Year: 2003

Ron Radosh on the anti-war movement’s reliance on a Communist front, ANSWER.

THE GAY LEFT’S MYOPIA: Some leftist gay groups, like the extremist National Gay Lesbian Task Force, have come out against a war against gay-hating tyrants. They hate Bush more than people who crush gay people under stone walls. Now another gay group is organizing a trip to Cuba! I’m not sure if they’ll visit any of the sequestered camps for people with HIV. Maybe they’ll just wave to the imprisoned gay Cubans from their plane.

STILL SPINNING: Britain’s head cardinal (a bishop who actually confirmed me long ago) is still saying that in years gone by, no one really understood that pedophilia was a terrible offense. “There was a curve in understanding of firstly the addictive nature of paedophilia, secondly the great damage that is done to children and people say we should have known all this 20 years ago but I don’t know,” opines Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor in the Daily Telegraph. “Personally, and its true to say that not only among bishops but in wider society, this was not known. Therefore the way a number of the bishops acted were ways in which they wouldn’t act now because they don’t have the knowledge they have now.” Truly pathetic. Elsewhere, O’Connor bemoans the fact that Britain has become a pagan society. Well, at least some pagans know that raping children is wrong.

From Salon, no less:

Considerable creative energy went into some attacks on the president. One large one read “Stop the Fourth Reich — Visualize Nuremberg/ Iraq.” On the other side were rows of doctored photos of all the top-ranking Bush administration officials wearing Nazi uniforms and officers’ caps, each with an identifying caption. Bush was identified as “The Angry Puppet” and Mind-controlled Slave/ ‘Pro-life’ Executioner.” Cheney: “The Fuhrer, Already in His Bunker.” Powell: “House Negro — Fakes Left, Moves Right.” Rice: “Will Kill Africans for Oil.” Ashcroft: “Faith-based fascist, sexless sadist.” “Field Marshall Rummy,” “Chickenhawk Wolfowitz — Jews for Genocide,” and “Minister of Dis-info — Ari Goebbels” rounded out the field.

This is the face of the anti-war left. Congrats to Salon for having the honesty to report on it. It was so bad even Alterman has found it necessary to worry that the marches might actually increase support for the war. A few readers have complained that by fixating on the extremes, I’m misrepresenting the marches. The trouble is: the extremes organized the march. Can you imagine if a massive gay rights rally has been organized by NAMBLA, the pedophile group? But NAMBLA is to gay rights what ANSWER is to legitimate anti-war sentiment. And no-one in the liberal establishment seems to care.

The Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation, aka the BBC, is now giving Noam Chomsky a platform.

Oh, and a stun gun, a blank-firing imitation firearm and a CS gas canister, along with dozens of passports, identity cards and credit cards. That’s what British cops found in a raid of a radical mosque in north London. If this isn’t a fifth column, what is?

David Horowitz tells you what the New York Times won’t.

Libya gets to head the U.N. human rights commission. The Europeans decide not to protest. Could this even be parodied?

The lead editorial today, completely overlooking the extremist nature of the organizers of the “anti-war” marches this weekend, amounts to propaganda. No mention that the main organizing group supported Milosevic, and has kind words to say about North Korea. No mention of the burning of American flags, vandalism against government offices, Bush = Hitler slogans. No mention of the relatively small turnout, compared to previous marches, nor to polls showing continued concern about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (something the march’s organizers have called a hoax.) What we get is this absurd Orwellianism:

It was impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers – from young college students to grayheads with vivid protest memories of the 60’s.

In their editorials, the Times routinely nods toward the need to enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq. But you know where Howell Raines really stands.

An MLK-Day tribute to one of the civil right’s movement’s unsung heroes, Bayard Rustin. For me, he forms a bridge between yesterday’s vital moral crusade – for black dignity – and today’s – for gay equality. If you get a chance to watch tonight’s PBS documentary on the man, I hope you’ll see what I mean.

BRITAIN’S NEW CLOUT: By defying anti-Americanism, the British prime minister has vaulted his country to a position of extraordinary global influence. Gerhard Schroder, eat your heart out.

THE SANE LEFT: Take a look at the London Observer’s editorial yesterday on the Iraq situation. The Observer is the Guardian’s sister-paper. It can be relied upon in most instances to represent left-liberal consensus. And yet it has reluctantly come to acknowledge the strengths of the pro-war argument – on liberal grounds. Here’s the money paragraph:

War with Iraq may yet not come, but, conscious of the potentially terrifying responsibility resting with the British Government, we find ourselves supporting the current commitment to a possible use of force. That is not because we have not agonised, as have so many of our readers and those who demonstrated across the country yesterday, about what is right. It is because we believe that, if Saddam does not yield, military action may eventually be the least awful necessity for Iraq, for the Middle East and for the world.

THE EXTREME LEFT: Check out these photos of the depraved from San Francisco. Routine posters equating Bush and Cheney with Hitler. KKK-style slogans: “I want YOU to die for Israel. Israel Sings Onward Christian Soldiers.” My favorite: “The Difference Between Bush and Saddam is that Saddam was Elected.” I’d say the term “fifth column” is a little esoteric for these goons. And given that this march was organized by the extremist group, ANSWER, it’s no big surprise. Now let’s see when one of the more respectable anti-war types actually condemns this kind of depravity. The Republicans rightly disowned Trent Lott. Yet much of the left expects us to ignore this hatred of the United States. Check out blogger Tacitus’ roll-call of honor for the alleged liberals all too happy to turn a blind eye to the fascists and fascist-supporters who organized their anti-war march.

NOKO NO-NO: A belated link to Charles Krauthammer’s essentially unanswerable critique of the Bush administration’s policy toward Pyongyang.

MORE EVIDENCE: Of Saddam’s continued reach for weapons of mass destruction.

AFTER THE LOTT DEBACLE: Why on earth is the Bush administration doing this?

CHINA’S GAYS: It’s still a truly horrifying place to be a gay man or woman. Not as bad as in the Islamic states, of course, but that’s hardly a good standard.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “A friend in DC emails to tell me that there are 100,000 antiwar protestors on the Mall. I am reminded of watching the New York St. Patrick’s Day parade once with a friend of Ulster Unionist sympathies. As the massed ranks of Irish marched past, my friend sighed and said: ‘The things you see when you don’t have a gun!'” – John Derbyshire, adding yet another minority, Irish Catholics, to the groups (blacks, gays) for whom he affects disdain to the point of revulsion.

ISLAM VERSUS FREEDOM: Yet another example of what happens to free expression when theocratic fascists get into power.

The liberal news organization now simply reprints pro-Saddam propaganda.

More reader opinion on the Letters Page.