Please don't treat this as an average piece of writing on used books for sale. A lot of effort and hard work has been put to get this end product!

used books for sale For Your Reading Pleasure
End Downtime by Creating and Selling Ebooks

Who else is ready to say good-bye to downtime?

Let's face it: we all have slow seasons. Nobody's calling. Your email inbox remains empty. You feel frustrated.

But when you have a series of information products, you always have business. I've made sales on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas.

During slow seasons, you update your ebooks and revise your sales copy. You send out articles and study ways to attract visitors to your sales pages. Maybe you get ready to write another ebook.

You have a very demanding, hard-to-please 24/7/365 client. You.

No ebooks yet? Start here.

(1) Choose a topic. Ideally your topic will be

• timely: People download information to get up-to-the-minute information.
• internet-related: They're already on the Internet - hello!
• dedicated to solving a painful problem related to money, health, or relationships.

(2) Make sure lots of people are searching for ways to solve this problem. Use overture.com and wordtracker.com to see if anyone's searching for your topic.

(3) Develop a list of twelve tips you offer to solve your reader's problem. Each tip should be written in the form "Do X...so you can..." Each tip becomes your chapter heading.

Example: You decide to write, "How Entrepreneurs Lose Weight and Keep it Off," subtitled, "How to Resist the Call of the Refrigerator When You Work Alone at Home"

Your tips might be:

• Stock up on pre-washed healthy snacks so you won't reach for the candy bar that's all ready to eat.
• Teach your dog to demand a walk as soon as you open the refrigerator door, so you'll release your energy in healthful ways.
• Move your refrigerator to the attic, so you'll have to think before you snack (and you burn calories climbing up those stairs).

As you can see, I am not an expert on this topic. In fact, I just might be a candidate for your book, if you or your client has just the right expertise.

(4) Under each chapter heading identify at least 3 takeaways you'll offer, along with relevant benefits.

(5) Draft the sales letter.

Yes. You saw that correctly. Draft the sales letter before you write the book.

(6) Decide how readers will buy your book. Your shopping cart can be set up for immediate downloads. Or you can use Clickbank to advertise and collect money for you.

(7) Write the book in straightforward, simple, dynamic style. Use lots of white space on the page. Develop the promises you made in the sales copy.

(8) Transfer to a PDF file with a table of contents. You can use Word but I use Acrobat for the security features.

(9) Make final tweaks to your ebook sales letter and post on your website.

(10) Write at least 5 articles to promote your book on the Internet. Some authors just use parts of each chapter.

Now get ready for for the ka-ching of your virtual cash register. If you're hearing nothing but silence, revise your sales letter .

And join the "no more downtime" club with a lifetime membership

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., helps service professionals who want to maximize revenue potential of their websites. Visit http://www.makewritingpay.com. Download the 7 best-kept secrets of client attracting websites. http://www.makewritingpay.com/subscribe.html

used books for sale Products we recommend
Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)

Twilight tempted the imagination. New Moon made readers thirsty for more. Eclipse turned the saga into a worldwide phenomenon. And now, the book that everyone has been waiting for....





Breaking Dawn, the final book in the #1 bestselling Twilight Saga, will take your breath away.

Online Organizer for E-mail Addresses, Usernames and Passwords

Online Organizer for E-mail Addresses, Usernames and Passwords
Keep usernames, passwords and e-mail addresses for all your favorite websites right at your fingertips with our Online Organizer. It will make browsing the web even easier. Softcover organizer, 80 pages.

Customer Review: great......

I love this little book. I used to put this info on papers, stickums, and when i needed to verify a password i couldn't find it until this little book that was given to me as a gift......I love it!

Customer Review: Handy little book

It's a handy little book...the only drawback being no alphabetical tabs. I really like the tabbed kind of organizer, but this has everything you need for website information:Website, Username, Password, Notes.

Expansion Pak For Nintendo 64

Expansion Pak For Nintendo 64
The Expansion Pak allows the random access memory (RAM) of the Nintendo 64 console to increase from 4 megabytes (MB) to 8 MB of contiguous main memory. With the help of an included key, the Expansion Pak fits into the slot that is below a removable panel on the top of the N64 console. Game developers can take advantage of the increased memory in several ways, including making games that are more visually appealing. Some games will allow players to choose a "high-resolution" option, increasing the screen resolution from 320 by 240 pixels to as much as 640 by 480 pixels--creating crisp, high-definition graphics. The Expansion Pak utilizes Nintendo 64's capability for 32-bit, 16.7-million-color display with 256 levels of transparency (alpha)--bringing your games to a new level of realism. Instead of reusing texture data, games can buffer a larger number of textures for a more distinct look.

Other ways for developers to utilize the larger memory is by setting a higher frame rate, longer replays, and more animations. Games also can have more sophisticated artificial intelligence, which allows computer-controlled characters to be smarter, literally. Games can offer more characters and vehicles, and contain larger, more complex levels and worlds. Some games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask require the Expansion Pak, while others such as Perfect Dark require it for access to all of the game's levels and features. See our list of Nintendo 64 games that take advantage of the Expansion Pak's extra power.

Customer Review: A nice inexpensive way to enhance visual clarity on an aged console

The Nintendo 64 memory expansion pak upgrade is not vital for the most part, in terms of plugging up and playing many of the great titles already released for this console. But there are a few titles that absolutely require this upgrade. The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask and Donkey Kong 64 are two such titles for example, that cannot be accessed without this upgrade. Perfect Dark is one such title which offers minimal gameplay and locks players out of many of it's richer features due to the lack of available memory to run all of it's features properly. But I think you'll find that even if Donkey kong 64, Perfect dark, or Zelda Majora's Mask isn't your thing, you'll still be wanting to consider purchasing this Ram expansion for a few key reasons.



1)Improved gameplay details. A lot of games weather you know this or not offer very fine gameplay oriented details not available without extended memory. Most games are capable of improved framerate (improves quality of onscreen action. Prevents slow down effects when a lot of on screen action is occuring for example.) Programers can implement more textures and details to environments and characters making things look more lively or life like. AI (artificial intelligence) can be improved and become "smarter".



2) The second drastic improvement is audio/visual quality. Most people that don't understand how computer games really work or don't know all the technical terms, have a commen misconception that this expansion pak is supposed to improve the graphics in a way that might take the console beyond it's 64 bit capabilities. This isn't true. Rather, the expansion pak improves color quality and helps to reduce the blurry effect of the colors in most games, creating better visual clarity. Much of the blocky character sprites (but not all of course) will appear smooth and less blockish or choppy. With the improved framerate you may even notice how the environment in some games can pan out further while maintaining a smooth look, allowing the player to see further away from the character than they could with the jumper pak.



...The memory expansion for N64 is relatively cheap now that the console itself is two generations removed behind Gamecube and Wii. And if your still into retro gaming or just enjoy playing the Nintendo 64 even after all these years I would certainly recommend this buy. Even if you never play the games which require the upgrade, I would consider this because of it's ability to enhance visual clarity. Couple the memory expansion up with a Video-S cable, and you will still find an appeal to the outdated graphics of a system of yore.

Customer Review: Poor

The product received isn't even what is pictured. What was received is an aftermarket version.

Creative Zen V Plus 2 GB Portable Media Player (Black/Green)

Creative Zen V Plus 2 GB Portable Media Player (Black/Green)
Flaunt your independent sense of style with its tiny size and eye-catching design that will be the envy of your friends. Everything you need right at your fingertips. Carry your treasured music collection, funny video clips and family photo slideshows. Audio Playback Format - MP3, WMA, WAV and Audible Photo Format - JPEG Video Playback Format - Transcoded video format Syncs with and views Microsoft Outlook Contacts, Calendar & Tasks Personal video clips FM Radio View Photos and Album Art at any viewing angle Subscription service support and pay per download music Direct CD recording Built-in Voice Recorder Syncs contacts, calendar and tasks Skip free playback Plays music, ZENCast, and audiobooks Alarm and clock Customizable main menu System Requirements - Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 1 or higher) / XP 64-bit, Intel Pentium III 1GHz or AMD Duron 1GHz, 256MB RAM, USB 1.1 port (USB 2.0 recommended), 170MB free hard drive space (more for audio content storage) Dimensions - 1.7 x 2.7 x 0.6 inch Weight - 1.55 ounces

Customer Review: IPOD < ZEN 5 PLUS

Zen 5 plus is a great mp3 player. It is easy to understand, I can't vouch for customer service because it DOES NOT BREAK. I had an ILO 1 gig. The thing:

1.) Ate batteries

2.) Would not play songs in its memory

3.) Buttons would break

4.) The recorder function became unoperable



Zen 5 vs. IPOD is an easy choice. Who needs Itunes, when you can download music from Amazon and put it on your Zen 5? No monthly fees, no tears, get music you want, not music you don't want but pay for. Best of all, you can keep all of it in mp3 format!



In addition to all that it also acts like a jump drive. Could you ask for more?



Zen 5 is the way to go!

Customer Review: Cute, BUT, Not So Friendly

I believe I am computer savvy, but this piece of work is not user friendly. I have not been able to anything but charge it.

The Secret

The Secret
Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life -- money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.

The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

Customer Review: Awesome and Inspiring

This book inspires the best within yourself. It teaches you how to draw on your own power to reach success. It has enlightened me to my own self and my own inspirations. I would recommend this book to everyone.



It shows you how to make everyday a new day and a GREAT day!

Customer Review: Life Enhancing Secret

I cannot say enough about this book. The premise is simplicity itself. Yet many have not been aware of this incredible life altering secret. It is powerful and accessible. Accessible to anyone willing to accept the ideas and incorporate them into their lives. It has changed my life. One simple statement near the end of the book changed me completely,"Remember to remember". Whenever I am off track I repeat those 3 words and I am back. Once you read the book you will know what I mean. If you never read another self help book, read "The Secret".

Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series [Blu-ray]

Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series [Blu-ray]
With an unprecedented production budget of $25 million, and from the makers of Blue Planet: Seas of Life, comes the epic story of life on Earth. Five years in production, over 2,000 days in the field, using 40 cameramen filming across 200 locations, shot entirely in high definition, this is the ultimate portrait of our planet. A stunning television experience that captures rare action, impossible locations and intimate moments with our planet's best-loved, wildest and most elusive creatures. From the highest mountains to the deepest rivers, this blockbuster series takes you on an unforgettable journey through the daily struggle for survival in Earth's most extreme habitats. Planet Earth takes you to places you have never seen before, to experience sights and sounds you may never experience anywhere else.

Customer Review: Planet Earth - Best Nature Series Ever

Planet Earth, the series, is without doubt, the finest nature film ever made. All of their shots are breath-taking, with some appearing to be almost impossible to make. How they were able to capture so much wild-life, and rare wild-life at that, on film is both a wonder and a testament to the dedication the producers and film makers brought to the project.



And if you own a Blue Ray Disc Player, this is one film (there are four discs) that is simply a must for your collection. In fact, such is the realism and dynamic impact, I mounted my digital camera on a stand and took still frame shots of some of the images directly off my new 52" LCD TV screen. At 1080p, I've never seen a nature film that comes anywhere close to matching the grandeur and beauty that this series offers. The photography is so good, one might mistake it for an art film.



This is a must-have.

Customer Review: Planet Earth

This is a wonderful series with spectacular scenery and sound. I highly recommend it.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

Customer Review: Enough is Enough!!!!

I'M AM SICK & TIRED OF THE RIGHT VILLIFING EVERY LIBERAL! WE WERE'NT THE ONE'S THAT LEAKED A CIA AGENTS NAME, WE WERE'NT THE ONES THAT LIED GETING INTO THE WAR, & GETTING OUR TROOPS KILLED, WE WERE'NT THE ONE THAT TURNED OUR BACK ON KATRINA VICTUMS & VETS AT WALTER REED, & WE WERE'NT THE ONES THAT BULLIED 911 WIDOWS. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Customer Review: American Fascism: Progressives, Woodrow Wilson, FDR and Useful Historical Idiots

"History is written by the winners." So goes the discipline-denigrating cliché. A more accurate observation, as Jonah Goldberg's new book, Liberal Fascism, suggests, is that history is written by historians--and especially, in recent decades, by academics whose biases predispose them to serve as useful idiots for Joseph Stalin's defunct propaganda ministry. Though Goldberg's well-researched book doesn't focus minute attention on the culpability of leftist historians, it does provide convenient targets (Richard Hofstadter and William Shirer) who might be blamed for abetting the greatest intellectual ruse of the twentieth century--the absurd designation of fascism as an ideology of the political right.



Anyone looking for Coulteresque theater in Goldberg's work (the product of four years' labor) will be disappointed. The book isn't meant to toss "f-bombs" at liberals the way liberals regularly toss that seven-letter epithet at conservatives. Indeed, Goldberg reiterates again and again that he doesn't employ the word "fascism" as a synonym for Nazism, racism, or "evil." Rather, he uses the term to label a method of governing that expressed itself differently in different countries. Given that caveat, anyone who chooses to read this engrossing analysis of the origins of fascism will likely be rewarded with a paradigm-shifting experience that puts the history of the twentieth century in a new light--a history that places Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt in the same political neighborhood as Benito Mussolini.



The story of fascism, Goldberg notes, begins with the "holistic" philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau and his revolutionary progeny--men whose boundless conception of national communion (via a general will) led to the odd idea that dissidents would be "forced to be free"--a fate more benign than the guillotine that "freed" enemies of the state from error during the French Reign of Terror. Hegel's philosophy, where the state incarnates God's work in history, provides another piece of the ancestral puzzle, while Nietzsche's romantic and relativistic "will to power" adds a third leg to fascism's Continental heritage. A fourth progenitor was Otto von Bismarck, whose comprehensive welfare package for the new German Empire provided Western intellectuals with a top-down model of social policy that they yearned to replicate.



These historical connections aren't exceptionally novel, but the American branches of fascism's genealogical tree are unexpected--limbs that include the pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey as well as political writers like Henry George (Progress and Poverty), Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward), and Herbert Croly (The Promise of American Life). Drawing on these and other sources, Goldberg not only shows that European fascism is a product of the political left, he also argues persuasively that America's version of that system is rooted in the Progressive movement and was first given national expression in the war socialism of Woodrow Wilson.



Not surprisingly, Goldberg's first two chapters are devoted to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. But contrary to the impression given by pop-history, Mussolini isn't relegated to the status of an absurd fifth wheel. Instead, Il Duce's role as the "Father of Fascism" is clearly laid out. The portrait of his rise to power in 1922--more than a decade before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany--is the story of an intellectual whose communist sympathies were developed from infancy. (Even his given names, Benito Amilcare Andrea, conjured up leftist heroes from the past.) Those socialist sentiments remained with Mussolini to the day of his death--alongside his obsession with sexual conquest and his contempt for Christianity.



As Goldberg notes, Mussolini's state-centered, anti-capitalist rhetoric could only be declared "right-wing" by ideologues who were fighting over the same political bone. In other words, it was the internecine struggle between fascists and communists that gave birth to the longstanding practice of separating the terms "fascist" and "socialist." This linguistic divorce was mandated by Stalin to stigmatize the socialist heresy Mussolini promoted in light of his comrades' nationalistic response to World War I.



Goldberg also emphasizes that fascism itself varied from nation to nation. Most significantly, the Jew-hatred that characterized Hitler's regime wasn't integral to Italian Fascism--a movement that included a disproportionate number of Jews. Indeed, Mussolini scoffed at the Aryan myth that animated German Nazism, preferring for his part to play the role of a latter-day Caesar who was destined to resurrect Rome's ancient greatness.



The most unexpected part of Goldberg's Mussolini portrait is the way the Italian leader was hailed in American Progressive circles (e.g. in issues of Herbert Croly's New Republic) and in American pop-culture. Even as late as 1934, Cole Porter's song, "You're the Top," exhibited this adulatory attitude toward the Italian idol. Only after Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935 did this admiration begin to wane. Significantly, the American President that Mussolini praised effusively in 1919, three years before his march on Rome, was Woodrow Wilson.



As far as Hitler's left-wing credentials are concerned, Goldberg's discussion of the Nazi Party Platform does a good job of demonstrating that the word "socialist" in National Socialist wasn't mere window dressing. After summarizing that ambitious document, Goldberg offers this sarcastic conclusion:



"Ah, yes. Those anti-elitist, stock-market-abolishing, child-labor-ending, public-health-promoting, wealth-confiscating, draft-ending, secularist right-wingers!"



Analysis of the groups from which Nazism drew its support also shows that corporations weren't (as Moscow insisted) pulling strings behind the scene. Rather, Nazism emerged as a populist movement that was so cash-strapped Hitler frequently rode to rallies "in the back of an old pickup." As the historian Henry Ashby Turner concludes, corporate funding of the Nazi party was "at best" of "marginal significance." Were it not for decades of leftist disinformation, that conclusion would have been a foregone conclusion, given the virulently anti-capitalist language of Mein Kampf--language Hitler still employed in 1941. In short, Goldberg provides extensive evidence that Hitler's political program was just as "right-wing" as the politics of Leon Trotsky--whom Stalin also labeled a "fascist."



It is one thing to assert that fascism is a product of the political left--one of the "heresies of socialism" according to Harvard Professor Richard Pipes. It is something else to argue that fascism has its own American expression that grew out of the Progressive political tradition and that "Woodrow Wilson was the twentieth century's first fascist dictator." That, however, is precisely the proposition put forward in Goldberg's third chapter: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of Liberal Fascism.



To bolster this hypothesis, Goldberg highlights connections between the intellectual milieu that fostered fascism in Europe and the milieu that begat American Progressivism. Henry George's Progress and Poverty, for example, was received enthusiastically in Europe where it helped to shape populist and socialist economic theory. Similarly, Edward Bellamy's utopian vision in Looking Backward (where a single municipal umbrella would one day shield all Bostonians from the rain) drew inspiration from Bismarck's top-down political example in Germany. These and other "holistic" visions of society fed into an American Progressive movement whose moral energy was derived largely from legions of Social Gospelers. As Goldberg notes, the party's 1912 presidential convention was described in the New York Times as a "convention of fanatics" and "religious enthusiasts." This fusion of social reform and religious fervor is central to what Goldberg calls "liberal fascism."



On the philosophical side of the ledger, American Progressivism looked to William James, John Dewey, and Charles Darwin. The former duo provided a relativistic and pragmatic outlook that coincided nicely with bold social experimentation. Dewey, in particular, advocated an "organic" Darwinian approach to society that consigned American individualism to the dustbin of evolutionary history. Darwinism also brought to the Progressive project a focus on racist genetics that (alongside the movement's militant imperialism) subsequent historians have been eager to forget. Furthermore, the polite moral relativism of James and Dewey echoed the unequivocal relativism expressed by Nietzsche (whose philosophy, according to H. L. Mencken, Theodore Roosevelt had swallowed whole). Finally, the attachment of elite progressives to Hegel's political philosophy (Goldberg notes that Woodrow Wilson "even invoked Hegel in a love letter to his wife.") reinforced the idea that society is an organic whole and that reformers are, quite literally, God's instruments on earth.



Woodrow Wilson is the unexpected villain of Liberal Fascism. Based on a review of his academic writings, Goldberg demonstrates that Wilson was a devotee of power--power utilized according to the pragmatic lights of John Dewey. Consequently, the twenty-eighth president denigrated, with the confidence of a divinely anointed leader, those constitutional provisions that limited his ability to mold the nation into a healthy organism that worked for the good of all. This "evolutionary" vision of history provided the intellectual justification for that modern legal theory that dissolves all governmental boundaries--the living Constitution. It also paved the way for an approach to education that transferred the locus of pedagogical authority from parents to the state. In Professor Wilson's words: "Our problem is not merely to help the students to adjust themselves to world life...[but] to make them as unlike their fathers as we can."



World War I gave President Wilson the crisis he needed to implement the top-down vision of social coordination he had written about for decades. Government instruments employed in this massive effort (whose only near precedent was Lincoln's response to the Civil War) included the War Industries Board, a vigorous and widespread propaganda ministry, and a justice department that, Goldberg notes, presided over the arrest and jailing of more dissidents than Mussolini incarcerated during the entire 1920s. From censorship, to price-fixing, to Palmer raids, to patriotic nursery rhymes designed for toddlers, mobilization gave Wilson's government unprecedented access to and control over people's lives. This whipping of individualistic Americans into collective shape was cheered by progressives like Walter Lippmann who saw in the war an opportunity to bring about a Nietzschean "transvaluation of values as radical as anything in the history of intellect." No wonder Warren Harding won the presidency in 1920 with a campaign that promised a return to "normalcy."



With the advent of the Great Depression, Progressives were given an opportunity to reprise the coordination achieved under Wilson's war socialism. The British journalist Alistair Cooke doubtless turned many heads when, in the 1970s, he announced on his popular PBS history series that America under FDR "flirted with National Socialism." Goldberg argues that the amorous relationship was a good deal more intimate--a relationship fanned by the populist hot air that emanated from Father Coughlin and Senator Huey Long and consummated by many of the individuals that ran Wilson's war agencies. A prime example of these fascist retreads was Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, whose "sock in the nose" style at the National Recovery Administration doubtless drew positive reviews from one of FDR's early admirers, Benito Mussolini. Even Germany's new Fuhrer had words of praise for the government-business partnerships that typified Roosevelt's New Deal.



The expansion of government under Franklin Roosevelt is well known. What isn't acknowledged in polite historical circles, as Goldberg notes, is how "the fascist flavor of the New Deal was not only regularly discussed" but even "cited in Roosevelt's favor." Why this inconvenient fact was dropped down the historical memory hole is clear. Leftist historians had no desire to link the paragon of modern "liberalism" with "right-wing" fascism. Stated more honestly, they didn't want to acknowledge that fascism was a left- wing philosophy and expose the ongoing historical ruse that kept conservatives (i.e. classical liberals) off balance.



The remainder of Goldberg's book (more than half) discusses progressivism's third wave of influence on American life in the 1960s and explains how its fascist traits have been incorporated into modern "liberalism." While not as narrowly focused as his first four chapters, these materials do give further definition to the concept of "liberal fascism"--a phrase coined in 1932 by H. G. Wells to promote an ambitious "liberal" variant of Europe's burgeoning political system.



Among the concepts that Goldberg identifies as integral to sixties radicalism are these: the romantic embrace of youthful impulsiveness and sexuality, the denigration of reason and tradition, the extension of politics into all areas of life, the exaltation of identity politics (initially in terms of race and gender), and the justification of violence committed by revolutionaries intent on creating a mythical heaven on earth (e.g. the Black Panthers). All these themes, Goldberg notes, have significant corollaries in the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany.



What separates these 60s street radicals from Great Society and contemporary progressives, however, is the smothering maternalism that characterizes the latter groups. Today's "liberal fascists," unlike their European and turn-of-the-century American forebears, promote a religion of the state that is non-militaristic. As such, it resembles Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, not George Orwell's 1984. No better example of this smothering maternalism exists than Hillary Clinton's magnum opus, It Takes A Village--a mythical world where helpful government programs cover the social landscape and where repetitive video messages inculcate useful parenting tips "any place where people gather and have to wait."



Another Goldberg chapter, Liberal Racism: The Eugenic Ghost in the Fascist Machine, shows how "eugenics lay at the heart of the progressive enterprise"--an assertion backed by historian Edwin Black, who noted that the eugenic crusade was "created in the publications and academic research rooms of the Carnegie Institution, verified by the research grants of the Rockefeller Foundation, validated by leading scholars from the best Ivy League universities, and financed by the special efforts of the Harriman railroad fortune." This embarrassing skeleton in the Progressive closet is compared with the implicit pro-abortion subtext in the best-selling book, Freakonomics--namely, "fewer blacks, less crime."



Regrettably, Goldberg's final chapter, The New Age: We're All Fascists Now, begins to treat fascist traits so eclectically that the precision and focus of earlier chapters is lost. Looking for fascist themes in Dirty Harry and Whole Foods Market is a bit like searching for grandmother's features in little Ricky's newborn mug. One is bound to find something, but isolated traits don't amount to a close likeness. A similar critique applies to Goldberg's afterword, The Tempting of Conservatism, where playing (perhaps badly) at the only governmental game in town seems to be confused with religious devotion to the political Weltanschauung exhibited in It Takes A Village.



Despite these end-of-book drawbacks, Goldberg has produced a popular book of rare historical depth and quality--a book that promises to scrap those ridiculous history-class charts that put democracy midway between "socialism" on the left and "fascism" on the right, then justify their totalitarian extremes by bending the linear ends into a globe where left and right magically "meet."



An old Soviet joke asserted that loyal comrades know the future; it's only the past that keeps changing. With Goldberg's assistance, Americans can begin to rewrite their own political history, this time putting the "fascist" label where it belongs. That single alteration would be a momentous accomplishment--one that would make the architects of democracy's future more sure-handed.



Review by Richard Kirk



Richard Kirk is a freelance writer and a regular columnist for San Diego's North County Times. His book reviews have appeared in American Spectator Online, Touchstone, The American Enterprise, and First Things. See his blog, Richard Kirk on Ethics: Musing With A Hammer.

Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck
If you concentrate on the fact that Howard the Duck was a notorious box office dud (still brought up today) and considered one of the worst films of the '80s, it's entirely possible to enjoy this special effects piffle. Howard, played by a special effect puppet, lives on a planet where ducks evolved instead of apes, but one day he's sucked into a vortex and deposited on Earth. There he befriends Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), lead singer for the Cherry Bombs, becomes their manager, and, oh yeah, saves the Earth from the Dark Overlords. Jeffrey Jones is the villain and Tim Robbins (!) is there for comic relief. And who can resist the culmination of synthesizer pop, the Howard the Duck theme song, as realized by the Cherry Bombs? A midnight movie that your kids might watch more than you. --Keith Simanton

Customer Review: Apparently, there are no Buckaroo Banzai fans out there...

I enjoyed the movie. Sort of a "Buckaroo Banzai" type movie in that the main character is an all-around McGyver-ish kind of guy who can do everything. It's a fun movie, one that I enjoyed watching with my then-grade-school aged son. Plus, the theme song is very exciting and up-beat (sung by the beautiful and multi-talented Holly Robinson of 21 Jump Street fame).

Customer Review: Worst film of the eighties? I can think of much worse

Why does everyone have a major problem with Howard The Duck? After watching it, and reading some of the reviews, I have to seriously disagree with all the negative reviews on here. Sure, it's in no way a classic, and Lea Thompson has really big hair (the hairstylist should have been shot for crimping her hair!!!), but it's fun, it's slightly out there, and there is no other movie that can compare to this. Perhaps Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but only very slightly.



Maybe the reason why this is getting bad reviews, is because reviewers can't get past the idea there is actually a person in that suit. Yes it's not CGI, it's not any fancy technology (even in a film by George Lucas), there is a person in a duck suit. Really!



The plot is pretty simple, but you get the impression it's aimed more towards adults, than a nice little film aimed at the kiddies. Howard gets transported to earth, where he meets singer with the Cherry Bomb, Beverley, who can't believe she's talking to a duck. She takes him to a friend of hers, a scientist, who can't believe he's talking to a duck ... The story goes on. Then we meet Jeffrey Jones, who is responsible for bringing Howard to earth, and then he turns into a Dark Overlord (here's where I find the resemblence with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)



The best part of this movie is definitely the songs. I started rocking out to the song at the end "Howard The Duck", which I'm now officially in love with, and need to get on my mp3 player (hint hint hint). Why can't I find it anywhere??? I need it and I needed it yesterday.



Lea Thompson is brilliant, right down to her clothing, which is seriously eighties, along with her hair. She's the perfect kooky match to Howard, and even sings!!! I was expecting to see it was dubbed, but she actually sang! The girl can sing.



It's amazing watching Howard interact with everything on Earth, and you've got a heart of stone if you don't feel for him. You do get past the idea that it's a guy in a suit, and if you don't laugh at the quiff he gets when he's in bed, you have no sense of humour.



To all the reviewers who think this film is bad - yes, you're entitled to your opinion, but did we watch the same film? Go watch a 'classic'.

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