Jonah Goldberg Has Forgotten His Own Meme!

Almost exactly one month ago, I wrote:

"Can't others - especially in politics - see something's odd about this picture and address it?"

Now here comes Jonah Goldberg - of all people - the author of Liberal Fascism, wondering "When Did The Rules Change?"

"I'm beginning to wonder if the political moment is much, much, more significant than most of us realize. The rules may have changed in ways no one would have predicted two years ago. And perhaps 10 years from now we'll look back on this moment and it will all seem so obvious."

Many may do just that, Jonah, but they don't have to, because the "why?" and "how?" are already being documented and answered by people like yourself.

But, just as Edward Hugh learned before the euro zone's collapse - and financial investigator Harry Markopolos discovered long before the Bernie Madoff Scandal broke - most of today's power brokers (including your fellow commentators) are not only in love with the sound of their own words and voices, but wearing blinders to that which they think of as silly.

Seriously, isn't that, kinda, how Liberal Fascism was received?

NewAge is received the same way. But not by you:

"Many of the progressive and holistic ideas that lie at the heart of today’s lifestyle Left, the environmental Left, and the New Age movement share numerous unquestioned philosophical, emotional, and practical similarities with the intellectual and cultural currents that fed into and sustained Nazism."

Except for the words "progressive" and "Nazism", the other subjects you've mentioned seem hardly political at all - they're spiritual - but now embedded in our culture and seeping everywhere. As you said:

"The Gulf oil spill should be a Gaiasend for environmentalists,...."

Yes, "Gaia" - see, you get it.

Now, before you think "uh-oh", let me point out that liberal author, Barbara Ehrenriech, describes the same "New Age Wingnuttery" in her book, Bright-Sided.

It's about NewAge in the world of medicine.

But find me a popular progressive cultural meme - almost any popular progressive cultural meme - and I can probably find you a popular progressive modern NewAge connection.

Unfortunately, few allow that NewAge - a spiritual practice -could be playing a role in our politics, though, as you point out, it's part of what-seem-to-be some of the most pressing issues of the day.

One of the reasons Liberal Fascism got snickered at in some quarters (along with any other modern references to the Nazis in American politics) is because we Americans tend to focus on the end result of the Holocaust:

The slaughter of the Jews.

But the beginning of the saga, when such things as the spiritual underpinnings of the Nazis - or, more accurately, the occult underpinnings - were coalescing, is ignored.

Again, you identified them as exactly the same as what we see today.

And, in so many ways, you're not alone.

Reporter Oliver Burkeman was so kind as to give a warning:

"New agers are often unfairly maligned: look at life through a slightly different lens, and you instantly get associated with a tiny handful of crystals-cure-cancer maniacs. But if they want their preferred candidate to win, they might consider keeping quiet for now."

Conservative columnist Mark Hemingway once observed:

"I think this country is ready for a black president, though that’s a separate question than whether America should vote for Barack Obama. In fact, at the moment chief among my questions about his fitness for office is why he would want to stand on a stage next to Oprah Winfrey."

How about Orac, the online cancer surgeon, commenting on that all-important healthcare overhaul:

Ugh,...This is not what I want to hear from a new President. I realize that I won't like everything Obama does, but this pandering to unscientific health care modalities does not bode particularly well."

I could go on. And on and on and on.

So, when did it all begin, in the modern era?

I'd put it right around the time of the Harmonic Convergence, and what we are currently witnessing - putting the political scene into terms a NewAger can understand - is The Law of Quantum Failure.

The American culture - especially in our politics - is in the grips of NewAge cultish thinking.

I would've thought you, Jonah, could take aim at this better than most.

There are few more qualified to address it.