Muscular Liberals

HIRSH AND THE MOONBATS

He's a sneaky one that Hirsh. Nothing for weeks, then he pops up and knocks a belter for six.

Some might say it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but judging by the comments on the Cif thread, there's some sickly bloaters out there that need putting out of their misery, quicksmart.

David's take:

In January the Chief Rabbi said that he feared that a "tsunami" of antisemitism was threatening to engulf parts of the world. Over-blown analogies detract from rather than illustrate a message and this is frequently true of discussions about anti-semitism and the Palestine-Israel conflict.

...

A producer from Radio 4 contacted me to ask if I would discuss the "tsunami" comments with Lerman but in the end they chose Melanie Phillips. This set up an easy debate for listeners to understand. On one side, Lerman, who is embarrassed by the fuss and who thinks that people wouldn't hate Jews if Israel behaved better, and on the other side Phillips, who argues that "The Arabs", armed with their essentially aggressive religion, have always been the aggressors against Israel because they want to wipe out the Jews.

This is also the framework in which the guardian's Jackie Ashley understands the "debate". In February Ashley uncritically scribbled up Livingstone's spin for the guardian, arguing that because he was elected then he could not be held to account for racist comments, calling the affair "darkly funny", repeating his straw-man defence that he is accused of antisemitism because he dares to criticise Israel, and doesn't he, after all, have a long record of opposing Nazis?

A nicely written essay that points out what to many of us is blindingly obvious: the two extremes of the debate (in this case Phillips and Ashley) are completely missing the point.

A brave move and one that was guaranteed to get the knuckle-draggers on both sides up in arms. Not that Hirsh didn't anticipate the response:

Do you think the antisemites will outnumber the Islamophobes on this thread or the other way round?

Tempting fate maybe, but the comments (hopefully these will not be removed by the Grauniad but I've saved them anyhow) certainly lived up to expectations.

Before you read the following comments, please remember that this is the blog for Britain's most progressive newspaper. Also bear in mind that David Hirsh is forever being attacked for daring to suggest that antisemitism is rearing its ugly head within leftist circles.

Even Charles at The Site That Shall Not Be Named raised an eyebrow at this. Some might argue that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but compare the resources that one West Coast blogger has compared to those behind a national daily replete with editors, sub-editors, lucky Pierres and the rest. If the Grauniad can't police its own forums, what hope is there for the rest of us?

We begin with a commenter known as Dellis. Unsatisfied with claiming:

originaltony is showing us the articles that the mainstream media in the west hide ......... what you read in the msm is usually written by a jew or zionist neocon sympathiser ........ hence the greater number of islam-haters........

we learn:

infiltration of the media........hmmmm......check out their names........ vast majority of the infiltrators happen to be rabid zionist israel firsters like mad melanie phillips and other not so mad israel firsters like aaronovitch & several guardian commentators.........

Then Dellis drops the bomb. Brace yourselves...

the zionist israel firsters living in the uk or usa are indeed traitors and parasites to the host countries .......... once the hosts armies/economies are used up in their wars of civilisation they move to another host and start again ......... they are already planning on moving to china & india

Aha. I'll just write that up on my invisible typewriter...


One nutjob down, we're onto the real hardcore - the fallen leprechaun known as GoodFairy. Now this fella's a good'un. Almost a Moby-troll, if such a thing exists.

Those who deny the existence of a mutual masturbation club comprising of hard Leftists and Islamists would do well to read his words:

WHY the F**k do Muslims, if they have any pride or fighting spirit at all, not prioritise the overturning of the Egyptian dictatorship? That is the KEYSTONE of Zionist/American power in the Islamic world.

The lesson of Ireland is you deal with the collaborators FIRST. All else follows. If you don't deal with them, NOTHONG follows. Except defeat.

You got that? If not (pedantic references to Sisqo aside):

kmir, whether your lefty friends think the Taliban are "pure Islam" or not is unrelated to my geopolitical argument. What is important to us is that they are opposing US Hegemonism. Far more so than what they actually believe in.

Yep. And the Taliban love you too GoodFairy. Calling you a useful idiot is doing you a favour.

Not content with this, GoodFairy actually castigates the commenter kmir for, well, not being just quite the right sort of Muslim:

"someone above doubts sypmathy for Al Qaeda - my advice is, consult the independent polls cited by Daniel Pipes, where you will find it documented."

And thank God for that, eh Kmir? At least not all Muslims are prepared to prostrate themselves before the Islamophobes.

As you'd say; "Think about it". Obviously millions of your fellow Muslims have thought about and reached the same blindingly obvious conclusion I have.

Get up off your knees. Stop trying to reach-out to folk to whom you are, at best, just an Uncle Tom.

And all on the Guardian website. Brilliant. Muslims such as kmir end up not only being attacked by Islamist hardliners but by supposed Leftists as well. Nice. It reinforces what David Hirsh was alluding to in his article beautifully.

After trawling through the Cif thread I came across something that at least provided me with a little amusement. Here comes the fun:

as a western, liberal, non-Muslim anti-religious agnostic may I say that you Muslims are patient and peaceful almost beyond reason given the assault that is taking place on your Islamic nations and culture by the Great Hegemenon.

Hegemenon? Now there's an unusual word. A quick Google search brings up all sorts of possibilities.

I'm not one to be arguing against anonymity on the net, but check for yourselves, that Hegemenon word doesn't pop up in too many places does it? Ignoring the links to Cif and the Irish Times which are clearly the efforts of the same man, we also have:

The Silver Hegemenon of Calcedony Dreams and Glory (his parents are a bit wierd...) was born rich, one of the members of a powerful merchant family (can't remember the merchant dragonmark family, wasn't it the gorgon one? Anyway...), and raised as any social-climber should. Impeccable manners, fine taste, all the trappings of a young noble. Unfortunately, the Silver Hegemenon gained all of those things, as well as a taste for manipulation. Early on, he learned how to work his silver tongue to get others to do what he wanted. Unlike other manipulators, however, he saw life not as checkers, every piece being able to make the same moves unless you kinged it. No, life didn't work like that. Emotion complicated things a little. Different people would accept and decline different things. Therefore, life was chess, and that philosophy has made the Silver Hegemenon's life far more complex and interesting than the average silver-tongued devil. His tastes are not so vile as the Marquis de Sade, but the Silver Hegemenon is still learning. Who knows?

One other proud user of said word is a pentogenarian of athletic build and unclassifiable religious convictions who reckons (hit 9 if you will):

I don't know about the rest of you, but doesn't it seem that Bush's own efforts at 'defending' America are becoming the catalysing agencies to self fulfilling prophesies ?

I'm starting to think of these events as the historical period in time, that will come to be seen when world events culminate in 'the birthing of the beast'.

Look at halftimedad's accurate synopsis of the present national conditions and throw in some of the forseeable future repercussions, a generation of esculating 'terror', as every campaign of 'defense' only spawns the conditions for the inflamatory passions of counter attack. Mired in a pattern of lethal circular violence and mired in massive debt of sustaning the campaigns. Soaring energy prices, the rising passions of internal divisions, unexpected world alliances take shape, as the mobilization of outside force threats coalesce....

Sorry to be so pessimistic about this .... but I begin to sense the sound of very distant hoofbeats aproaching ....

Three things contribute to influence my mood, I've been watching a documentary on the early Bob Dylan years, the songs are haunting me, it is a cold, dark and windiflled day, I haven't been sleeping well and have taken to watching a tele evangelist preacher, in the dead of night, speak on 'end time prophesies' ...

I've always been skeptical of folk who jump to use words such as hegemony, but it would seem that the hegemenonists are to be treated with even more caution.

Take care out there.

I'm off with a couple of Londonistanis to see Tunisia-Ukraine (restricted view - bound to be a classic) and what looks like being Argentina-Mexico as of tomorrow. There may be the odd post here, but if not, see you in a week.

Oh, and yes, we were cobblers tonight, but then we always are against teams that play in yellow. In the past 8 years we've lost leads to Sweden, Brazil and Romania and been tonked by Australia. That doesn't bode well for a meeting with Ecuador does it? Arse. I thought teams that played in red were supposed to do better than their counterparts? Hmmm.

posted by Dan @ 11:52 pm