WHAT’S LEFT? How the Liberals Lost Their Way
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:17
#1
WHAT’S LEFT? How the Liberals Lost Their Way
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:17
#2
Nick Cohen's Book "WHAT’S LEFT? How the Liberals Lost Their Way" is sure to initiate discussion.
Here's an excerpt form a review:
quote:
“My instant reaction to the 9/11 attacks was that they were a nuisance that got in the way of more pressing concerns. Throughout the 1990s, I had been writing about the overweening power of big business and how it could corrupt democratic governments. I had lambasted new Labour for its love of conservative crime policies and attacks on civil liberties for years. Attacking Tony Blair was what I liked doing — what got me out of bed in the morning. Accepting that fascism is worse than western democracy, even western democracies governed by George W Bush and Tony Blair, sounds very easy in theory, but it is very difficult to do in practice when you are a habitual enemy of the status quo in your own country.”....Here’s his problem: the people who would die before they would applaud the squaddies and grunts who removed hideous regimes from Afghanistan and Iraq, yet who happily describe Islamist video-butchers and suicide-murderers as a “resistance”. Those who do this are not “anti-war” at all, but are shadily taking the other side in a conflict where the moral and civilisational stakes are extremely high.
There are two possible sorts of “left” reaction to a dilemma like this. One is to seek out the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world — the Kurdish revolutionaries in Iraq, say, or the Afghan women’s movement — and to offer them your solidarity whether Bush or Blair will do so or not. (Some things, as Orwell wrote, are true even if The Daily Telegraph says they are true.) The other is to say that globalisation is the main enemy, and that, therefore, any enemy of that enemy is a friend.
[url=http://www.nickcohen.net/]Nick Cohen[/url]
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:24
#3
M. Spector
Another drive-by attack on the left posted by Peech, courtesy of Christopher Hitchens.
Yeah, that should generate a lot of discussion on babble.
[img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:28
#4
Frustrated Mess
Deleted in the process of mending my ways.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:36
#5
Frustrated Mess
Deleted in the process of mending my ways.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:45
#6
Actually COHEN wrote the book and Hitchens just reviewed it. But by all means keep those blinders on.
Here's an actual excerpt from the book:
[url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995096,00.html]Cohen's Book[/url]
quote:
Don't you know your left from your right?As a child of politicised parents, Observer columnist Nick Cohen followed in their tradition and became a trenchant voice on the liberal-left in the 1980s and 90s. But the Iraq War changed all that and forced him to rethink. In an exclusive extract from his incendiary new book about the failings of the modern left, he argues that anti-Americanism has left it blind to the evils of militant Islam.
Sounds like a "rightest" to me.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 16:54
#7
M. Spector
quote:
Originally posted by Peech:
[b]Actually COHEN wrote the book and Hitchens just reviewed it. But by all means keep those blinders on.[/b]
Yeah, we figured that out all on our own.
You conveniently omitted to mention in your initial post that what you were quoting were the right-wing ravings of Christopher Hitchens.
Sun, 2007-01-21 17:00
#8
quote:
BiographyNick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer and New Statesman. He does occasional pieces for many other publications, including the London Evening Standard and New Humanist. Cruel Britannia, a collection of his journalism, was published by Verso in 1999, and Pretty Straight Guys, a history of Britain under Tony Blair, was published by Faber in 2003. What’s Left? the story of how the liberal-Left of the 20th century ended up supporting the far Right of the 21st will be published by 4th Estate in February, 2007.
[url=http://www.nickcohen.net/]Nick Cohen.Net[/url] was launched in October 2005.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 17:03
#9
Frustrated Mess
Deleted in the process of mending my ways.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 18:00
#10
Frustrated Mess
You know what. peech? You are right. I am wrong. I have always been wrong. I now see that I have been marching alongside the extreme right for far too long. My eyes are opened. The denial is over.
I will now reorient myself with the true left. With Hitchens, with Nick Cohen, Daniel Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and you. I'm feeling like a raving communist already. What a blessed, relief.
As part of my true reformation ... nay, saving (dare I say ... [i]rebirth?[/i]) as a real leftist and defender of Islamic women, gays, and foreign ownership of resources, I now also recognize that the greatest threat to human survival isn't nuclear weapons, climate change, disappearing fresh water sources, peak wheat, or suicidal seeds. No, I now know, and thank you very much by the way, it is militant Islam. And so, peech, I have but a few questions just before we get busy confronting this terrible menace.
How do I know a militant Islam? And when I identify one according to the Real Left's Militant Islam Field Guide, presuming there is one, what do I do with him (it must be a him because we know militant Islam has all its women imprisoned)? Dispacth him at once? Or shall there be herding zones?
Where do we draw the line between militant Islam and just plain old crazy conservative Islam? For example. the former pop singer, Cat Stevens, aka, Yusuf Islam, militant? He does take the fun out of fundamentalist, but you let me know which it is and what should be done about him, won't you?
In London, Ontario, an Arab man may have been a victim of a hate crime:
quote:
London police are investigating whether an arson at a South London bakery was a hate crime.“Investigators have discovered evidence inside the store to indicate this was racially motivated,” said police spokesperson Const. Amanda Pfeffer.
“The evidence could indicate that this is a hate crime.”
[url=http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2007/01/17/3395052.html]http://lf...
What do you think, peech?
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Sun, 2007-01-21 18:13
#11
quote:
But the Iraq War changed all that and forced him to rethink. In an exclusive extract from his incendiary new book about the failings of the modern left, he argues that anti-Americanism has left it blind to the evils of militant Islam.
FM, where do I sign up? I have seen the light as well. Shall we start a Crusade? What are we to do, those of us on the left who now see that through the Iraq war we are confronted with Militant Islam? All of this talk about the war being wrong was all along anti-Americanism! Who would have thought? Here I was thinking it was an illegal war waged by faux Christians in the White House. I'm really going to have to regroup and get back on the 'Right' track.
NOT!!
Sun, 2007-01-21 18:20
#12
Frustrated Mess
quote:
Shall we start a Crusade?
What an excellent idea! I am sure I have a cross and sword somewhere. What good Christian doesn't? I mean, how else do you create lakes of blood?
I have been keeping my eyes open for militant Islam and I do think I have located some. I am sure they are militant because they have visited a mosque and read the Koran. Good muslims would be doing early shopping for easter.
[ 21 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Mon, 2007-01-22 12:43
#13
From the book:
[url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995096,00.html]The Gurdian prints extract from Cohen's book[/url]
quote:
Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left? Why will students hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures but not a crusty conservative don? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? As important, why did a European Union that daily announces its commitment to the liberal principles of human rights and international law do nothing as crimes against humanity took place just over its borders? Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal left, but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why, even in the case of Palestine, can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a superior literary journal as in a neo-Nazi hate sheet? And why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish rather than right-wing newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers who were inspired by a psychopathic theology from the ultra-right?In short, why is the world upside down? In the past conservatives made excuses for fascism because they mistakenly saw it as a continuation of their democratic rightwing ideas. Now, overwhelmingly and every where, liberals and leftists are far more likely than conservatives to excuse fascistic governments and movements, with the exception of their native far-right parties. As long as local racists are white, they have no difficulty in opposing them in a manner that would have been recognisable to the traditional left. But give them a foreign far-right movement that is anti-Western and they treat it as at best a distraction and at worst an ally.
A part of the answer is that it isn't at all clear what it means to be on the left at the moment. I doubt if anyone can tell you what a society significantly more left wing than ours would look like and how its economy and government would work (let alone whether a majority of their fellow citizens would want to live there). Socialism, which provided the definition of what it meant to be on the left from the 1880s to the 1980s, is gone. Disgraced by the communists' atrocities and floored by the success of market-based economies, it no longer exists as a coherent programme for government. Even the modest and humane social democratic systems of Europe are under strain and look dreadfully vulnerable.
It is not novel to say that socialism is dead. My argument is that its failure has brought a dark liberation to people who consider themselves to be on the liberal left. It has freed them to go along with any movement however far to the right it may be, as long as it is against the status quo in general and, specifically, America. I hate to repeat the overused quote that 'when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything', but there is no escaping it. Because it is very hard to imagine a radical leftwing alternative, or even mildly radical alternative, intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western.
Mon, 2007-01-22 12:49
#14
quote:
Disgraced by the communists' atrocities and floored by the success of market-based economies, it no longer exists as a coherent programme for government. Even the modest and humane social democratic systems of Europe are under strain and look dreadfully vulnerable.It is not novel to say that socialism is dead. My argument is that its failure has brought a dark liberation to people who consider themselves to be on the liberal left. It has freed them to go along with any movement however far to the right it may be, as long as it is against the status quo in general and, specifically, America. I hate to repeat the overused quote that 'when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything', but there is no escaping it. Because it is very hard to imagine a radical left wing alternative, or even mildly radical alternative, intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western.
So Peech, what does this quote here prove, exactly, except that we have a nutbar who thinks being traditional and Godlike is how the left should be. Oh and Peech, how would you define 'the Right'? Just curious. Glad to see this nutbar thinks he speaks for me though. Really. Now I can relax and let my inner Right-Winger come out. No more hiding behind lefty anti-Western rhetoric.
Mon, 2007-01-22 14:38
#15
I see why this fellow gets a platform to speak out! He says just what his owners want him to.
While it would be tiresome to wade through most of that nonsense, his main complaint against "The Left" is this:
quote:
intellectuals in particular are ready to excuse the movements of the far right as long as they are anti-Western.
No, intellectuals don't do this. Only a certain kind of Stalinist excuses Iran's Ahmadinejad, for example, because he's anti-western.
Intellectuals are more likely to think that Ahmadinejad, like his predeccessors over decades, has some reason to oppose US troops near his doorstep, or US support for Saddam Hussein during Saddam's attack on Iran, etc.
Consequently, intellectuals won't let Ahmadinejad's views be converted into a justification for imperialism.
In other words, whether he's right-wing or not, the US should not intervene militarily and grab Iranian oil.
Intellectuals understand that atrocities can always be used to justify other atrocities; they refuse to let that happen.
Mon, 2007-01-22 14:44
#16
quote:
Intellectuals understand that atrocities can always be used to justify other atrocities; they refuse to let that happen.
Perfect! I'd still like an answer as to what Peech defines as Right Wing.
Mon, 2007-01-22 15:08
#17
As long as the Canadian left wing is going to call for a withdrawal of ISAF troops from Afghanistan, I'd agree the left is sinking into moral blindness and depravity. This is what leftist reasoning and wisdom has led to - a cartoonishly simple minded view of the world that happily overlooks the enslavement and massacre of Afghan women by the truckload, as long as we don't co-operate with the nasty Americans in any way, or demonstrate real military seriousness. I've been a card-carrying NDPer for many decades, but I bet I'm not the only one tearing up my card in rage and disbelief at the utter moral bankruptcy of the NDP's position on Afghanistan. I would welcome an opportunity to tell Layton to his face what a hypocrite he is.
Mon, 2007-01-22 15:27
#18
I must be morally depraved since I don't support this war. Oh well, failed my Michael Cohen lefty test - again!
Mon, 2007-01-22 16:25
#19
Frustrated Mess
Well, I keep saying I have seen the light. I keep saying that, yes, the mass murder of Muslims for oil is good, but I keep asking, how do I know militant Islam when I see one? Peech won't say. He is content to wallow in the great racism of the true left as defined by fellows like Hitchens, himself wallowing in his own lies once Bush's fell apart, and this fellow Cohen who agrees killing Islamic people for peace is good. I can almost hear him saying "the work of killing will make you free."
How about, you, Brett? You are a committed apologist for killing making you part of the real left. The story, I linked to above involving a hate crime in London, did that man deserve the attack against his business because he is Islam? Certainly someone thought he must have been militant, so did he deserve it?
How many of those women and children you are so worried about have to die before militant Islam has been erased to your satisfaction, Brett? Obviously not enough so far.
Take poor, lying Hitchens. He supported war in Iraq over WMDs. A lie. He supported war in Iraq over al Qaeda connections. A lie. He supports war in Iraq now because of militant Islam -- that has never existed in Iraq until he made common cause with right wing fascists and Zionist racists to invade a sovereign nation to loot oil. Have enough Islamists died in Iraq yet, Brett? How many more till your quota is met? One million? Ten million? A billion?
How many Brett?
Mon, 2007-01-22 17:12
#20
Frustrated Mess
I have just learned the true left is the "neoconservatives who hale from the American Enterprise Institute". Apparently they pretend to be fascists to fool the Chinese or someone. Anyhoo, and Brett, you will be thrilled with this, the Bush administration, the last bastion of the real left who care about women, children, gay men and oil, according to [url=http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/62/1/]this[/url] article, are planning for the ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs from Baghdad. The Sunnis are apparently militant Islam while the Shias who will benefit from the ethnic cleansing are good American style Islam. Again, it is really hard to tell them apart and for that reason we often have to kill them both.
I know, Brett and Peech, that ethnic cleansing isn't as good as mass murder, but, hey, the starvation, malnutrition, and murders will all add to the body count. Good thing, eh, Brett?
quote:
Nir Rosen said it best:“There is no solution. We’ve destroyed Iraq and we’ve destroyed the region, and Americans need to know this. This isn’t Rwanda where we can just sit back and watch the Hutus and Tutsies kill each other, and be ‘like wow, this is terrible should we do something?’ We destroyed Iraq. There was no civil war in Iraq until we got there. And there was no civil war until we took certain steps to pit Sunnis against Shias. And now, it is just too late. But, we need to know that we are responsible for what is happening in Iraq today. I don’t think Americans are aware of this. We’ve managed to make Saddam Hussein look good even to Shias at this point. And what we’ve managed to do is not only destabilize Iraq, but Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran. This is going to spread for decades, the region won’t recover from this, I think, for decades. And Americans are responsible.”
Makes you feel warm all over, huh, Brett?
[ 22 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
Mon, 2007-01-22 19:04
#21
Lard Tunderin Jeezus
quote:
Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left?
Perhaps because the secular tolerance of one's right to believe in any sky fairy one chooses is a long-standing tenet of the left?
[ 22 January 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]
Mon, 2007-01-22 19:58
#22
New guy here.
Wow, some strong opinions about Peech and this book. Sounds like a good book to avoid.
I haven't read it myself or even seen it for sale.
Has anyone here actually read it?
Mon, 2007-01-22 20:10
#23
quote:
Originally posted by oreobw:
[b]
Has anyone here actually read it?[/b]
There are millions of books in the world, and life is short.
I condemn this book sight unseen, and I will never read it.
Born-again "God-that-failed" enthusiastic neo-cons are a dime a dozen (no offence intended to the lowly dime, which is much more valuable than the non-cents peddled by the likes of Cohen).
Tue, 2007-01-23 09:33
#24
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
[b]
I condemn this book sight unseen, and I will never read it..[/b]
Spoken like a true "open-minded progressive." Never stray too far from the PC script or mantra. Proves Cohen's point.
[ 23 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]
Tue, 2007-01-23 09:51
#25
writer
Peech, where do you find the time to read absolutely everthing published in the world? Are you able to read all languages? Do you only comment on a publication once you've read a given book, etc. in its entirity? Have you read What's Left? If so, what did you think of it? If not, why not - and what motivated you to start this thread before doing so?
I am so curious about your own personal opinion about this book. So far, despite starting this thread, your own perspective seems to be missing from the discussion.
[ 23 January 2007: Message edited by: writer ]
Tue, 2007-01-23 10:24
#26
It's clear from the posts that no one has even read the posts because the book has not been published yet. It is out in February.An excerpt can be read in The Guardian Unlimited here:
[url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995096,00.html]Excerpt from Cohen's Book Part I[/url]
An as to what I thought, Cohen is brave and speaks the truth. Qualities that are rare today. But it's not what I think it's what you "think" if anyone cares to actually "think", not being a prisoner of polarized ideology (right vs left) which is irrelevant.
Tue, 2007-01-23 10:51
#27
No Peech, the book is stupid and a sham. It is not written by a leftist, it is written by someone on the right. How conveniently you continue to duck the questions asked of you. I'm about as quick to read this drivel as I am a book on Cheney's greatness. I am beginning to see a trend like this in all your posts.
Tue, 2007-01-23 10:55
#28
quote:
Originally posted by Peech:
[b]
Spoken like a true "open-minded progressive." Never stray too far from the PC script or mantra. Proves Cohen's point.
[/b]
Actually, I took your critique to heart. I have now projected exactly how this book will read (once published) and studied it carefully. I've cross-referenced it with the appropriate sources and submitted it to a painstaking historical analysis. My exegesis is as yet incomplete, but my initial conclusion is that it's still a steaming pile of shit.
Is that better?
I know, I know, life's the pits, peach.
Tue, 2007-01-23 10:57
#29
remind
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
[b]I see why this fellow gets a platform to speak out! He says just what his owners want him to...No, intellectuals don't do this.
Intellectuals are more likely to think that..
Consequently, intellectuals won't let Ahmadinejad's views be converted into a justification for imperialism...Intellectuals understand that atrocities can always be used to justify other atrocities; they refuse to let that happen.[/b]
This is interesting, that this book plus D'Souza's are coming out and saying such things.
In this line, was wondering has anyone else noticed negative commentary regarding intellectuals and/or "academic's" elsewhere when they have been out and about on the net?
At another forum, not the dark site even, but a university run site, I noticed a very nasty commentary about "academic's" ruining the world. I read through all the pages leading up to that commentary and was going to respond. However, by that time the poster had changed the wording from "academic's" to those who read too many books and had toned it down.
Is there a purposeful intellectual/academic targeting that is commencing?
Tue, 2007-01-23 11:03
#30
I looked up the book on Amazon and also saw that it will not be available for a couple of weeks.
However, the excerpt was interesting dispite the fact that I disagree with the apparent intent and general view of the author.
Therefore, I will pick up a copy (probably from Amazon) and read it. While I consider myself generally a progressive I do like to read what the other guys are saying.
Tue, 2007-01-23 11:12
#31
Interview with that "reactionary" and "sham" writer Cohen:
quote:
‘Taking a kick at the far left is good fun, but it certainly wouldn’t be worth writing a book about. The difficulty is that this attitude is so pervasive it’s hard to see how extraordinary it is. Because you’re no longer a socialist putting forward a programme, you don’t have to stand for anything. That’s why so many people read Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore – they don’t have to commit to anything. They just have to jeer.’
[url=http://jonathanderbyshire.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/whats_left.html]Inter... with cohen[/url]
Tue, 2007-01-23 11:49
#32
I don't know but that third quote sure put me over to the other side. I see the error of my ways. I'm reforming myself from a leftist with no moral conscience who thinks about nothing to a faux leftist willing to embrace the right like a good doggy.
I pray there are more Mr. Cohen's to show up the light and error of our nasty ways.
So Peech, how is this different from the Right? You just keep dodging the same questions. I'm beginning to think you can't see a difference.
Tue, 2007-01-23 11:55
#33
quote:
Originally posted by Peech:
[b]Cohen is brave[/b]
How so? What risk is he taking in promoting a point of view that supports the decisions being taken by those who are actually in power? Does being jeered at by the left, to use his own terminology, somehow threaten his physical safety?
Tue, 2007-01-23 12:28
#34
writer
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a!"
Tue, 2007-01-23 12:37
#35
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]
Tue, 2007-01-23 13:36
#36
quote:
Originally posted by writer:
[b]"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-a!"[/b]
Was that Sir Gala-hasbeen?
Or the Rights that till recently went "Left"?
Tue, 2007-01-23 14:22
#37
quote:
Is there a purposeful intellectual/academic targeting that is commencing?
It's more like a lot of ignorant people are having their ignorance exposed by the inescapable outcomes in the real world of their dumb-ass delusional theories. Everywhere rightists look, all their predictions have turned out wrong, where the left's, generally, have turned out right. Hence, a surge of anger against those "educated" folk who disagreed with them and have been proven correct.
You just have to know how to interpret them. "Ruining the world" means "showing me up". Ruining my world by exposing the fact that it was build on denial and wish-fulfillment.