Real anti-fascists

[gordonzola]

As some idiot incoherently tries to sell a book arguing that liberals=progressives=communists=fascists and only right-wingers are really for freedom, let us take a moment to remember a real American anti-fascist. Let's also remember that the people who went to fight fascism in Spain, when many right-wingers and industrialists were cozying up to it, were hounded by the US government, labeled "pre-mature anti-fascists", and blacklisted or jailed.

Is there anyone more deserving of a (theoretical of course) punch in the face right now than Jonah Goldberg?

Feel free to make your nominations below.

Comments

[dcart.livejournal.com]

Goldberg is about as deserving a person as I can think of. The right wingers have damn near perfected their task of redefining servitude as freedom for most of us.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

my favorite part of that Jon Stewart thing was when Goldberg starts saying something about, "you see an Orwellian state as having huge TVs monitoring every move you make and telling you what to think..." (not an exact quote)

I was just thinking, no, that's how Orwell envisioned it. I mean like, in his book. fucking moron.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I just finally watched the interview. Yikes.

[jainabee.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I worked as an assistant for the real deal, Ruth Davidow, a Veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who snuck over the Pyrenees when she was a teenager, to be a nurse on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War. Though she was a peace-loving gal, she`d be spitting flaming tacks about now, if she were still around!!!!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

wow, I didn't know you worked for her. Your awesomeness has reached new levels.

[jainabee.livejournal.com]

Aw, shucks! Yeah, she was pretty much at the top of the awesomeness charts. I feel so lucky I got to know her. She was in her 80s and coming to all of the Enrique musicals at stinky, loud nightclubs! I hope someday to be half as cool as her.

[sabotabby]

R.I.P.

No, I can't think of anyone who deserves more of a theoretical punch in the face. Though it'd be fun to hit to use the withered, empty shell of Suharto as a punching bag.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

there's something about a smug, young-enough-to-aspire-to-bigger-lies type though. Know what I mean?

[sabotabby]

Oh, definitely.

[ozmaofoz.livejournal.com]

I never comment, but I want you to know that I adore your politics.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

awwwww, thanks.

[ketzie.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even get through A Daily Show, where Stewart roundly mocked him, without screaming at the teevee. My patient, long-suffering partner had to rewind about 8 times in order to hear the show.

We have a nephew who shares his name with that idiot. I know I'm a bad aunt to say this, but it's turning me against the kid.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

haha. hopefully this idiot will disappear in shame and your nephew won't be further burdened.

I thought Stewart was way too easy on him. though the line about "so you are upset with the overuse of the word fascism so you decided to write a book titled..." was funny.

[jamie-miller.livejournal.com]

I've been reading articles on the internet for years, but the Salon interview with Goldberg was one of the very few things I've read that made me want to throw my laptop across the room in the same way one might toss a magazine or newspaper.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

yeah, I guess I don't spend enough time monitoring right-wing up-and-comers because I had never heard of this guy until a couple of weeks ago.

I loved reading about your debate, btw. I forgot to comment.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

Goldberg came to fame during the Lewinsky scandal. His mother was Linda Tripp's book agent. You could hardly turn on cable TV between 1998 and 2000 without seeing him.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

well there ya go, I've never had cable.

I got plenty of fist

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

Jonah Goldberg is very deserving, but I had the exact same thought about another guest on the Daily Show this week, Allen Raymond. This guy is peddling a book about how he helped suppress the Democratic vote in the 2002 NH election. Clearly unrepentant. He has a nice, bony and prominent nose....

Re: I got plenty of fist

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

definitely deserving!

Re: I got plenty of fist

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

BTW, maybe you noticed already, but almost every guest this week was a right-winger -- and pretty extreme ones too.

It may be because the guests have to cross a picket line.

Re: I got plenty of fist

[kest]

wow, I totally interpreted Allen Raymond differently. The only thing I know about him is the Daily Show interview. I saw him as having gone to jail and done his time so he doesn't exactly feel *guilty*, but clearly recognizing in hindsight that what he did was wrong and writing a book so people know that this kind of thing is really out there.

Re: I got plenty of fist

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

It is good that people will now get to know more of what goes on, but that doesn't mean his motives are pure.

To me the book and the interview seemed to be an attempt to deflect blame upwards, take revenge on the GOP officials who disowned him, make a little money, and possibly establish himself as a talking head on election tactics.

I don't have objective knowledge about whether he has repented or not, but come on. There is no chance that, going into this, he thought he was doing something good for the country. Check out this story. He's tried to suggest that he was pressured into doing it. Right. His firm was raking in millions and two other firms had turned away this job for ethical concerns. So he got $15,000 for the phone-jamming work, and, by the way, his profit on that was $13,100. Now that's he's out of jail, he's actually complaining that he can't get work in political consulting any more. Three months in prison isn't going to change a guy like that.

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

I saw that Daily Show interview: nobody more deserving than Goldberg comes to mind. Except perhaps his mother. Can we punch them both?

Thank you very, very much for linking to that SFGate article about Milton Wolff. We're not likely to read anything anytime soon to better exemplify the heroism ready within most of us.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

wait, who is his mother? certainly she doesn't bear a punch just for bearing that mistake of a child. ;)

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

You might remember Lucianne Goldberg from elsewhere.

Edit: I should have used this icon earlier. Consider this a replacement. :)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

wow, she's quite a piece of work herself! thanks for the link.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

thanks for this. i remember meeting a bunch of those guys back in the 70s. they were fabulous then, and fabulous now.
xxx

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

and, my nomination for cocksucker of the week is Patrick Davis (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/politics/17carolina.html?_r=1&scp=10&sq=mccain+&oref=slogin), Republican dirty trickster.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

He's just Ann Coulter with different chromosomes.

[claudimp.livejournal.com]

You might enjoy Scalzi's bitchslap (& follow-up)

[alibi-shop.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm a sucker but it's hard for me to get too personally pissed at Jonah. He's clearly very very stupid and doesn't know it, and he's unscrupulous but in a kind of kiddie debate-team way. I really don't think he understands that he's pissing on history, raping the English language, slandering generations of heroes and providing cover for monsters. I think he thinks this is what politics and scholarship actually are - you just bluff your way through everything and know that you're right. He's a sheltered kid raised in a truth-free bubble, with lots of inappropriate positive reinforcement. The thought of Lucianne Goldberg as a mother is even scarier to me than Barbara Bush.

If you have to punch someone, punch the guys who decide to run this kind of shit in major newspapers & on TV, treating Jonah & co. as serious thinkers, because of right-wing pressure or social connections or for the sake of "balance" or whyever they do it. There have always been guys like Jonah, and they've always been found their niche in fascist movements, but it used to be that before the takeover they were just cranks with a newsletter or something.

[alibi-shop.livejournal.com]

p.s. I do think that choosing to stay incredibly ignorant is a moral failing and I dislike JG pretty strongly, I just don't think he's the same kind of asshole as Coulter or Limbaugh, who really know better and really mean harm.

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

Hell, one of these kids has been president for seven years.

[slit.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

No, not really--but that's only because I long ago decided that a punch was too good for several people in the administration, and started hoarding old doorknobs in burlap sacks.

[m4dh4tt3r.livejournal.com]

i have one word for jonah goldberg. WHAT!?

You already know who I'm gonna say.

[fightingwords.livejournal.com]

Ron Paul.

And thanks for that text message.

[walktheplank.livejournal.com]

Is there anyone more deserving of a (theoretical of course) punch in the face right now than Jonah Goldberg?

How about a non-theoretical kick in the teeth?

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

My vote for worse than Jonah Goldberg would be the people who hire him to write for them (National Review, LA Times) or publish his book (Doubleday). As you may recall, when Robert Sheer got the hook at the LA Times, they replaced his column with Jonah Goldberg.

What Goldberg is serving up is pretty standard fare among right-wingers. Hitler was a fascist and socialist (after all Nazi's were "national socialists").

Also he's doing the old project of "rebranding" leftist terminology. That's how we get the current use of "politically correct" (some of oldsters remember the within the left use of that term) and "empowerment" zones from guys like Jack Kemp. Books with names like "Trashing the Planet" by Dixy Lee Ray which are actually anti-enviro books. Heck, Reagan's selective use of Thomas Paine's words for that matter (as noted on the latest Bill Moyer's Journal - and available online).

Talk about Orwellian! Right out of Orwell's essay on the English language.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[nationofsheep.livejournal.com]

Man Jon Stewart is awesome. That had me laughing pretty good.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

There's a fine line between the Big Lie and the Big Fucking Stupid Lie.

[und1sk0.livejournal.com]

i saw goldberg on the daily show. epic fail!

[nadyalec.livejournal.com]

It seems that Jonah Goldberg is having difficulty in writing this book; he's been working on it for years and all he has is the title. Jon Swift wrote a very helpful blog post on how he could speed up this important project by explaining liberal fascism through LOLcats: http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/06/jonah-goldbergs-shining.html

[kest]

I was just being disturbed by the fact that apparently his book is #8 on amazon.