AND THEY CALL THEMSELVES "LIBERALS"!

Liberal with other people's money is about all

America's academic Left still love communism: "In Denial pulls no punches. "Far too much academic writing about communism, anticommunism and espionage is marked by dishonesty, evasion, special pleading and moral squalor. Like Holocaust deniers, some historians of American communism have evaded and avoided facing a preeminent evil"-namely, the Stalinist dictatorship that for decades ruled the Soviet Union, murdered millions of its own citizens, and treated foreign Communist parties as mere minions of Moscow. There's no denying Haynes and Klehr's contention that "a significant number of American academics still have soft spots in their hearts for the CPUSA," the American Communist Party".

The 60s generation: "One of the most striking features in the anti-Vietnam-War movement and standpoint .. was the astonishing tolerance shown towards the Communist countries, and their deeds, that is, what they did or had done to their own people, and to others, and to their attitudes towards basic notions like freedom, human autonomy, and even the possibility of democracy... Elitism without Guilt.. the Sixties' young grabbed it, and have lived off the fantasy ever since. These Believers think that everything worth saying has been said - and is known - by them. Past knowledge and history are bunk. The forever young make the new history, and make sure that no-one with different values is listened to. The similarity of these political fairytales told to our impressionable, upwardly mobile radical young, and those told to young Germans, and Italians and Russians - rather earlier - is striking".

At least this book pulls no punches about the Leftist attitude to free speech: There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too by Stanley Fish. Given my generally cynical view of Leftist motivations, I am inclined to agree with the reviewer who said: "But it seems to me more likely that Fish is simply being meritricious for personal gain: he is using his considerable rhetorical and pedagogical talents to defend nonsense, not because he believes it or wants others to object to him, but in order to make a name for himself as academia's "bad boy"." Fish's arguments are nonetheless conventional Leftist postmodernism and, as such, are taken very seriously by his colleagues on the academic Left -- as we see here

Che Guevara is still worshipped by the young Leftists of Western universities but as a Cuban writes of him: "He did not have any business in Cuba but he went there to kill Cubans. He did not have any business in Africa but he went there to kill Africans. He did not have any business in Bolivia, but he went there to kill Bolivians, where he eventually died on his own sword.... As far as I am concerned, Ernesto Guevara was the Bin Laden of his time.... It will be very insulting for millions of people if, 30 years from now, they were to see in the streets people wearing Bin Laden T-shirts, as it is now for us to see people using Che Guevara's T-shirts."

Actually both Castro and Guevara have more in common with Mussolini (the founder of Fascism) than anyone else -- though that is probably unkind to Mussolini. As it says here: "From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini was the Che Guevara of his day, a living saint of leftism. Handsome, courageous, charismatic, an erudite Marxist, a riveting speaker and writer, a dedicated class warrior to the core, he was the peerless duce of the Italian Left. He looked like the head of any future Italian socialist government, elected or revolutionary...."

Hayek had it right long ago: "Hayek's challenge was to argue that German Nazism was not an aberrant "right-wing" perversion growing out of the "contradictions" of capitalism. Instead, the Nazi movement had developed out of the "enlightened" and "progressive" socialist and collectivist ideas of the pre-World War I era, which many intellectuals in England and the United States had praised and propagandized for in their own countries."

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ELSEWHERE

Keith Burgess Jackson has put up a rather touching tribute to his adopted State of Texas. It sounds like a place I would like. I feel I should say why I still live in my home State of Queensland -- even though I have travelled all over the world. All four of my grandparents were born here so if I cannot praise the place, who could? But in fact I feel that I could be perfectly happy in many places of the world so I am not a good spruiker for any one. The subtropical climate and the laid-back, friendly and conservative attitudes of the people here have a lot to be said for them, however. And our media cover not only our own country but also give extensive coverage to two other related countries: The USA and the UK. I am sorry to say that John Kerry pops up on our TV occasionally too. So it is easy to feel a world-citizen here while in reality being in a peaceful and prosperous place far away from most of it.

Speaking of what we see on TV here, I will never forget sitting in my big and comfortable old classic Queensland house and seeing on TV Ronald Reagan's speech in the immediate aftermath of the first space shuttle loss. It fixed in my mind forever the view of America as the last hero nation that will dare to push forward all of humanity's frontiers despite the risks and costs involved (And see here and here for the latest space achievement). Europeans cosseted away safely in their welfare States look contemptible by comparison. And I think Europeans know what girls they look by comparison. That's why they hate America so much.

It's probably not much consolation but the GOP is not the only conservative party spending public money like a drunken sailor. Australia's conservative government has just spent $2 billion on building a railroad to nowhere -- or almost nowhere. As an Australian businessman who knows the transport industry well summed it up: "They've spent $2 billion building a railway for five trains a week and a few cartons of beer, and I've described the financial returns on that as being smaller than a tick's testicles". And for once I cannot blame some of the Left for having a bit of a field day with it. But guess whom they blame for the whole boondoggle? You wouldn't believe it: Halliburton! I kid you not. Back in the 60s the Left used to see the CIA under every bed. Now that we all know what a comic opera the CIA is, Halliburton is the all-purpose villain. See here.

There is a good article here on what a lot of bunkum psychological "counselling" often is.

Dick McDonald is mounting another attack on the dangerous distortions of the American Leftist media.

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

Three more examples of Leftist dishonesty: They blame the 9/11 attacks on "poverty" in the Islamic world. Yet most of the attackers were Saudis and Saudi Arabia is one of the world's richest countries! They also say that they oppose racism yet support "affirmative action" -- which judges people by the colour of their skin! They say that they care about "the poor" but how often do you hear them calling for the one thing that would bring about a worldwide economic boom in poor countries -- the USA and the EU abandoning their agricultural protectionism? Leftists obviously care more about conservative farmers than they do about the poor!

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