Not content with knowing the definitions behind the labels he likes to toss out at people - the latest word that he is throwing around is Facism - he prefers to just make up definitions as he goes along.
Even if well recorded history proves him wrong again, and again, and again, he just keeps it up.
Here's an excerpt from his latest collection of pages with words on them, Liberal Facism:
To sort of start the story, the reason why we see fascism as a thing of the right is because fascism was originally a form of right-wing socialism. Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I.
Really?
I mean, it's just that I was under the assumption that Mussolini was a "facist" because he founded the "Facist" party.
He even gave a speech about this book to a gathering of the Heritage Foundation. But, those guys don't know what their talking about anyway - it was his kind of crowd.
But, Golberg's revisionist history aside - what's REALLY scary is when people start taking his socio-political diatribes seriously. Take, for instance, this character who reads Liberal Facism and then - apparently - has this epiphany while watching the movie Wall-E:
I am about two thirds of the way through Liberal Fascism (brilliant, by the way, and utterly absorbing), and so I find myself in “spot the Fascist” mode in just about everything I do – especially in regards to popular culture and movies
uh, oh - here we go....
Your dissection of the fascistic elements in “Dead Poet’s Society”, for example, really raised my eyebrows, as I have always really enjoyed the movie and know it quite well, but was not previously equipped to notice those sort of elements.
Dead Poets Society?!?! Really? Oh, Jesus....
I took my kids to see “Wall-E” over the weekend, and although I really did enjoy the movie, I was at various points struck by what I perceived as strongly fascists elements in the story and the aesthetics. Possibly I am REALLY over-reaching, ...
Gee, ya think so?
thanks to the fact that I am still tripping out over your book’s eye-opening thesis, but some elements seemed to fall right into the aesthetic and political traits you cite so often in LF:
Oh, I'm trippin-out man! Seriously, I'm buggin the fuck out! You've opened my eyes to so much shit, it's unreal man!
Get a fucking grip on yourself. You sound like Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now.
1) The entire issue of environmental concern and crises mongering, which pervades the movie, although admittedly in a fairly good-natured form that tends to avoid being preachy
2) The portrayal of the corporate consumer world as bad, with its attendant “system” that lulls the populace into a stupor, and which is then countered by the back-to-the-soil, making-it-real rebellion lead by the Captain after his spiritual awakening learning about the tribal roots of human society.
3) The use of the color red to mark those who have experienced liberation from the “system”
4) The mass rally on the Lido deck near the end of the movie, with its ordered ranks of humans staring up in awe at the Captain as he fights the system, and the green banners flying all around them as they do.
5) Eve shaking off her programmed directives and getting in touch with her emotional, passionate inner self when she sets out to save Wall-E.
Oh, my, God......you're still going, aren't you?
There were other things that tingled my “fascist sense”, or whatever, although I can’t immediately recall what they were.
Just picturing this guy, or Jonah, in a spiderman suit is about to make me loose my Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers...............ugh.
Are we done yet............oh, we're not.
I’m only asking out of mild curiosity, and am certainly not suggesting Wall-E is some sort of propaganda, or whatever. It’s a pretty enjoyable movie, and my kids had a ball, and I don’t think anything evil will come from its influence on them. But still, these things struck me immediately, as I was watching the film, and would love to get your feedback on them.
Do I just have a case of LF hangover? Or are these, in fact, fascistic elements that I’m seeing?
Seriously? You really want to ask that question?
Thanks! And keep writing – LF is a fantastic book; I just bought my dad one for his birthday. He’s a Kennedy liberal who fancies himself a compassionate conservative. Can’t wait to get his reaction it!
Well, it might not work as well as quilte Charmin, but i'm sure he will love it - thanks.
Wait......
I have to stop and breathe for a second. Ok, it's passed.
If you want a simple, short, direct answer to this - just read what Andrew Stanton says of the film in his interview with Christianity Today writer Mark Moring:
I wasn't trying to make the humans into fat, lazy consumers, but to make humanity appear to be completely consumed by everything that can distract you—to the point where they lost connection with each other, even though they're right next to each other. The reason I made them look like big babies was because a NASA guy told me that they haven't yet simulated gravity perfectly for long-term residency in space. And if they don't get it just right, atrophy kicks in and you begin to lose your muscle tone—you just turn into a blob of goo. For a while, that's what I did with the humans in the movie; they were just big blobs of Jell-O. But it was so bizarre, we had to pull it back. So I said, well, let's just make them look like big babies. That's where all that came from.
I wasn't trying to make some sort of mean-spirited comment on consumerism or today's society. I was going with just the logic of what would happen if you were in a perpetual vacation with no real purpose in life. So I went with the idea that we'd become sort of big babies with no reason to grow up. I definitely saw humanity as victims of this system that they were in. They were just big babies that needed to stand on their own two feet.
The last thing I'm going to do is try to make a message movie!
That last part is pretty important.
To say that movies don't have messages is pretty stupid in and of itself. To claim that there is a hidden "bad" message ( which is what conservatives think is the definition of "facist" - just anything that is "bad", I mean, how fucking vague can you get ) is an even worse thing to do. But, that doesn't stop people like the alleged "reader" from sending Jonah Golberg emails about Facist movies directed at children.
I bet you it was just a letter that Goldberg wrote himself and tried to pass it off as some rabid fan that is in some sort of stalker-style love.
Ugh, I need a shower now.
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