From the diaries by Erick. Glad you guys are participating so I don’t have to do all the writing every week. This was a great chapter. Read it on the way home from New York on Saturday. Next week, Chapter 7, promises to be relevant to what’s going on right now.

I have thought for a while now that the left’s obsession with “man made global warming” looked much more like a religion than any sort of scientific debate.   After reading Chapter 6 of Liberal Fascism, I understand that it’s not global warming that is the religion, it is the entire spectrum of hot button issues the left defends.

Mr. Goldberg argues throughout the chapter that there was a religious faith in the 60’s by radicals and liberals in the God state.   Only through the state could man’s greatest potential be realized. This faith included their savior, JFK.  I am young enough that I only know what I was taught in school about JFK.  What I learned there was that he was assassinated in Dallas, and that the nation wept.  In school I was never taught any of things he may have done as President to become a great figure.  Just that he was, and that it was a national tragedy that he died.

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Confession: We have a liberal troll who, when I don’t get a post up on Monday, sends me needling emails about what losers we all are for even attempting this. If nothing else, his email serves as a good reminder that I need to post. But this week I did not read. I got busy at the SPN Conference, then came home sick. Luckily, Warrior is always diligent and we can use his. Besides, this is a group effort. Shame on y’all for letting a left-wing troll who also emails praise for Hitler beat you guys to harassing me. In any event, read Chapter 5 for Monday. — Erick

“Franklin Roosevelt’s Fascist New Deal”

Favorite Chapter Quote, “He [FDR] spoke in generalities that everyone found agreeable at first and meaningless upon reflection.” pg 129

In Chapter 4, Goldberg goes a long way toward establishing the idea that, in the teens, twenties and thirties of the last century, Fascism was on the ascendency. And one of it’s most hearty acolytes was FDR. “The notion that FDR harbored fascist tendencies is vastly more controversial today than it was in the 1930’s, primarily because fascism has come to mean Nazism and Nazism means simply evil.” Pg 123 The fascist (Hitlerite) nature of New Deal fiscal policy was actually invoked as a point in its’ favor at the time.

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Chapter 3 of LIberal Fascism is the one I read over and over. I think it is a model of how Obama is going to operate and we should be mindful of it.

The raw acquisition of power requires multiple outside and inside groups to help maintain that power.

In Wilson’s case, it was rather eye opening. We certainly do think of all the progressive era ideals that Wilson helped advance up to and including the League of Nations.

What I don’t think people realize is that Wilson jailed more people for merely dissenting against government than Mussolini did in a decade. All the things the left accused George W. Bush of doing or contemplating doing, Wilson, a Democrat, actually did.

It was deeply disturbing.

I also don’t think, in review of Goldberg’s material, that he is stretching to say Wilson was a fascist dictator whose only real restraint was his collapse in health. Back then we didn’t have limits on the Presidency, so he could have run for a third term had he been healthy.

Throughout Jonah’s book and really in Chapter 3, we are reminded that liberals have no long view of history. They demand an honest and full accounting of the right’s history, while willfully ignoring their own.

Next week, we’re into Chapter 4. Remember, use “Book notes” as your tag and we can track each other. Also, I’ll see about firing up our RedState Facebook Group for further discussion.

If you work for a man, in Heaven’s name work for him. If he pays wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, think well of him, and stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents.

Thus begins the Apologia to “A Message to Garcia”. It would behoove Pete Sessions and John Cornyn, head of the NRCC and NRSC respectively, to heed this message. These individuals seem to have forgotten just who pays the bills and funds these committees. And to be clear, that would be THE BASE.

Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him…

Those words were written 110 years ago, yet are wholly applicable to our current situation. The NRSC and NRCC seem to be embracing these things rather than avoiding them.

It is not as if the base hasn’t made their complaints known, ever hear of “Not One Red Cent“. On the contrary, upon hearing the complaints the NRSC has treated them with dowdy indifference to say the least. To the credit of the NRCC they did create the Young Guns program, but as mentioned above “half hearted work seems the rule”.

When will Chairmans’ Sessions and Cornyn remember that character matters…

Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

Can we now trust you to run our errands, bypassing the saloons. Or, should we come to expect the continued stench of gin on your breath and failure at the ballot box?

If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart’s content.

You have both been to clever for your own good and are quickly outlasting your usefulness.

Remember these words dear Sirs…

In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on.

[...]

No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer - but out and forever, the incompetent and unworthy go.

[...]

Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best - those who can carry the message to Garcia.

The process has begun, our collective dander has been raised and we demand answers. Will you step down so that we may make room for our own Rowan?

It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing - “Carry a message to Garcia!”

Aaron B. Gardner.

As you may know, RedState has started a Great Books style program. We are rather slowly making our way through a series of books on conservative thought and ideas. We have started with Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.

“Contrary to his relentless assertions in Mein Kampf, Hitler had no great foundational ideas or ideological system. His genius lay in the realization that people wanted to rally to ideas and symbols. . . . Time and again in Mein Kampf, Hitler makes it clear that he believed his greatest gift to the party wasn’t his ideas but his ability to speak,” Goldberg writes. I’m reminded of that story Harry Reid tells about Obama where Obama said he, Obama, had a gift. “A real gift, Harry,” he said. It was oration.

This is not to make an Obama=Hitler comparison. It is just to note that like most good demagogues, Hitler and Obama both know the public is more interested in the silver tongue and the Greco-Roman columns as a backdrop than they are in the substantive policy positions.

That, perhaps, more than anything is the take away from Chapter 2 of Liberal Fascism. Hitler stood for nothing except hatred of the Jews. He was happy to do or say anything to get elected so long as it meant extermination of the Jews and a bolstering of the Germany self.

What is also worth nothing is that contrary to left-wing myth about corporatism and the Nazis, derived in part because of the rivalry between communism and nazism, when the Nazis did put out public policy positions, they were right out of the progressive left.

According to Jonah Goldberg, the Nazi Party was “in favor of universal education, guaranteed employment, increased entitlements for the aged, the expropriation of land without compensation, the nationalization of industry, the abolition of market-based lending . . ., the expansion of health services, and the abolition of child labor.” Which party platform does that remind you of.

Indeed, if you go back to the introduction of Liberal Fascism, you’ll note this passage on the Nazis:

Heinrich Himmler was a certified animal rights activist and an aggressive promotor of ‘natural healing.’ Rudolph Hess, Hitler’s deputy, championed homeopathy and herbal remedies. Hitler and his advisers dedicated hours of their time to discussions of the need to move the entire nation to vegetarianism as a response to the unhealthiness promoted by capitalism. Dachau hosted the world’s largest alternative and organic medicine research lab and produced its own organic honey. . . . A Hitler Youth manual proclaimed, “Nutrition is not a private matter!”

Wow. There really is nothing new under the sun.

I remember in college learning the “spectrum of ideologies” with capitalism, conservatism, nationalism, and fascism on the right. Socialism, communism, and anarchy were on the left. It never really truly made sense to me. Eventually I mentally morphed the spectrum into a full circle, but could never get over fascism having to make its way past anarchy to get to communism when they all seemed pretty much the same.

Jonah does a great job showing that Nazism was distinct from Mussolini’s Fascism and where Mussolini derived much of his platform from his own thinking, Hitler built on existing ideas and, frankly, used leftwing ideas more for filler so he wasn’t just campaigning on the extermination of Jews.

Chapter 2 for Jonah Goldberg tomorrow.

If you want a review of what we’ve done so far, please go here.

I was supposed to have this post up on Monday.

I’m sorry that did not happen. Truth be told, I’ve had some family stuff come up that has kept me rather pre-occupied. So while I did the reading, this past weekend was nuts and it has only escalated.

That’s why this is a group project.

I adopt this post as my own regarding this week’s reading of the introduction and chapter 1 of Liberal Fascism.

Here is another great one.

I’m on track for Chapter 2, which we’ll have read by Monday and I promise I’ll have a post up by Monday morning on it.

Let’s keep at it. I swear I thought just a few people would be doing this, but I have been inundated by people asking where my post was. This is a great accountability project to and for that I thank you.

If you don’t know why this is here, read this.

And remember: Start reading Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg for next week. Read the introduction and chapter 1 for next Monday.

A Message to Garcia

I remember the first time I read this. A friend of mine in my old law firm insisted that everybody in the firm read it. The lawyers bought copies for every associate. It seemed a cheesy thing to do, but I went with it. I’m glad I did.

If you haven’t followed along, you can download a free copy of Message here as a PDF. It is very short.

The gist of it is simple: the President needs to get a message to Garcia, who is fighting in Cuba. The President thinks Garcia could be a useful ally. The President gives the message to Rowan and just says to get this to Garcia. The President does not say who Garcia is, where he is, or how to get there.

Rowan, on his own initiative, figures this all out and successfully delivers the message.

This is the essence of the present tea party movement. No one told these people how to organize, what to put on their signs, where to meet, etc. People just did it. This is the heart of activism.

A Message to Garcia is a timely reminder when we want to be spoon fed every detail that we should instead take initiative ourselves to get things done without waiting for others to lead us. Every man is a leader if he chooses to be. That’s the message.

Aaron Gardner, a while back, emailed me to suggest RedState start some serious discussion on conservative ideas and thoughts. Being just a diarist and me being busy, I had the convenience of ignoring him.

Now that he is a front pager and has access to my super secret email address, I can’t ignore him anymore and decided I’d be pre-emptive. In all seriousness, I have been thinking for a while that it would be worth doing a series of posts on a collection of conservative great books.

Truth be told, however, I have become a lazy reader of late. I read so much for work, that I rarely sit down to enjoy a book except when I’m on an airplane.

In light of Steven F. Hayward’s column in the Washington Post this weekend, I thought it might be worthwhile to go on and move forward with this.

Hayward wrote, in part, “The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left’s belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking “markets” and “liberty.”"

I have my disagreements with Hayward’s column, but I do think we, as activists, need to get beyond our gut to the point of being able to articulate why we know what we know and think what we think. In the spirit of Ecclesiastes that “there is nothing new under the sun,” I think we ought to explore the ideas together in a Great Books program of sorts. As I wrote in my rebuttal to Hayward’s column, “[W]e should be excited by the opportunity to begin again with old ideas made new for a new generation of citizen showing itself to be instinctually conservative.”

Here is my proposal:

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