9:36AM on Jan 17th 2008
14. # 7 - DavidG - Link to a report on the firing in Macon is
http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=7250972
alan at 9:39AM on Jan 17th 2008
15. A discussion of the Pearland "prank" and many other recent events may be found at
http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2007/11/13/news/12822108.txt
Another set of noose incidents in St. Louis was also reported in the Houston paper. The link is
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/5447857.html
A quote from that article that I find interesting is,
""The good white folks say it's a prank," said retired Battalion Chief Robert Grady, who is black. "To a black guy, that's a death threat." For those good Christians out there, walk a mile in the Black guy's shoes.
alan at 9:45AM on Jan 17th 2008