Rick from the Young Ones
The Inquisitor summarises (and summarily dismisses) the main counter-arguments used by the pro-war "left" over here.
Only one question, as hinted at by my scare-quotes back there: on what grounds do we claim that Ick Cohen ( <-- that started out as a typo, but I think it's an improvement), David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm - especially Oliver Kamm - and the rest of Blair's media claque are in any way shape or form on the "left"? After careful thought, I can only conclude it is on similar grounds that Rick off classic UK sitcom The Young Ones was on the "left", in that he called anyone and anything he didn't like a "fascist", regardless of who or what this actually was (traffic wardens, his landlord, his hippy housemate Neil). This could then be used to justify his massive obnoxiousness to all and sundry. Cohen et al perform a similar trick - Saddam Hussein? "Fascist!" Muqtada al-Sadr? "Islamofascist!" Stop the War Coalition? "Front for fascist apologists!" Robert Fisk? "Lying fascist apologist!" George Galloway? "Fascist moustache fascist traitor fascist!" (it is quite fun, actually) - with the description bandied about so much as to lose any value: stupid, when a genuinely fascist organisation, the BNP, wins 800,000 votes in a national election.
Mind you, all this has the added advantage of allowing one to pretend to be refighting the Spanish Civil War a la Orwell when presumably just propping up bars in Farringdon/abusing anti-war petitioners in the street/whatever Kamm gets up to in his spare time/etc. Hasta la vista, baby! No patatas!
Only one question, as hinted at by my scare-quotes back there: on what grounds do we claim that Ick Cohen ( <-- that started out as a typo, but I think it's an improvement), David Aaronovitch, Oliver Kamm - especially Oliver Kamm - and the rest of Blair's media claque are in any way shape or form on the "left"? After careful thought, I can only conclude it is on similar grounds that Rick off classic UK sitcom The Young Ones was on the "left", in that he called anyone and anything he didn't like a "fascist", regardless of who or what this actually was (traffic wardens, his landlord, his hippy housemate Neil). This could then be used to justify his massive obnoxiousness to all and sundry. Cohen et al perform a similar trick - Saddam Hussein? "Fascist!" Muqtada al-Sadr? "Islamofascist!" Stop the War Coalition? "Front for fascist apologists!" Robert Fisk? "Lying fascist apologist!" George Galloway? "Fascist moustache fascist traitor fascist!" (it is quite fun, actually) - with the description bandied about so much as to lose any value: stupid, when a genuinely fascist organisation, the BNP, wins 800,000 votes in a national election.
Mind you, all this has the added advantage of allowing one to pretend to be refighting the Spanish Civil War a la Orwell when presumably just propping up bars in Farringdon/abusing anti-war petitioners in the street/whatever Kamm gets up to in his spare time/etc. Hasta la vista, baby! No patatas!
posted by Meaders at
3:42 pm
