Selves and Others

Riffing about Jonah Goldberg’s forthcoming book with the funny self-explanatory title, Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton....

Fascism, among fascism scholars, is notoriously difficult to parse as a political phenomenon. Richard Golsan is one of these scholars and he has always insisted that there are elements of the left as well as the right, and not necessarily anti-Semitism (as in variants of early French fascism), in historical fascist movements. Our two prime examples are, of course, Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Both, we can say, were anti-liberal and fascism has often been a revolt against liberalism. In fact, given liberalism’s devotion to equity, equality, and liberty, it’s a rather large leap to combine "liberal" with "fascism." Of course, this would never stop an intellectually insignificant writer such as Goldberg from making such a flaming claim in the very title of his book. (...)

The Senate hearings may be over, but Judge Samuel Alito Jr. still has a number of questions to answer on civil rights.

Alito, who President Bush picked to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, is a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. During his time there, his rulings in several cases have revealed a hostility toward women and minorities, especially in promoting equality of opportunity and diversity. (...)

[January 20, 2006]

Information in the form of an open letter about a campaign to unite all people and all groups that are against the war in Iraq.