Apollo Uber Alles

First, if he actually read Jonah's "screed" (his word), it isn't obvious from this review.

The fact that he cites entire sentences from Goldberg's book with page numbers does suggest that he has read the book.

For example, he says that Jonah doesn't criticize conservatives for their own fascist tendencies in the book, but that's patently false.

Your claim that Day says so is what is false. What Day says is that Goldberg ignores many obvious examples of conservative groups that could be labeled fascist. "Ignores many obvious examples" is not the same as "doesn't criticize". Day is right. One of the most obvious examples is the National Review's overt support for Francisco Franco, who was the fascist dictator of Spain. Given that Goldberg himself works for the National Review, this would not be a very convenient example for his book.

My second point, as I wrote in the previous post, is that those ideas are described in Jonah's book, particularly in reference to Apollo.

Actually it's also one of Day's points. As Day says, "Goldberg gives them an opening". He then cites the same two pages that you cite, p210-211.

Take out the words "communists," "Jews," and "gypsies," and in what way does this not describe Stalin's USSR?

But the topic is NASA, not Stalin. Even if the topic were Stalin, taking out words changes the meaning! Yes, if you take out "Socialist" from "National Socialist" and "Car Rental" from "National Car Rental", you get "National" in both cases. That doesn't make you a fascist if you rent from National.

Day is basically correct in his entire essay. The only thing that he gets wrong is that he takes Goldberg's inane book, and its blogosphere extension, slightly too seriously. Goldberg doesn't attack liberals because he dislikes them, he attacks them because he can. He attacks them to expand his visibility and make money from his book. Just as David Brock sagely noted about Ann Coulter, Goldberg's shtick isn't genuine. Like a lot of memes that bounce around the blogosphere, "liberal fascism" and "NASA fascism" are as fake as Ananova.

And just as Ann Coulter was eventually discarded, Goldberg's book will eventually be discarded. The convervative/"libertarian" blogosphere will move on to the next zinger.

The fact that he cites entire sentences from Goldberg's book with page numbers does suggest that he has read the book.

It only suggests that he read those pages.

Goldberg's book will eventually be discarded.

I'm sure that you fervently hope that.

I was going to offer something unique and inciteful rather than bogged down in recycling talking points and cliches about the distinction between Fascism (Italian), National Socialism (German), or perhaps Soviet Communism (Russia). I hope I can make this contribution without the thread descending into a Godwin's Law kind of free-for-all, but it looks like Mr. Harris got to the thread first.

Without getting mired into which Great Dictator was a Greater Evil, there are some distinctions between National Socialism and Soviet Socialism. The National Socialists, or the Italian Fascists for that matters, had a tightly regimented society and a one-party State, but they pretty much left the corporations in non-governmental ownership or at least in the hands of the wealthy families who were the traditional owners of such things. So under National Socialism, you not only have all of the trapping of the police state along with a large measure of command-and-control economy, it was done largely with the traditional "captains of industry" in place.

In Soviet Socialism, they pretty much dismantled any remnants of any capitalist/corporate structure and outright expropriated the property of the aristicratic elite, something for a variety of pragmatic, ideological, and path-to-power reasons the National Socialists left in place. Likewise, the National Socialists left the officer elite of the military, Kriegsmarine and Wehrmacht, largely in place. Stalin famously "purged" his office corps to consolidate his dictatorship -- also payed the price with respect to the initial collapse of his military forces with the onslaught of the German invasion.

What does this have to do with the space program and Apollo and the Moon Race and modern NASA? I have, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, argued that whereas Korelev was conducting his efforts largely under the Soviet Socialist model, the Apollo program, ironically, was conducted under a National Socialist model, and National Socialism got to the Moon first.

What do I mean by that. That Korelev was working under Soviet Socialism was obvious -- the work was done by the "design bureaus", of one of which he was the Chief Designer. The Soviets had nothing like McDonnell, Douglas, North American, Grumman working for them. The American program had NASA, where MSF was in some ways a parallel to whatever they called the Korelev bureau in the Russian language, but NASA along with MSF were in partnership with McDonnel, Douglas, North American, Grumman, and all of the other "usual suspects." The Apollo Program was very much a governmental command-and-control effort, but it was teamwork with the corporate players going down the "food chain" to the machine shops in East Los Angeles that made the critical parts. In other words, it was close to how the Germans went about doing things, not to mention the historical irony that many of those same Germans were at MSF.

The National Socialist-patterned Apollo got the job done and got to the Moon first. The Soviet Socialist Korelev bureau, while led by a visionary who was not a Communist functionary and succeeded and what he did in spite of the Communist system, nevertheless sputtered and failed at the Moon program. The Soviet moon program in a way died with Korelev. The American moon program had enough redundancy in it that we lost a Faget, Von Braun, Muller, or any of a set of key people, the program probably would have adapted.

Oddly enough, the "National Socialist" Moon program had all of the government agencies and corporate interests working towards a common goal. The Soviet Socialist program had infighting between factions, notably between Korelev and rival Chief Designers at other bureaus. Also, the US Moon program was given a ton of money while the Russian Moon program had to scrimp and make do.

All of this ties into what I think Rand Simberg and others are advocating. Big Government, Big Corporate Contractor (of course the real work was subcontracted down the food chain to those machine shops in East Los Angeles I talked about where some gifted machinists without fancy degrees did all the real work), and Big Money got us Apollo and to the Moon and not much else when Big Money dried up -- it dried up because our political system is far from National Socialism and the democratic process sent the money in other directions.

So the question is whether the Apollo model, essentially patterned after National Socialism, is a viable model for future space exploration. What Rand and his compatriots are promoting is a more Libertarian vision of Elon Musk and Burt Rutan, etc, etc as having more of a future than trying to reinstate the Apollo model, which appears not to be working any more because times have changed and American political culture has moved on.

I hope my remarks are accepted in a friendly spirit without getting mired in the labels game of who is a "Fascist" and who is a "Communist" and so on.

Of course even taking Goldberg's words out of context, as Rand does, does not prove that NASA is fascist or that even Jonah is saying so. For something to be fascist, it at least has to aspire to be totalitarian, which NASA has never aspired to be in space flight. The closest, of course, was when Nixon decreed that the space shuttle would be the sole means of American access to space and we know how much that worked. Today's NASA is not only tolerating commercial space, but encouraging it.

I would even go a step farther than calling NASA "fascist" to say that it has crossed over into "Soviet Socialist."

Probably Fascism or National Socialism or Soviet Socialism has to be taken as a package. You can't say "Stalin loved fishing" apart from the many other things Stalin did or favored. On the other hand, these "isms" have their own unique flavors of economic development, industrialization, and the conduct of large projects, and these different models of project management as it were can be contrasted.

NASA was "fascist" in the "good old days" when there were a panoply of competing and creative defense contractors to work with. Today, there are many fewer of the traditional big defense contractors to chose from. But NASA is favoring its own internal efforts (MSF) and methodologies (solid rocket boosters), largely for political and institutional reasons, drifting more in the direction of a Soviet-style design bureau rather than being the "team captain" of a squad of defense contractors.

I would even go a step farther than calling NASA "fascist" to say that it has crossed over into "Soviet Socialist."

Great. Let us know when they make it to Pol Pot.

Yes, Fascism and Nazism largely left the "captains of industry" in place. In business, a distinction is made between "owning" an asset and "controlling" an asset, and "controlling" is preferred to "owning", actually. Another workable definition of Fascism is that it allows private ownership, but still sets prices centrally, allowing people to pay losses or collect profits, but ensuring there never are any profits. So, while Socialism is centrally "owning" assets, Fascism is centrally "controlling" assets, usually through regulations and the promotion of Big Business over Small Business.

Mr. Harris, yes, replacing some words does change meanings, but it depends on the words. "I killed 10,000 Jews" is as morally reprehensible as "I killed 10,000 Capitalists", but not as morally reprehensible as "I killed 10,000 mosquitoes". Some reading for comprehension would be nice.

Fascism and Nazism largely left the "captains of industry" in place. In business, a distinction is made between "owning" an asset and "controlling" an asset, and "controlling" is preferred to "owning", actually. Another workable definition of Fascism is that it allows private ownership, but still sets prices centrally, allowing people to pay losses or collect profits, but ensuring there never are any profits. So, while Socialism is centrally "owning" assets, Fascism is centrally "controlling" assets, usually through regulations and the promotion of Big Business over Small Business.

Sorry, but I've always found this a pointless distinction. "Ownership" is meaningless if one doesn't control the asset, and cannot profit from it. In both cases, the government controls the economy, and the difference is academic, and transparent to the user. Hitler was no capitalist.

For something to be fascist, it at least has to aspire to be totalitarian, which NASA has never aspired to be in space flight. The closest, of course, was when Nixon decreed that the space shuttle would be the sole means of American access to space and we know how much that worked.

Mark, that's as much a fantasy as your theory that Watergate would not have happened if Nixon didn't cancel Apollo.

I realize you don't know much about space history, but Apollo was also "the sole means of American access to space" and we know how well that worked. Well, you don't but some of us do. :-)

Kennedy -- the man you once described as "really a conservative" -- nationalized the only commercial space industry at that time (satellite communications). His SecDef Robert McNamara then killed off all the military manned space programs -- the X-15, DynaSoar, X-24, MOL, Blue Gemini, Len Cormier's Reusable Atlas, Ed Heinnemann's D-558-3, etc. -- so that there would be no competition.

NASA even attacks its own centers one of them tries to do something innovative. Do you remember how MSFC went to Sen. Shelby and got him to steal the lunar robotic program from Ames, which was trying to do low-cost missions?

No, of course you don't. :-)

Today's NASA is not only tolerating commercial space, but encouraging it.

Really? Is NASA "encouraging" Robert Bigelow by offering to give away space and time on ISS to undercut its market? Did NASA "encourage" commercial space by tanking DC-X, then lying to investors about how they "proved" it's impossible to reduce the cost of space transporation?

Or do you mean it's "encouraging" private enterprise by saying SpaceX and OSC are allowed to launch laundry and lunches, but not people which is an official State Monopoly?

Jon Card: Yes, many people have argued that Stalinism is morally equivalent to Nazism. However, moral equivalence is not the same as semantic equivalence or political alliance. Just as, you could argue that John Wilkes Booth was morally equivalent to Lee Harvey Oswald, but that does not make John Wilkes Booth a Communist. Of course, overheated political rhetoric often does conflate moral equivalence with other kinds of connections. But of course it's a great way to make hash of the discussion. As Dwayne Day said, it's silly season.

Also, as I said, Stalin is not the same topic as NASA. I'm really not sure why Rand threw Stalin into the discussion. It would at least be novel to compare NASA to Pol Pot.

"Ownership" is meaningless if one doesn't control the asset, and cannot profit from it.

But this is a false reading of fascist history. All three of the major fascist dictatorships in Europe --- Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco --- did let businessmen keep their profits. Of course, some businessmen were purged as enemies of the state, but most of them were left to run industries and they were allowed to make money. The fascists bought off the business class, and they eliminated its leftist enemies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism

Now, cutting deals with the business class is not the same as free-market economics. But then, many political systems have confused the two.

This has a lot to do with why William F. Buckley praised Spanish fascism as Spain's salvation.

However, moral equivalence is not the same as semantic equivalence or political alliance.

Hate to break it to you, Jim, but there was a political alliance.

Of course, some businessmen were purged as enemies of the state, but most of them were left to run industries and they were allowed to make money.

Not in a free market. It was a basically socialist system, with progressive income taxes, universal health care, etc.

Rand - a political alliance that was broken the very first moment it was convenient to Hitler to break it.

This is part of the problem of evaluating the Nazi version of Fascism and Stalinism - both leaders were very opportunistic.

You're right, Rand, the difference between "controlling" an asset and "owning" an asset is largely academic; in business, the point is that if you can control an asset, you don't have to shell out the money to buy it. For example, environmental legislation has acted to allow environmental organizations to control a lot of real estate through threats of lawsuits without them having to demonstrate to mortgage companies a compelling societal interest that would allow them to profit from ownership and thus get a loan to purchase it legitimately.

The difference, from a policy perspective, is largely academic. My point was just that Socialism and Fascism are only different mechanisms, not different goals.

Mr. Harris: The reason that the business class supported the Nazis is not because it was good for business, but because 1. the Nazis were favorites to win and 2. they drove everyone who didn't support them out. The "business class" isn't a homogenous block of voters, as you seem to imagine. In fact, when you see the business class as a homogenous block of voters, like in Germany, it is the RESULT of oppression, not the cause. I mean, think about it: businessmen can't be universally Republican if Wall Street is directly in the center of a major center of Progressivism, Manhattan. It's not that easy. Businessmen in Germany were allowed to keep their profits, because the ones that were left were Nazis and could be trusted with it; that's the whole point.

Rand - not sure anybody ever called Facsism a "free market" system.

Hate to break it to you, Jim, but there was a political alliance.

Okay, fine, in addition to a case for moral equivalence, for two years Hitler and Stalin also had a political alliance. But then, a political alliance, especially a temporary one, is also not the same as political or ideological equivalence. Otherwise it would be difficult to explain this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/RumsfeldHussein-hp.jpg

Anyway, again, NASA is the real topic of Day's essay and your post. Not Stalin.

Not in a free market.

That's true, but that didn't bother the National Review too much in the case of Spain, now did it? What you first said was ownership, control, and profit, and the fascist regimes DID allow all of those.

progressive income taxes

A quote from Wikipedia: "The top income tax rate in 1941 was 13.7% in Germany as opposed to 23.7% in Great Britain." It's also true that Nazi Germany had the metric system. But that does not make the metric system fascist, unless at the very least the fascist imposed more of it than other countries did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany

I have to say, this thread has a bad case of Reductio ad Hitlerum. That's the argument that if the Nazis did it, it must be fascist.

not sure anybody ever called Facsism a "free market" system.

Many people call fascism "right wing" without explaining what that means, or why. Many of the same people associate free markets and capitalism with "right wingers."

Here's a recent example of incandescent idiocy along those lines:

"As “Lost” bloggers have noted, the publicist, Karen Decker, shares her surname with a Nazi propagandist, Will Decker. It is one of the show’s many pleasures that it revels in such indictments of extreme capitalism."

Unfortunately, nutty views like this are quite prevalent on college campi.

Cutting deals with capitalists (Fascism) is much more right-wing then cutting their heads off (Communism), which is a left-wing idea.

For the more literal-minded, yes I know the preferred means of execution was shooting, but I think one gets the picture.

No space for you!

Cutting deals with capitalists (Fascism) is much more right-wing then cutting their heads off (Communism), which is a left-wing idea.

Gee, I wonder where Armand Hammer fits into there.

I have to say, this thread has a bad case of Reductio ad Hitlerum. That's the argument that if the Nazis did it, it must be fascist.

Why are we surprised that you "have to say" nonsense? No one here has made that argument.

But then, ingenuousness has never been your strong point...

Jim Harris wrote:

1.Take out "Socialist" from "National Socialist" and "Car Rental" from "National Car Rental"

2. you get "National" in both cases.

3.That doesn't make you a fascist if you rent from National.

The conclusion doesn't follow the propositions. What the hell is your point?

You are equivocating on the word "national" which makes your argument unnecessarily confusing.

Many good points here, Rand. Quite a few. Let me add my own: I think it's important to point out that NASA is not only fascist, but also rife with pedophilia -- not that there's anything wrong with that! After all, look at the etymology: Pedo = child, -philia = love. The nasty part about doing the nasty to the kid ... well, that's dispensable, just as with fascism, you can easily dispense with the genocide part, the invading-other-countries-on-made-up-pretexts part, and any other practice associated with fascism that's inconvenient for your argument. So, you see, there's nothing necessarily pejorative about the term "pedophilia", really. And isn't it clear that NASA loves children? It wants as many of them as possible to grow up to be engineers, scientists, and astronauts. All of which are very good and respectable lines of work compared to become a rap lyricist, a nail salon beautician, or a marketing VP for a social-networking startup. NASA pretty much says in its own propaganda that it's doing its thing in large part for the kids, and I see no reason to discount their sincerity.

So: On top of being fascist (nothing wrong with that, remember?), NASA is also a pedophile. QED.

(OK: did just I get a whole lot of attention for saying that? That's the whole point, isn't it? To get a lot of attention? There's no such thing as bad publicity, even at the cost of appearing to have a head full of doo.)

...you can easily dispense with the genocide part, the invading-other-countries-on-made-up-pretexts part, and any other practice associated with fascism...

There are many things universally associated with fascism, but genocide and invading-other-countries-on-made-up-pretexts are not two of them.

If you hoped to make a living as a satirist, don't give up your day job.

"There are many things universally associated with fascism, but genocide and invading-other-countries-on-made-up-pretexts are not two of them."

Where did I say "universally"? Give me some rock-solid definition of fascism already! All books I've looked at so far take on the problem of definition of the term, and end up pointing out that there IS no universal definition. Until there is one, what we have to work with is what people tend to associate with the term.

Of course, there are problems with this approach. Fascism is associated with government interference in the economy. FDR used wage and price controls. Therefore (in Goldberg's "logic"), FDR's reign has fascistic elements. Oh, but wait: Nixon and Ford also used wage and price controls? OK, that's embarrassing for his NRO fanboys, so Goldberg won't mention it.

Anyway, Rand, if you were hoping to make a living as a respected political analyst, don't give up your day job. Especially now. Really. With lame sophistry like saying it's not really a Godwin's Law violation because, strictly speaking, you can't equate Nazism with fascism, and that it's not really insulting to call something or somebody fascist, because fascism is not *intrinsically* evil, even though you can't see anything good about it either ... I mean, wow, what pearls of wisdom, Rand!

I'll say this for you, though: you're clearly concerned about advancing space development, and, given how the length of time required for any significant space development even if the (supposed and real) government fetters on further development were to vanish tomorrow, you're (implicitly) concerned more for future generations than for yourself. Unlike those fascist NASA bureaucrats. And THAT makes you more of a pedophile (but in the nicest possible way, right? nothing wrong with loving children, remember?) than fascist NASA. It's something to be proud of, at the end of the day: that you love children more than the government does. So I salute your pedophilia.

Oh, but wait: Nixon and Ford also used wage and price controls? OK, that's embarrassing for his NRO fanboys, so Goldberg won't mention it.

Goldberg did mention it.

If you want to critique a thesis, let me suggest that you read it first. I know that it's a novel approach, particularly for this particular thesis, but give it a try.

And give up on the pedophilia thing. It just makes you look foolish.

Sorry I got Goldberg wrong (if I did.) But he's the guy who says that Nixon would now be considered a member of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Would you also sign up with that comment? "Nixon Then == Teddy Kennedy Now"? I'm supposed to make any sense of ANYTHING Goldberg might say about Nixon after that?

In the same Salon interview, he says "I'm not trying to do Reductio ad Hitlerum". No, he's not trying. He's not breaking a sweat at all. The subtitle of Liberal Fascism should be: "How to Do Reductio ad Hitlerum Without Really Trying".

Speaking of making oneself look foolish: I don't think calling you (or NASA) pedophilic is any more ridiculous than calling NASA fascist. It's the same (equally ridiculous) technique. You just take a word defined mostly by negative cultural associations and connotations, propose a sharply narrowed and somewhat neutralized definition for it, fling it out there at your target, and disingenuously express amazement that anybody could possibly feel like somebody just hit them with a ball of mud. Why, they must be stupid or something! Or maybe they didn't read the whole book? Surely, to know whether an idea is stupid or not, you have to read the whole book, right? (An argument that only reminds me of the old story about the editor who said that, just as he didn't need to eat an entire rotten egg to know that it's rotten, he didn't need to read an entire manuscript to know that it's garbage.)

The subtitle of Liberal Fascism should be: "How to Do Reductio ad Hitlerum Without Really Trying".

Again, we might take your criticism a little more seriously if you had actually read the book, rather than basing it on snippets and author interviews.

Speaking of making oneself look foolish: I don't think calling you (or NASA) pedophilic is any more ridiculous than calling NASA fascist.

Obviously you don't. Nonetheless, it is.

Surely, to know whether an idea is stupid or not, you have to read the whole book, right?

Apparently, given how much ignorance you've displayed about it so far.

Ah, I've identified the passage in Liberal Fascism where Goldberg finds Fascist(ic?) Nixon in league with the Fascist(ic?)/Corporatist Corporations who were (by his report) so enthusiastic about wage and price controls. But wait a sec -- was Nixon in favor of wage and price controls because they were fascist(ic)? Please. Really, it was some combination of thinking that they'd help him get re-elected, AND thinking that they might actually work.

The first motivation is well-documented. How about the second? Is it ridiculous for someone generally favoring free markets (as of course Nixon's and his whole economic braintrust did) to be in favor of wage and price controls as a realistic response to a perceived economic emergency?

Well, Hugh Rockoff wrote an entire book about the American experience with wage and price controls, concluding that, in some circumstances, they can be cures that are better than the disease.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/052152203X/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

Hugh Rockoff, some wacko socialist? No, he's the author of this article

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PriceControls.html

I'm sure you'll recognize the site, Rand.

So I guess here we have a case where Goldberg, in a big fat intellectual hurry, might explain that Nixon wasn't a fascist when he enacted wage and price controls, he just did a *fascistic* thing -- you know, things that fascists also did. Or something. (He's big on actions speaking louder than words, seemingly oblivious to the fact that politics is a frustrating business where people can't always accomplish what they'd really like to do.)

So Goldberg's kinda stuck, here, doncha think? The Interstate Highway system and the Autobahn -- both "fascistic", he says, but ... not necessarily bad ideas. So what makes them "fascistic"? Who the hell knows? I guess it's that Nazi Germany did an automobile highway system first, so if any other government did it later, it's "fascistic".

Goldberg is nothing if not a waffler, saying on the one hand that he's "ambivalent" about the gobsmackingly tendentious cover and title of his book, but also that anyone who makes any judgments about the book based on those choices (which, he hastens to add, were the publisher's) is not a serious reader. In other words, he knows it's horrific pandering, and that the book probably wouldn't be read any more thoroughly (if at all) by his numerous fanboys than by people turned off by the title and cover art for obvious reasons.

The title, Goldberg says, comes from a speech by H.G. Wells to the Young Liberals. I've since scanned some histories of the Liberal Party in England. If that speech where Wells urged them to become "liberal fascistic ... enlightened Nazis" was ever any significant influence on their thinking, it's pretty hard to find any traces now. In all likelihood, after a minor firestorm of outrage over it, the Liberals just shrugged it off as the ravings of good science fiction writer who happened to have a highly overrated reputation for Deep Thought (which pretty much sums up what I figured out about the guy by the time I was 15.)

Anyway, I'll stop talking about how both you and NASA are pedophiles if I can get permission to describe you as "pedophilic." Would that be OK? I mean, Goldberg gets a pass when he describes things as "fascistic" whenever he can't get them to fit his loosey-goosey-oops-forgot-about-the-ultranationalism-part-thanks-for-pointing-that-out definition of "fascism". So why can't I say that "pedophilic" can describe any kind of slightly overbearing love of children, possibly expressable as a justification of national space programs (or a justification of liberating space development FROM the clutches of national space programs) in terms of how it can inspire young people or contribute to their future well-being? Why should only rich twits get to have all the fun playing Alice in Wonderland games with the English language?

Is it ridiculous for someone generally favoring free markets (as of course Nixon's and his whole economic braintrust did)

They did?

I never noticed that.

If that speech where Wells urged them to become "liberal fascistic ... enlightened Nazis" was ever any significant influence on their thinking, it's pretty hard to find any traces now.

That's because "Nazi" became a dirty word after Hitler's betrayal of Stalin, as did "fascism." But the ideas themselves remain. If you don't see them in the modern left, you're not looking very hard.

Anyway, I'll stop talking about how both you and NASA are pedophiles if I can get permission to describe you as "pedophilic." Would that be OK?

It's a free country. You don't need my permission to say idiotic things. Just don't expect people to take you seriously.

Why should only rich twits get to have all the fun playing Alice in Wonderland games with the English language?

I should add, again with the ad hominem. This weakens your case (not that you have much of one to begin with). Particularly since it's not even true, as far as I know. Whence did you derive the fantasy that Jonah Goldberg is either "rich" or a "twit"? And even if he was, what does this have to do with his thesis?

Why are you continuing to beclown yourself at my web site?