A Masterwork Of Obfuscation
One of the more remarkable aspects of Liberal Fascism is that Jonah admits quite openly throughout the book that he has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. Witness this little nugget in which he explains to everyone how wrong, wrong, wrong they are about Hitler being a right-winger:
You got that? Everyone thinks Hitler was a right-winger just because they don’t understand what left and right really mean! In fact, Jonah admits that the terms get “increasingly slippery” the more you try to define them!
Of course, that doesn’t stop Jonah from forthrightly labeling the second chapter of his book…
…does it?
And how does Jonah know that Hitler was really a man of the Left? Because he shared some habits in common with the hippies of the ’60s:
Buh-buh… buh-buh… Jonah. The Nazis wanted to “transcend class” only in the sense that they wanted to make every wealthy capitalist of the Aryan race into a permanent German ruling class, while making all members of lower classes and inferior races into a permanent underclass. Their attacks on “the rich” in Germany were essentially attacks on Jewish bankers and financiers that were not intended to create a classless Utopia but rather to scapegoat Jews for working-class Germans’ economic troubles. And Jonah, in case you don’t know, Hitler bloody hated Communists and leftists:
Berlin police entered the flaming Reichstag building and arrested one Marinus van der Lubbe, a shambling young Dutchman and avowed Communist who boasted that he had started the blaze himself. Using popular indignation over the fire, Hitler arrested 4,000 Communist officials that night. The next night Chancellor Hitler persuaded aging President von Hindenburg to suspend all constitutional liberties. Communist Party gatherings and newspapers were banned, and the ban was later extended to the Socialist press. In the election a week later, Hitler’s Nazi coalition won a Reichstag majority for the first time, though even then the Nazis’ share of the vote was only 43.9%. Thereafter Hitler was able to eliminate all opposition, jail people at will, confiscate property and censor newspapers and books.
He also arrested union leaders and confiscated their property.
Now seriously, let’s think about this for a second: Communists, socialists and trade unionists are all ‘left-wingers’ by the standard definitions of the term (of course, since Jonah believes he can make the words ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ mean whatever he wants them to mean — because hey, no one really knows what they mean anyway — I fear this will fall upon deaf ears). But if somebody makes it their explicit policy to ban all leftist political parties and to jail or kill all leftist party leaders, one is decidedly not a ‘Man of the Left,’ no matter how many damn tofu burgers he eats.
We have quite the Magnum Doughpus here.
You think you so smart you talk a lot a words but you really just a fatcyst too.
I eat food. Hitler ate food. I am therefore Hitler. Or just like him. Or not. It gets slippery.
First, what a pussy.
And a cute cat, too!
Very nice deconstruction, sir.
(apologies to feminists and anyone else offended by my felinisms)
nice post, but I believe it only strengthens Jonah’s point.
He’s like the sophomore who thinks the English teacher doesn’t know he’s bullshitting.
Das [Jonah] ist ein boobie!
The title anagrams nicely to
“Ow, A sock of fur masterbation”
Hitler also really liked Haydn. Are all baroque musicians thus retroactively Nazis?
Also, he capitalizes New Left as if referring to a specific group, but surrounds with “later …s” as if New Lefts are popping up hither and thither all the time. So, Nazism was Germany’s own New Left, and now there are other New Lefts? I guess?
actor, as an aside, the use of the word pussy to mean cowardly is a shortening of the word pusillanimous, which means cowardly or of small spirit. It is NOT a likening of a man to a female sex organ. But then I am a liberal fascist former English teacher, so what the fuck do I know?
Alternately:
Wacko Offs Our Masterbation
I deny the sincerity of the rank and file as mounting a revolutionary assault on the forces of capitalism.
No so impossible, izzit, Jonah?
Now I get it. Jonah’s against health food, environmentalism and exercise (obviously). So anyone who is for not living on a diet of Cheetohs and Mountain Dew while sitting on his fat ass watching Star Trek is a fascist.
Hayden wasn’t baroquen. He was classical. So he is more of a classical fascist than a baroque fascist. I hope this is now clear.
He’s like the sophomore who thinks the English teacher doesn’t know he’s bullshitting.
Exactly how many little blue essay books did Jonah use in creating this masterwork of ignorance?
Can we take away his crayons now? He’s dirtying the walls.
I guess it would, like, be some sort of impossible task requiring time travel and as yet unheralded technologies to find out if Adolf Hitler thought that there were inevitable class conflicts within societies between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians and whether or not he wanted to help lead that proletarian class to power in order to end that class struggle with a victory for the proletarians.
There is no way you could know such things without out actually being able to visit inside Hitler’s head while he was speaking and stuff.
And if you can’t travel back in time and listen inside Hitler’s head than there’s no way you talk about whether or not he believed in supporting the proletarian class in an overthrow of the state and the ending of the bourgeoisie’s control of the means of production.
How do those so-called “historians” write all their crap when they can’t time travel and go in people’s heads and stuff? They are a bunch a fatcysts.
Masturbation. with a u. So, “Roe wacks off, O Masturbation”
Ya see, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s all, all about the tofu burgers. That, and Hitler was well known to wear waaay too much patchouli, which, besides being incredibly annoying in an enclosed space, marks him as a hippie leftist forever.
Yoo must wilt beneeth mai logics!!!
Is it really so hard to understand ?
I am he as you are bad
As I lump you all together
Koo koo kachoo
C’mon get it together
Real soon
Over me
Members of NAMBLA enjoy Cheetos. Jonah enjoys Cheetohs. Jonah is a member of NAMBLA.
As a certified DFH, I have to say I always HATED patchouli. So since I’m not a hippie fascist anymore can I go see the preznit when he comes to my town?
I wonder if Jonah will thank me for the brief spike in sales he’s going to experience right after this comes out.
Probably not, ungrateful bastard.
Dr. BDH,
That’s not crayon on the walls…
i don’t see how feeding jonah his own (formidable) tits on a platter serves to strengthen any of his so-called points.
and did Jonah just completely forget about the “Night of the Long-Knives” (“Reichsmordwodiche” or, literally “the Reich’s murder week”) wherein the Nazi party effectively purged itself of its left-leaning members in a week-long campaign of arrests and assassinations against the members of the Sturmabeleitung (the “SA”) wing of the party?
BTW, nice lolcat… ich kan den cheezburger essen?
“New Lefts”? Whattabout the American right?
“primacy of race [Southern Strategy, “welfare-queens,” anti-affirmative action], the rejection of rationalism [fundamentalist Christianity, souls entering blastocysts, the infallibility of the “invisible hand”], …environmentalism, health food, and exercise” [Er. Nevermind. Return to yer Cheetohs, 101st Keyboard Commandos.]
Masturbation. with a u.
Why you saucy beast, you. Is that an invitation?
Humpty Doughy: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Doughy: The question is: which is to be master – that’s all.
Well, yes, of course Hitler was a leftist hippie. Dick Shawn in “The Producers” provides documentary evidence of that!
I love how Load Pants easily wanders from the primacy of race, rejection of rationalism (i.e. historical mainstays of “fascism”) straight to organic farming and general healthiness. I’m starting to think that this entire exercise is little more than Jonah trying to get back at various gym teachers, coaches, and of course his parents, from trying to get him to get his fat ass off the couch and out for some god damn exercise and fresh air, by calling them all fascists.
I mean, seriously: EXERCISE! Wait until I inform the management of my gym that their well-tended track, and comfortable lap pool are merely tools of one or more of the fascisms!
I bet it was a random discovery of the health food connection that was the inspirational spark of this magnificent piece of scholarly research.
It’s like Godwin’s Law inside out.
Is there federal legislation against trying to win arguments by seriously and genuinely blaming your opponents’ ideology for Hitler? Because there needs to be.
The “New Left” “reject rationalism”.
I think that calls for a BWAH HA HA HA HA.
“left and right, terms that get increasingly slippery the more you try to nail them down.”
Our scene is early 2007, the Goldberg household. A corona from a computer screen creates a halo around a large-ish, potato-shaped silhouette.
A mouse clicks.
Tapping on the keyboard.
More mouse clicking.
Furious tapping, then pounding on the keyboard.
A plaintive wail breaks out.
“MO-OM. Wikipedia keeps changing what it says about right-wing and left-wing when I try to copy it for my book!”
“I have to say I always HATED patchouli.”
You’re not alone bob. It’s rough stuff.
Even if Goldberg isn’t the idiotic boob many portray him as, it is impossible to deny the sincerity of the Conservative rank and file who see themselves as launching a revolutionary assault on the forces of intelligence and reason.
Sombody who’s not at work please post the YouTube version of Dick Shawn as Lorenzo St. Dubois singing “Love Power”.
Brad: Not only did Hitler fucking despise Communists and socialists, the feeling was beyond mutual. Indeed, American Communists and socialists were revolted by fascism, fought (and many died) in the Lincoln Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and advocated U.S. entry into WWII to fight Hitler long before we did so. (Indeed, when during the Hitler-Stalin pact the CPUSA spent a few years following Stalin’s orders to stop opposing Hitler and promoting FDR’s clear desire for war, that party became an abomination in the eyes of many others on the American far-left.) When we did enter WWII against Hitler, left-wingers — including CPUSA members who were freed by Hitler’s betrayal of the pact — packed the enlistment offices.
I am not a socialist and have had plenty bad to say about American and European Communists. But Jonah’s notions are literally ahistorical, batshit insanity.
…a rich complex of assumptions and misconceptions about what constitute left and right, terms that get increasingly slippery the more you try to nail them down.
Remind me to never ask this guy for directions. He must be an absolute terror behind the wheel of a car.
I wonder if the concepts of ‘up’ and ‘down’ are as slippery for him. Is gravity itself facist? Could this be why Ron Paul felt it was necessary to get a blimp?
So he is more of a classical fascist than a baroque fascist.
Yes, but he must have been guilty of something, or he wouldn’t be Haydn.
Is the Hitler cat missing (fehlen) or is the Hitler cat wrong (fehler)? You’re Hitler cat’s questionable German is making my-very-bad German brain parts work too hard. Previously I wasn’t sure if the Hitler cat was excited because he could have more cheeseburger, or if he wanted to have more cheeseburger.
Or is that off-topic?
“We’ve found our Hitler !”:
And how about “your Hitler cat” instead of “you’re Hitler cat”
How did you overlook the primary of race thing? How is that a “new left” thing when its the Right that fought tooth and nail against the civil rights, and it was the left who fought to end segregation. Today, its the right that defines itself by its hatred of brown people, be they arab or hispanic.
But arguing with Jonah is impossible. His logic is so illogical that it can overcome any reasonable answer. Hell. by his logic, since Hitler is a fascist and he wrote a book, then Jonah is a fascist too since he also wrote a book. OK, well, thats actually kinda true since they both hate teh gay and the brown people. They both think a country’s leader should never be questioned, that patriotism is the virtue to trump all others, no matter what your country does, and they both think that starting wars and worshipping war lords is awesome.
But, in the sense that Hitler did think highly of physical fitness, then Fatty doughpants definitely differs. In fact, the only way that Jonah’s views differ from Hitlers is that Jonah thinks his love of Cheetohs and his giant fat ass makes him the hero of democracy. Hardly something to be proud of.
Then again, two women in my family have suffered through breast cancer (one dying), and I’ve since donated a lot of money to help fund breast cancer research, and since Hitler also tried to cure breast cancer, I must be a Nazi.
His twisted and perverted sense of history and false parallels sometimes strikes me as so off base that its funny, but sometimes its so infuriating that such craptastic logic actually gets noticed by the masses.
Fuck. i want my tens of thousands in book advances for my argument that since my shirt is blue, my shirt must be the sky. It makes a whole lot more sense than Jonah.
The only good thing is that I am absolutely positive that despite her sickening displays of undeserved nepotism, Jonah’s mother realizes what a sad cheetoh eating loser she raised.
Thanks, Tim (the other one)
Although I can’t go there now…..
What’s with the analogy-via-cherrypicking-and-time-travel bullshit?
Guess what? Teddy Roosevelt also had an emphasis on environmentalism, health food (he, not FDR, created the FDA), and exercise. Therefore, Teddy was a fascist Nazi and/or a member of the New Left.
Wheeeeee! That was fun!
Let’s just rename the composition fallacy. Call it the “Goldberg fallacy” and be done with it.
UltraPrime- oop, I thought that was the word for “fail.” Clearly, this is the danger of trying to do a HitLOLcat when you don’t speak German. Help is welcome.
The only way I would ever own this book is if I could get the Sadly No limited edition in wavy print of varying heights. It’s the ultimate spamguard edition.
Guess what? Teddy Roosevelt also had an emphasis on environmentalism, health food (he, not FDR, created the FDA), and exercise. Therefore, Teddy was a fascist Nazi and/or a member of the New Left.
Basically, everyone but Jonah and Ronald Reagan are fascists or members of the New Left. That’s what it comes down to.
Like all children who learn the F word, he can’t stop saying it even though he doesn’t know what it means. But he does know it makes the adults irritated with him. He is a nasty little brat.
WOW. You see what he’s doing there? By throwing in that bit about nobody knowing what left and right really means, he makes himself irrefutable. Just like by admitting that he’s not really saying what he is clearly saying, he makes his point that nobody knows what’s going on, and therefore nobody can prove his points wrong. It is GENIUS, I’m telling you. Jonah may be the dumbest turd ever to draw breath, but man, does he ever understand today’s media. He’s made himself bulletproof.
sophronia – the whole thing is about obfuscation. He throws in about a billion caveats about not really comparing liberals to Hitler because, you know, that would be mean, but hey, both liberals and Hitler were really into jogging and stuff and the Nazis were anti-cancer and hey look, Hitler once said something nice about Karl Marx somewhere and woo! Hitler was a liberal just like I said all along.
“Hitler… there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats! “
…the themes of later New Lefts…the primacy of race
Never mind that the Left and the Nazis held essentially OPPOSITE beliefs about race. In some sense, the word “primacy” can be applied to both sets of beliefs, and therefore the two groups have something in common.
See how easy it is to write a book?
Max: Roger, did you have a chance to read “Springtime for Hitler?”
Roger De Bris: [emerges from behind a partition wearing a dress] Remarkable, remarkable! A stunning piece of work.
Leo: [under his breath] Max… he’s wearing a dress.
Max: No kidding.
Roger De Bris: Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it’s just drenched with historical goodies like that…
sophronia, you are attributing WAAAAAAAY to much intelligence to this guy. If you think he managed to inoculate himself from criticism, you need to read the comment threads to the last 3 or 4 posts.
Basically, everyone but Jonah and Ronald Reagan are fascists or members of the New Left. That’s what it comes down to.
Ron Paul strongly advocates eating healthfully, and has been riding a bike for exercise — something like daily — for decades. But then I imagine Jonah would consider Paul a fascist, since Paul doesn’t want to, you know, blow up any more Middle Eastern countries. (And no, while I generally like Paul and would prefer him to win the GOP nomination, right now I’m most enamored of Chris Dodd. Speaking of which, *does* Dodd get a little too excited about exercise, hmmm?)
“Look! I can nail jello to a wall–oh, wait, that’s my stomach. Damn.”
Indisputably believed…
impossible to deny…
No-one disputes that…
It is no longer controversial…
Phrases like that send alarm bells ringing. No, wait, that’s a side effect of all those codeine tablets, but my point still remains.
Interesting rhetorical device: Make the concepts of “all races are equal” and “one race is superior and genocide should be exercised against other races” equivalent by throwing them both into the same “primacy of race” bin. It’s analogous to saying death penalty supporters and opponents are philosophically similar because they’re both “obsessed with the death penalty.”
Like I said, it’s a book-length troll of the ‘Hitler = socialist!1!’ variety. D.P. = print troll.
And
–wins the thread, in the first comment.
I wonder…what if we all encouraged people to buy as many copies of this book as possible.
Hear me out, as stupid as that sounds. We make it rocket to the top of the Amazon and NY Times BS list (best-seller, but roll your own).
Now it starts getting dissected on national TV and in the press…we might be doing Jonah a favor by getting his ass laughed out of the country before he strikes again.
Oh, I’ve read them until my sides are hurting. I know what he’s written is tripe, but then i have a functioning brain.
What he’s doing is speaking out of both sides of his mouth for the media coverage of his book. This way he can go on the Today show or whatever and spout off all his points about Hitler and vegetarians, and if any of the anchor hairdos call him on it, he can say that’s not necessarily true, he says that right in the book. Same with the whole left/right thing. And then Anchor Hairdo will have no way of following up the question, and therefore Jonah’s tripe won’t get challenged or refuted. Then his book becomes a serious political argument.
I watched that “Party of Death” fool pull all the same tricks, and it worked every time. If it weren’t for Jon Stewart, people who watch TV would be under the impression that book had never been refuted by anyone, ever. Because our media people cannot bring themselves to admit that anyone ever tells blatant lies on national TV, except Al Gore.
This reminds me of the GOP ads that run the week before elections. You know, the painfully awkward ones they throw together after they suddenly remember African-Americans are allowed to vote and it won’t be possible to scare all of them away from the polls with rumors or trick them into voting for a Republican with laughably inaccurate sample ballots.
I predict this book will be as successful as those ads.
Humpty Doughy: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Doughy: The question is: which is to be master – that’s all.
Excellent take down.
“left and right, terms that get increasingly slippery the more you try to nail them down.”
Discuss: evidence that poststructuralism is fundamentally amoral? That there’s a world of difference between strenuous poststructuralist close reading and just plain lazy? That the Right will pillage anything it likes from the brainy set if they think it’ll help them get a boot on the poor?
sophronia said,
WOW. You see what he’s doing there? By throwing in that bit about nobody knowing what left and right really means, he makes himself irrefutable. Just like by admitting that he’s not really saying what he is clearly saying, he makes his point that nobody knows what’s going on, and therefore nobody can prove his points wrong.
Yep. It’s a variant of the old two-faced approach. It’s pretty simple:
1) Assert that X is true. Tack on a string of caveats and hedges that deprive the assertion of any significant meaning.
2) A few pages later, assert not-X. Tack on another string of caveats.
It’s like being a weather forecaster who says that tomorrow it might be sunny, or partly cloudy, or rainy–you’re pretty much set no matter what happens. Suppose someone criticizes you for saying X. Your move is simple–quote the caveats on X that you mentioned, and also quote your assertion of not-X (but leave off the caveats on not-X, since that would only weaken your response). Suppose instead that someone criticizes you for not being tough enough on X. Simple again: Quote your assertion that X is true, but omit the caveats.
In principle, it’s possible to fight this sort of nonsense by carrying out a thorough and careful critique of the text, but in practice most people get bored with that sort of thing fairly quickly, and consequently most radio and TV shows won’t allow it to go on.
Jonah’s variant is a little different, in that his fallback argument–the not-X–is essentially nihilism. And yes, he really is shameless (and honest!) enough to argue that–as he clearly pointed out in his book–he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about anyway.
I’ve seen some of my students write this way by accident; as they dig up more and more references on a complicated topic, they add in more and more hedges until they don’t realize that they’re not saying anything anymore. Typically, I don’t let this sort of thing slide and instead make them do some more digging. Maybe I shouldn’t be so tough, though. After all, they could still go on to write a book.
People like Golberg and the people who swallow his tripe as gospel are the reasons I fear deeply for the future of our democracy. And there will be those morons that believe this chapter and verse (mostly the homeschooled crowd).
Goldberg has clearly NEVER opened a history book in his life, nor has he any clue about Hitler, the 3rd Reich, or Fascism. Not ONE single assertion he has made (that I’ve read here…I wouldn’t buy this book if someone held a gun to my head) so far has been based on anything resembling a fact or historical truth.
Ask the survivors of Dachau or Auschwitz if they thought that Hitler was a dirty, free-love hippie. Next thing you know, Jonah will have the tornado bait mouth breathers that buy into his bullshit believe that “Arbeit Macht Frei” really meant “Peace, Love, and Happiness.”
He deserves to be ridiculed and pied in public for even attempting to pass this steaming loaf of shit off as anything other than more distorted right-wing invective.
If you picture Jonah’s book as a first year university essay, Brad’s commentary, if slightly revised, could be the professorial ink in the margins. I’m betting Jonah saw a lot of uncomplimentary red ink, and letters like -D and -F on his school papers. This might explain his tendency to call public school teachers fascists.
Since words apparently don’t mean anything, and since Jonah and his buddies support torture and interrogation in Stalinist secret prisons all [i]Darkness at Noon[/i]-style, and since it’s apparently desirable to fill up hundreds and hundreds of pages chasing your own tail for no reason, shouldn’t we get to work on our own book about how Karl Marx was the first real conservative and Ronald Reagan stole all of his ideas from Che Guevara?
Argh, screwed up the formatting. I know,
Um, just because you believe that the needs of the state should supercede everything else doesn’t mean you’re anti-capitalist (it does mean that you’re not a pure capitalist, but seriously outside of the Randroids no one is), I mean for god’s sake, I’m betting Jonah doesn’t think Boeing should be allowed to sell arms to Iran, does that make him a communist?
Reading these excerpts is like watching that one scene in Being John Malkovich. In effect, Doughboy has sent Hitler down the wormhole into his own brain and turned the world into one big, fancy restaurant — organic, of course — where EVERYBODY is Hitler.
Shit that has to be the worst example of idea (Jonah’s way too lazy to quote) mining I have ever seen. So let’s see, von Papen, von Hindenburg, most of the German (as opposed to Jewish) capitalist class, and the officer corps were all interested in installing a left-wing dictatorship in Germany. Same basic groups were equally interested in installing a left-wing dictatorship in Italy, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and so on. All out of fear of what I guess must be a right-wing dictatorship based in Moscow.
Bela Kun and Rosa Luxemburg must have been reactionaries then.
Does he even try to reconcile conservative support for fascism with his thesis? Or does he overplay, say court disapproval of Mussolini or disdain for the “Bohemian corporal”, as prinicipled opposition to fascism>
Damn I wish I had to do so little to get published by Doubleday.
What’s with his writing? His grammar horrible. Edit his book done not?
grounded in a rich complex of assumptions & misconceptions
Isn’t ‘complex’ in this sense an adjective? You could say “a rich tableau” or “a complex mix”. Or better yet, just leave out “a rich complex”. What a maroon…
Now it starts getting dissected on national TV and in the press
Nah–it’ll be given “equal time” so as not to piss off Brent “Dr. Zaius” Bozell. “Coming up after the break: A highly respected historian takes on just a few of the many glaring falsehoods in Jonah Goldberg’s new book, while Jonah replies, ‘Nuh-uh!’ We’ll give you both sides of this controversy after these messages.”
BTW, Mike Huckabee’s a former fatty who got on a big health kick. Oh noes, Huckabee = Hitler!
Goldberg’s Book, As Might Be Handled By ‘The News Hour’
LEHRER: Jonah Goldberg: Liberals are fascists.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Yes they are. And, and I — I prove it, with geometric logic that shows everybody that so-called ‘liberals’ in this country have been playing a very deep game. A very deep game, indeed. Oh, deep, deep, deep. Deep.
LEHRER: And of course, liberal spokesperson, you don’t agree.
LIBERAL: Have you read this book, Jim?
LEHRER: (Nods) Read through it.
LIBERAL: Then, I can’t understand why you don’t just slam Mr. Goldberg with a question like, ‘You say the Ku Klux Klan doesn’t identify with fascist organizations — how can you say that?’ But you don’t, Jim. Why is that?
LEHRER: (To Goldberg) How about that; Ku Klux Klan? Fascist? Not Fascist?
GOLDBERG: No, Jim — it’s all part of the grand conspiracy. Liberals have oppressed this nation for generations, and only when we began to fight back with truth — like my great book, years in the making — can we hold our head high and believe again in the great, simple virtues of our America.
LIBERAL: Oh, man; look —
LEHRER: Well, that’s where we’ll have to leave it.
Dr. Loveless said,
December 18, 2007 at 23:58
Reading these excerpts is like watching that one scene in Being John Malkovich. In effect, Doughboy has sent Hitler down the wormhole into his own brain and turned the world into one big, fancy restaurant — organic, of course — where EVERYBODY is Hitler.
*channeling the old David Naughton Dr. Pepper commercial*
o/~ I’m a Hitler, He’s a Hitler, She’s a Hitler, wouldn’t you like to be a Hitler, too? o/~
What cars did hippies drive? Volkswagens! And where were Vokswagens first manufactured? NAZI GERMANY!
CHECK
MATE
It’s masturbation with a u, but it’s also whack off with an h. As a dedicated, longtime wankur, I cannot let this go unnoticed.
I submit “Masturbation Face Woos Fork” for my anagram.
Does Jonah’s book have a chapter about grammar Nazis?
They seem to be out in force today and I’m curious to see how Jonah can relate them to The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Lebensraum.
It’s masturbation with a u
Gah! I’m sorry. I’m turning in my frequent fondler card right now. I’m so ashamed.
“Sack of Woe for Masturbation” seems to work properly.
He’s the anti-Michael Foucault. (What’s really amazing is that postmodernism and Goldbergism both seem to lead in the same direction.)
What’s wrong with that, if it is helpful to a right-wing ideologue who has run out of ideas?
This guy corrupts and cobbles interesting points into a tortured conclusions in a way that brings David Horowitz and Richard Poe to mind. I don’t know where this Jason dude is coming from, but you think he doesn’t know that both of these guys came from or once were immersed in a radical left/communist mileu, and for whatever reason came to a rabid and stiff oppositional stance disavowing all that? People change.
Sure, why not. It makes precisely as much sense as the exercise and vegetarianism thing. Throw another log on the pile of shit logic.
Indisputably believed…
And in much the same fashion, five hundred years ago, it was ‘indisputably believed’ that the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that a good stink drove away the demons of ill health.
This “Hitler was a leftist” horseshit has been going around in wingnut circles for some years now, because i had a big e-mail argument with some mothbreathin’ moron about this subject in 2003.
My guy had a standard answer for unanswerable questions (Why did Germany’s wealthy industrialists support Hitler? Why did Hitler jail and kill union leaders, socialist and communists? Why did a conservative coalition support Hitler’s chancellorship in 1933? etc. etc.)…
“Independent research” proved his point.
Guess I sent that too fast, I wasn’t done yet.
I don’t see a conflict in acknowledging Hitler may have had artistic interests and traveled in some kind of socialist bohemian circles before he got off to where he got to. You can’t deny he was one helluv an ‘artiste’. The idea that you are either ‘left’ or ‘right’, ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ is divisive Machiavellian BS. What’s the problem acknowledging that people don’t really know what the tags mean? Is derision realistic or wise? There are ‘correct’ answers but more often it depends who you’re talking to because according to common usage as well as plenty of examples of denotative definitions it amounts to a lot of doublespeak that the truth is entirely lost in.
Give this “Political Compass” a shot if you’re sick of being a cog in the black & white 2-party propaganda machine. It’s pretty cool:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Yeah, nothing means anything.
I think we’re all going to have to just hop on the next NR cruise. Whaddya say, guys? It’ll be kind of like the end of Animal House.
Ugh, of course left and right are difficult to define, especially in this era. But WTF would lead anyone to a sentence such as….oops, wrong Jonah-Book-mockery-post-thread. The long ridiculous one about what conservatives stand for. This might be as good as Coulter’s 4 chapter rant about evolution. Now that was some absurd-ass shit.
Then again, I really don’t trust anyone obsessed with being a conservative. They all end up writing things like this in debates about Nazis:
“NAZIS HAVE NEVER EVER ALIGNED THEMSELVES WITH JEWS
EVER
NAZIS HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN INSPIRED AND HAVE CONSPIRED WITH ISLAM”
….yeah….everyone knows all about the Nazis, right? Right….oops, left….ooops, wrong….
I think it’s divisive BS, personally. It’s hard to find debate on these topics in my own generation that stay on any such lines. Get down to people like my brother, just 7 years my junior, and it gets more absurd. Yeah, it’s one thing for my Mom (Boomer) and her Mom to still talk about liberals vs. conservatives, but look at how hard conservatives are trying just to define themselves these days (neo-, paleo-, traditional-, Buckley-, fiscal-, kill me now…). The lines all got redrawn at some point and there’s too much grey area, and the obsessive use of the terms and the self-identification of them simply keeps people divided over wedge BS and keeps people in office who play it all as a game. It’s disgusting.
None of which justifies Jonah for a micro-second in taking the lack of clearly drawn lines to simply libel people traditionally of more liberal identification as a bunch of fascists, he’s actually adding to the problem. I’ve just had a problem with this divisive out-dated crap for a while. I don’t think it applies that much unless forced or used to hurl insults. Generalizations are still just generalizations, whereas historical Nazis are not hard to define at all.
don’t see a conflict in acknowledging Hitler may have had artistic interests and traveled in some kind of socialist bohemian circles before he got off to where he got to. You can’t deny he was one helluv an ‘artiste’.
To quote Franz Leibkind – “Hitler, there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!”
Clearly it was those anti-rationalist Nazi hippies that were inventing ballistic missiles and jet fighters.
Conservatism. The last refuge of nihilism and moral relativism.
Seanly said,
December 19, 2007 at 0:02
What’s with his writing? His grammar horrible. Edit his book done not?
grounded in a rich complex of assumptions & misconceptions
Isn’t ‘complex’ in this sense an adjective? You could say “a rich tableau” or “a complex mix”. Or better yet, just leave out “a rich complex”. What a maroon…
If you had a set of psychological hang-ups about large, multi-departmental buildings, you’d have a complex complex.
If it was a particularly complicated set of hang-ups, you’d have a complex complex complex.
No problem though – you can always have it treated at the specially dedicated complex complex complex complex.
Of course, if you developed a fear of that place, you’d have a complex complex complex complex complex.
Etc etc.
No kidding. At least when I used to edit blogs it was usually just fixing typos. I ignored the content. If I’d have tried with this one I’d have peed my pants laughing so hard.
Well, Lenin imprisoned every non-bolshevik leftist too and even leftists consider him one of them, so I’m not sure this is right.
I flirted with the “Nazism is left” for about 5 minutes before abandoning it in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Exercise is fascist? Poor Doughy.
How about we acknowledge that George Orwell already wrote about what Goldberg is trying to do. It’s a combination of INGSOC and newspeak, designed to redefine terms, narrow the range of thought, and eliminate the concept of objective reality. Once this is done, you can just replace that with what the party wants you to believe. It’s why they denigrate the “elites” and “universities” too.
And more importantly, Goldberg and Malkin are trying to rewrite the historical record because they know the power it will give them
Every sane person in any position of power (media, science, government agency, teacher, doctor) must resist and oppose the modern Republican party or we’re doomed.
[…] a Maoist regime??? By Twisted_Colour It has recently come to my attention that one can accurately determine the political ideology of a person or group by […]
[…] and for my money the most appropriate responses to the book came from the geniuses at Sadly, No! (for example; see also here for many more). And, of course, there is the The Poor Man Institute‘s The […]