What's Left? - How the left lost its way.

Vimothy said:
So any supporting the Allies in WWII couldn't be a leftist?

Vim, as usual, you have turned reason on its head once again. Support for the Allies in WWII=support for the Iraqi resistance today. Invading another country, especially one already crippled by over a decade of illegal sanctions and persistent bombing campaigns, is a war crime. The proper analogy is between today's US/UK invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and Hitler's invasions of Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, etc (or Japan's invasion of China). There's nothing controversial about any of this; it only appears so because the war criminals and their supporters are still in power and, in your case, because you are a propagandist for these imperialist criminals' continuation [nay, further expansion] of their war crimes. This places YOU in a position much worse, much more disturbing than some young British girl giving vent to her legitimate anger and rage at witnessing the attrocities being committed by her thuggish, mass-murdering government. Besides, it is those paranoid racists who falsely arrested her who have ACTUALLY committed a - further - crime. And, as Gavin previously alluded to, the racist underpinning of the reporting of that incident only makes matters worse - 'a British-born Muslim' ie your birthplace is no longer any guarantee of your primary nationality, particularly when your skin-colour, religion, or political beliefs conflict with an increasingly reactionary Establishment (like all-white Indie and pop bands draping themselves in the tricolour).

You want to know who 'The Enemy' is, Vim?

Take a long hard look in the mirror some time.

What you need to demonstrate, Vim, is why you are so deluded in believing these third-rate war-mongering rightist propagandists (Cohen, Hitchens, etc) to be leftist. An impossible task.

I should clarify, my distinction has more to do with the initial invasion which liberals supported at the time.

Perhaps we've slightly different conceptions of 'liberal' (a Cohen?), but I distinctly recall most liberals opposing the invasion, Gavin. Most of the world opposed the invasion [in all countries surveyed prior to the invasion, a substantial majority opposed].


They've only backtracked because it's going badly (and all their criticism is about the "mishandling" of the war, not the principle of the invasion).

As with Vietnam. ['Oh, but we'll get it right next time! Failure is not an option'].

Self-righteous losers always blame those who warned them in advance ('projection'), who opposed their suicidally destructive actions [like the right in the US retrospectively blaming the failure in Vietnam, the quagmire, on the anti-war protesters! It's the kind of loopy mindset that had Rumsfeld demanding that the onus was exclusively on those who stated that there were no WMDs in Iraq to 'prove' so. Because, you know, those cartoon drawings of trucks with "WMD' emblazoned on their sides were all the evidence the neo-cons needed].
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Alright, what about Sierra Leone? Is it not the case that troops operating both under the aegis of the UN and as UK armed forces helped disarm rebels, end the civil war and bring peace and stability to the country? If this is ringing fewer bells than our (mis)adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, could this be a result of the fact that it wasn't a massive fuck-up, wasn't undertaken for ulterior motives and actually did some good? After all, bad news sells far more papers than good.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
fwiw, I think you're right about Kamm, though. Not because he supported the invsasion of Iraq, but because he also backs McCarthyism
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/art/index.html
votes Tory
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/help_im_a_prowa.html
and writes like a pompous cunt.

Wow! Kosovo was probably a bad example for me to try to use as a unilaterally non-liberal one, but I knew this guy Kamm had to be pretty much dead center with secret tendencies.

I think that the pompous writing is sort of the New Right's rhetorical inflation style of choice, these days, which is partially why I try to respond to Vim in Limbaughisms. It seems to be what they respond to in the strongest emotional sense, so I like to give the people what they want.

It's really dragged political discourse (if you can call it that!) in the U.S. and its allied nations to new lows in recent yeasr.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Perhaps we've slightly different conceptions of 'liberal' (a Cohen?), but I distinctly recall most liberals opposing the invasion, Gavin. Most of the world opposed the invasion [in all countries surveyed prior to the invasion, a substantial majority opposed].

U.S. liberals. You know, if you want to consider the Democratic Party liberal. People here still think the reason they continue to support the war is because of a lack of backbone. "Why won't Nancy Pelosi stand up to Bush?" Because she agrees with him.

Haha, one exception to those countries:

Days before the March 20 invasion, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found support for the war was related to UN approval. Nearly six in 10 said they were ready for such an invasion "in the next week or two." But that support dropped off if the U.N. backing was not first obtained. If the U.N. Security Council were to reject a resolution paving the way for military action, only 54% of Americans favored a U.S. invasion. And if the Bush administration didn't not seek a final Security Council vote, support for a war dropped to 47%. [6]

An ABC News/Washington Post poll taken after the beginning of the war showed a 62% support for the war, lower than the 79% in favor at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_opinion_on_invasion_of_Iraq
 
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Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Alright, what about Sierra Leone? Is it not the case that troops operating both under the aegis of the UN and as UK armed forces helped disarm rebels, end the civil war and bring peace and stability to the country? If this is ringing fewer bells than our (mis)adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, could this be a result of the fact that it wasn't a massive fuck-up, wasn't undertaken for ulterior motives and actually did some good? After all, bad news sells far more papers than good.

Taxpayer funded troops cleaning up De Beers' mess... hmm, maybe a band-aid until the next inevitable civil war funded by diamond interests.

http://www.counterpunch.org/naylor03162007.html
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
Now it you want to clarify to that to exclude one case where you yourself think intervention might have been justified, and to exclude leftists outside of America and to apply it only to some philosophy of "interventionism" rather than specific cases of intervention...then that's fine by me.

Somewhere close to the beginning of the thread, I tried to make a case for the fact that politically there should be room for the possibility of political intervention that happens on a level and at a point chronologically in such a way that it renders military action as "interventionism" unnecessary. I think that point got lost in the shuffle. I did admit that this would not be a very "easy" route to take, and that it would require quite a bit of careful strategy and economic contortion.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Taxpayer funded troops cleaning up De Beers' mess... hmm, maybe a band-aid until the next inevitable civil war funded by diamond interests.

http://www.counterpunch.org/naylor03162007.html

We went through the desert up to Namibia, and it was all shrub and red sand and nice and then suddenly the sky on the horizon got dark and the soil got grey and I'm like 'what's that' and it was a gigantic area of land that De Beers owned, with 33,000 volt fences and 1,000 foot high mounds of earth. You needed to apply for a permit 5 days in advance to go through it (bearing in mind it's a THROUGH road to Namibia) whereby they'd do checks on your personal history, and then allow your through. It was one of the worst vibes I've ever received from any part of land. We sodded that off and went a different route and broke down 300 km from anywhere and were helped by a friendly drunk 300lb Boer, and when we explained where we'd come from, he just said 'De Beer's a cont'.
 
U.S. liberals. You know, if you want to consider the Democratic Party liberal. People here still think the reason they continue to support the war is because of a lack of backbone. "Why won't Nancy Pelosi stand up to Bush?" Because she agrees with him.

Ah yes, I forgot about the American 'liberal' (now globalized as just 'liberal'): left-liberal on social issues ('I demand my rights') and centre-right on economic and foreign-policy issues.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
De Beers seems a good candidate for the remaining plaques for companies that are "One of the Truly Aphotic Forces in the Existing World"
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Taxpayer funded troops cleaning up De Beers' mess... hmm, maybe a band-aid until the next inevitable civil war funded by diamond interests.

http://www.counterpunch.org/naylor03162007.html

Note that I'm not debating the *causes* of strife in the region - I know full well how incredibly corrupting and damaging the diamond industry is in general - but armed intervention, in this case, did some good, didn't it?
It stopped an extremely vicious civil war, and I'd certainly call that 'good'.

I agree that some kind of economic stability is going to be the only thing that can prevent wars like this happening again there and elsewhere in Africa, of course.
 
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Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Note that I'm not debating the *causes* of strife in the region - I know full well how incredibly corrupting and damaging the diamond industry is in general - but armed intervention, in this case, did some good, didn't it?
It stopped an extremely vicious civil war, and I'd certainly call that 'good'.

I agree that some kind of economic stability is going to be the only thing that can prevent wars like this happening again there and elsewhere in Africa, of course.

I think a violent humanitarian intervention into De Beers corporate headquarters would do a lot more good.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think a violent humanitarian intervention into De Beers corporate headquarters would do a lot more good.

Probably. Remember when Madonna - who totally loves, like, Africa and AIDS orphans and stuff - toured with that huge cross covered with (I believe) 8 million quids' worth of diamonds? Quite what she thought she was doing...I mean, it just beggars belief. She should team up with Bono.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
That cross didn't have diamonds on it, it had disco ball mirrors!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
That cross didn't have diamonds on it, it had disco ball mirrors!

The one I heard about had diamonds and rhinestones on it.

Edit: hmm, it looks like the cross was meant to be covered in diamonds, but wasn't in the end. Bah, how disappointing. Shame on you, Madge!
 

bruno

est malade
i'd like to see what the interventionists come up with for the kosovo mess that lies ahead, they can't just turn their backs now, can they.
 
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