ARE THEY ALL MAD?
A good article from Andrew Bolt in yesterday's Herald Sun, on the state of certain sectors of Leftist thinking today - "Are They All Mad?":Many of Tony Blair's former comrades defend not democracy but mass-murdering fascists and head-lopping Islamists.It's not just mainstream journalists such as Robert Fisk who are letting the side down. Even Daily Kos, the biggest pro-Democrat blog in the US, has had its fair share of lunatics, forcing its site-owner to start banning and removing posts from conspiracy theorists. Many found this especially ironic, given posters repeated claims to represent the "reality-based community".
Yes, Tony Blair did sound good when he spoke to our Parliament on Monday about Iraq.
No wonder the commentators were awed. But here's his trick: it's easy for the British Labour Prime Minister to sound so sane, because much of the rest of the Left sounds so mad.
I mean, did you hear writer Robert Fisk, in a special ABC broadcast of his speech just the night before, suggest the September 11 attacks may have been the work of . . . Americans?
What on earth has happened to the Left when it has made a conspiracy monger like Fisk one of the hottest speakers on our literary and activist circuit, and a best-selling author and much-petted guest on the ABC?
To contrast him here to Blair is to see that the true icon of the Left is now not the red flag but the white coat.
Poor Blair, who thought he was of the Left himself, has trouble understanding why many of his former comrades now defend not democracy, but mass-murdering fascists and head-lopping Islamists.
In his speech to the joint sitting of our Parliament, he rightly said Islamist terrorists were ideologues "at war with us and our way of life".
But in a little-noted aside, he added: "Their case is that democracy is a Western concept we are forcing on an unwilling culture of Islam. The problem we have is that a part of opinion in our own countries agrees with them."
He's talking of his own Left here, and warns: "The strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European and in world politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in."
Madness? That brings me to Fisk, the ABC darling. But let me first describe the rank garden in which he thrives.
It was always going to be hard for Leftists to find ways to excuse the terrorists with whom we in the capitalist West are now at war. For many this strain of excusing the inexcusable has become just too much.
So how to begin the "clean-up"? As publicansdecoy points out in the comments, the problem with Tony Blair highlighting the issue is that those who ought to be listening and reining in their impulses to spout conspiracy theories are unlikely to pay any attention, precisely because the criticism has come from the mouth of Tony Blair.
They might listen to Galloway or one of the better known Stoppers, but a look at Galloway's recent output suggests that he's as convinced as ever of a world Zionist conspiracy, or is happy to keep giving that impression to remain popular in certain circles.
I can see why many in the US decided the Left was a lost cause, achieving little but damaging the Democrats and jumped ship. Thank goodness in the UK, the opposite seems to be true - most of the loons made the first move, ditched Labour and are now either Lib Dems or RESPECT fanciers.
Now, about that Clare Short...
posted by Dan @ 3:09 pm
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