Wednesday, October 18, 2006

My First Dissent: It's About The Road Not Taken.

You'd think there'd be a robust liberal-left agenda to harness globalized trade, to redistribute wealth to workers, alleviate poverty, stabilize the overharvesting of scarce local resources, and open new markets for products from poor countries. Trade agreements could force the spread of revolutionary change and democratization, and the entrenchment of human rights, everywhere.

Instead, we have the spectacle of the celebrity American peace mum Cindy Sheehan hugging Hugo Chavez at a World Social Forum photo opportunity in Venezuela, at precisely the moment Chavez was concluding a deal with the Russians for 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, 24 fighter jets, and an arms-manufacturing plant in Caracas. . .
This is the kind of thing that makes it impossible to ignore what is perhaps the greatest betrayal of the historic mission of the left. It's what the great British writer George Orwell observed among certain leftists of his generation, "whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism."

When the going got tough back in Orwell's day, that faction was in a minority. It's not so clear that it is the minority now.

My new column has been up since only this morning and already I’m a CIA agent, I see. Is that a demotion or a promotion from the Mossad?

3 Comments:

Blogger Robert G. said...

Well, I don't think you look smug. Statesmanlike.

9:14 AM  
Blogger Stephen K said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

11:55 PM  
Blogger Stephen K said...

"but war is now actually one of the least of the world's worries."

Disagree. Strongly. Nuclear inihalation is right up there.

I agree that we on the left have to choose our heroes wisely. Chavez is certainly not a saint, and is a human rights violator himself, butlove himor hate him, you have to admit that his has fostered a grassroots international popularity based on resistance to US hegemony.

Invoking Orwell is great, I think he is a hero. I think there is a tendency on some of the liberal left- in a desire to distance themselves from the radical left - to move to far to the right. Christopher Hitchens comes to mind. Yes, there are monsters on both sides of the ideological divide, but we must keep in mind exactly that: there are monsters on both sides of the ideological divide. Show me bin Laden and I'll show you Bush. And so on. I'm pretty sure if Orwell were alive today he would have both of them in his sights.

11:58 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home