Prof. Gottfried is on target, as usual.  The neocons’ view is not “no enemies to the right;” it is “nothing but enemies to the right.”

Thank you, Dr. Gottfried, for this interesting and gracious post.

“That movement is open to the left but is hermetically sealed off to critics farther on the right.”

This is the case on Faux News.  What do you think of the talk shows on MSNBC?  They do have Pat Buchanan on very many of their shows.  Tucker Carlson, whatever you may think of him, openly supports Ron Paul on his show.  To his credit, Joe Scarborough has even invited Jared Taylor on his show.  I don’t mention that to imply that racialism is rightist, only to say that Scarborough was much braver than Fox News conservatives.  Plus, Buchanan appeared on the same episode alongside Taylor, so there were two distinct anti-immigration voices that fall outside movement conservatism.

Dr. Gottfried:  Great post! 

“The neocons’ view is not “no enemies to the right;” it is “nothing but enemies to the right.””

Sad but true.

I think the neocons do have enemies on the left,who
do not support their missionary foreign policy and
sabre-rattling rhetoric. But unlike us, these
leftists are people with whom the neocons happily
engage in dialogue. They do not disagree with these
leftists on social issues, immigration, or where the
US should be headed domestically. Although the neocons
do pay for a toothless gentile opposition to the
Left on FOX and among the NR commentators, they
can shut down this talk shop any time it starts
to act up. The Communist regime in East Germany
allowed the same kind of window dressing opposition
to decorate their dictatorship.

Dr. Gottfried, what did you think of the Bramwell review of Jonah’s book? It seemed to me like he was almost defending the left as he was pointing out Jonah’s errors or exaggerations. I really can’t figure out where Bramwell is coming from. He seems to have taken on the stance of wise debunker of all conventional wisdom, right and left, but beyond all purpose naysayer, I can’t put a finger on where he is coming from.

In response to my last reader, I find nothing
particularly upsetting about Bramwell’s review of
Jonah Goldberg’s book, except for the presentation of
Bloom’s Closing of The American Mind as an exemplary
American conservative classic.It is simply false to
present Jonah’s work as a botched attempt to achieve
the depth and learning of Bloom’s work. With all of
its manifold defects, Jonah’s book has already
surpassed Bloom’s dithyramb on the American duty to
spread human rights and equality and on the
ever-lurking evils of the
Krauts as a literary work and as body of
arguments. I am appalled that any serious thinker
would mistake Bloom for any kind of conservative or
for a deep thinker. I would urge Mr. Bramwell to
read Bloom more critically before holding him up as
the standard that Jonah has failed to reach. Jonah,
as Bramwell notices, reprises some of the inaccurate
views about fascism that the anti-New Deal Right
once expressed. But Bloom does not build on any kind
of rightwing anything. His views are those of
a Teutonophobic Jewish social democrat of a certain
age and background.

As an example, he criticized Jonah for drawing nearly one to one connections between certain modern failures and certain past thinkers. Now I know this can be overdone and over simplified - all that ails modern education is the fault of Dewey – that sort of thing. But Bramwell seemed to be giving Dewey and others a pass. Like I said, simplistic one to one correlations are overstated, but there are certainly elements of truth in Jonah’s stock correlations.

Is it just me, or does Bramwell strike everyone as too young to assume the pose of the ideology and assumption free all wise naysayer and debunker of all things right and left? It is unbecoming and grates on the nerves.

Yes he does go after Jonah for some things that Jonah
gets right,e.g., noting the disastrous legacy of
Dewey’s educational theories. The problem is that
Jonah’s attempt to link everything that he dislikes to
“fascism” entails a gross oversimplification.

interesting post .
how ever i have to disagree with your assessment of jonah as scholar .
he is a simple second ( may be third ) rate columnist . writing a serious scholarly work is way beyond him .
only thing concrete i can think for him was pedaling lewinski’s soiled cloth . even that mama had to procure it for him .
here is a post from him which speaks for itself..
Wanted: Herbert Spencer Expert [Jonah Goldberg]

I’m working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer. There’s simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to. But if there are any real experts on Spencer out there — regardless of ideological affiliation — I’d love to ask you a few questions in case I’m missing something.
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2007/12/cooking-vessel-noting-color-of-cooking.html

regards..

What is the Permanent Things website?  Never heard of it before.

Paul, I hope that you saw that several of us replied on Permanent Things to that comment about your “one more attack” on the neo-cons. Permanent Things is the site for former assistants to Russell Kirk, as well as those interested in what I might call generally ‘cultural’ conservatism. It is much more more formal and gentlemanly than some sites (no insults or bad language allowed).  I know Wes McDonald (another former Kirk assistant) and a few others who show up on Taki’s site contribute to it.

If it is true that the leftist-neoconservative “debate” in the US is akin to the way in which the old DDR used to manufacture dissent for the appearance of democracy, how would one describe the political status quo in my nation--Canada?  Consider this:  not one prominent “conservative” politician in Canada has mounted a critique of the cultural Marxism which has dominated my nation so tightly in the past 3 decades that unelected “Human Rights Commissions” can punish citizens for saying the wrong thing about feminism, Islam, etc.  There is no paleoconservative tradition in Canada which resists this taxpayer-supported tyranny.  If the US is similar to East Germany, perhaps Canada is akin to Albania.

Jonah Goldberg has finally commented on Prof. Gottfried’s review of his book, by endorsing the puerile response to Paul Gottfried by a blogger: 

>>>>>>>>>>Dissecting Gottfried

Dissecting Leftism deals with Gottfried’s review of my book. I don’t know that I have much to add.<<<<<<<

Goldberg links to this response to Gottfried’s review:  http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2008/02/gottfried-on-goldberg-paul-gottfried-is.html

The fact is, Goldberg can’t respond to critics who actually know something about Italian fascism, which is why he’s also ignored Michael Ledeen’s surprisingly critcal review as well.

Grant Havers raises an interesting point

Who’s to write the inevitable LF sequel about the cultural history of the big North?

It’s a hard book to title given the reversal of political polarity in Canadian English.  Even with a polar bear with a mustache on the dust jacket, _Progressive Fascism_ would not be an easy sell, but somebody ought to follow the snowshoe tracks from such Prairie Fascist wellsprings as the Social Credit movement to the WPA and Ezra Pound’s doorstep alike.

If left wing historians can connect the evolution of marxistante Canadian Film Board to the Franfurt School, someone should be able to trace the 50th Parallel East to the headwaters that spawned the Nanny Statists that infest the high latitudes today. There’s a muchness of intellectual intolerance stretching from Mark Steyn’s mirthless persecutors to those bent on turning Europe’s northern tier into a cradle to grave kindergarten for adults.

I don’t hear anyone typing, but maybe P.J. O’Rourke can but a little backbone into Mark- there’s hope for any NeoCan with the sense to migrate into proximity to Jeff Hart.

I have not read Goldberg’s book yet but note that what is its apparent main thesis is not new. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn pointed out the leftist origins of Fascism and Nazism in his book “Leftism: from de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse,” and more recenlty Wolfgang Schivelbusch has compared the politics of Franklin Roosevelt to those of Hitler and Mussolini in “Three New Deals.”

I’d have posted this writeback under Prof. Gottfried’s initial review of the Goldberg book but that now appears to be a dying thread. I tend to agree with Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Schivelbusch that Fascism and Nazism at least originated as left-wing phenomena. Apparently Prof. Gottfried does not. I wonder if he would care to comment briefly on Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Schivelbusch, both of whom seem to me to be better scholars than Goldberg.

M.S.S is to be complimented for reminding us of v. K-L’s originality and Jonah’s corollary lack of it.

One recalls Carl Sagan’s failure to reference Kosmos in Cosmos.

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