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Anyone who thinks that I was too harsh about Jonah Goldberg's repulsive and politically motivated rewriting of my own country's history ought to read today's Thomas Sowell column, where it is taken entirely at its own valuation and highly recommended as summer reading for the children of conservatives. This unhistorical, culturally imperialistic propaganda, that distorts my country's and my continent's history in the service of provincial American concerns, is going to enter the bloodstream of a whole American party, If it has not already done so. This will increase further the mutual incomprehension between USA and Europe, because you cannot stand on your two hind legs and inform anyone who knows anything of continental history - France, Italy, Germany, etc. - that Nazism and Fascism were "left wing". This sort of rubbish, especially if spoken with the arrogance of Goldberg and Sowell, will increase European contempt for American viewpoints and culture. Do we really need this sort of trash further complicating our already difficult relationship, and all for the sake of a few Republican votes in the next election?

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BTW, I would remind you that the USA, in the thirties, sprouted a good few perfectly orthodox Fascist movements: the Bund, the followers of Gerald Smith, and those of Father Coughlin. In fact, this is the reason why outdated leftist nightmares ascribe to all popular conservative preachers the desire to create their own stormtroops; because in the dark backwards and abysm of time, when feminists were feminists and men smoked, the most popular right-wing preachers in America did exactly that. Both Smith and Coughlin were full of Jewish conspiracies, hatred for Roosevelt, admiration for Hitler and Mussolini (Coughlin especially remained an unrepentant Mussolini fanboy to his death, and was still in the seventies publishing newsletters extolling Fascist notabilities such as Rachele Mussolini), and IIRC, it was one of them, not Hitler or Goebbels, who invented the slander that Roosevelt was Jewish and his real name was "Rosenfeldt". Of course, lots of water has flowed under the bridge since; and even the old leaders now outgrown by a more mature and politically adept conservative movement, such as Falwell and Oral Roberts, were far on the right side as compared to these lunatics. But Fascism with its uniforms and flags did find a home in certain areas of the US, and I assure you that these were not the trades unions or the progressive movements.