Inevitable
So much so, we should have bet on when. Today's post:
I believe proper blog parlance goes for "hits the nail on the head" or "nails it" but maybe some recollection of Decent George (Orwell, not Galloway) steered him from the iceberg of cliche at the last minute.
Sadly, our man continues:
All of this can be filed under "Oh dear." Look, democracy is generally a good thing, or as Winston Churchill pointed out, not as much of a bad thing as the alternatives (and that is how excited I get over the word 'democracy'). But this is silly. Wasn't it the Harry's Placers who satirised Lenin (the blogger, not the dead Bolshevik) as "student waving placard"? This is blogging as OCD. First you blog on some real stuff, they you find other things to blog about as you read other people. It's an illness when you think of starting campaigns so you can write about them. And write is all they (Aaro, Gene, etc) intend to do.
Let's see. Iran is currently boycotting all Danish produce over the Cartoons [which are, apparently] 'part of Zionist plot'. It's defying the EU, the US, and the UN over nuclear plants. It sent assassins after translators of "The Satanic Verses." Of course it will be swayed by another Alan "Not the Minister" Johnson campaign.
Gene of Harry's Place has it right ...
I believe proper blog parlance goes for "hits the nail on the head" or "nails it" but maybe some recollection of Decent George (Orwell, not Galloway) steered him from the iceberg of cliche at the last minute.
Sadly, our man continues:
The best way to build democracy in countries like Iran is to show solidarity and support for local democrats. There needs to be a proper campaign. Anyone know of a good, broad-based solidarity group?
All of this can be filed under "Oh dear." Look, democracy is generally a good thing, or as Winston Churchill pointed out, not as much of a bad thing as the alternatives (and that is how excited I get over the word 'democracy'). But this is silly. Wasn't it the Harry's Placers who satirised Lenin (the blogger, not the dead Bolshevik) as "student waving placard"? This is blogging as OCD. First you blog on some real stuff, they you find other things to blog about as you read other people. It's an illness when you think of starting campaigns so you can write about them. And write is all they (Aaro, Gene, etc) intend to do.
Let's see. Iran is currently boycotting all Danish produce over the Cartoons [which are, apparently] 'part of Zionist plot'. It's defying the EU, the US, and the UN over nuclear plants. It sent assassins after translators of "The Satanic Verses." Of course it will be swayed by another Alan "Not the Minister" Johnson campaign.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 2/08/2006 11:29:00 AM
5 Comments:
Remember that the Iranians only act as scenery to this issue; the correct thing is the construction of a consistent Decentist party line and (hopefully) a stick to beat the "liberal left" with if any of them don't toe it. Carly Simon syndrome is fundamental to the politics of Decentism; the ur-text here is surely Nick Cohen's various outbursts of the "which group in Madeupistan do you count as comrades, and do they recognise your support!?!?!" variety.
I think it was the Drink-Soaked Trots who coined 'Students Waving Placards'. On which subject: I've always thought, as well as being a rather dull pun, it doesn't accurately characterise the SWP, many more of whom are disillusioned fiftysomethings than students. Certainly when I was a student (1999-2002) campus politics was dominated not by dogmatic hard-lefties (they were barely visible, in fact) but by brylcreemed identikit representatives of the three main parties, all yah-booing at each other but with very little to choose between them in actual policy terms.
In my experience, the modern student politico is far more likely to be a Decentist than a Trot.
I posted this question over at Talk Politics (and got a neat reply): What do the Harryettes mean by 'the democratic forces' in Iraq or wherever? If they mean parties that got votes and not the insurgency, then they're lumbered with the pro-Iran Shias. If they mean some marginal and irrelevant, but nonetheless vaguely leftist secular group (hi there, Iyad Allawi!), then the Decents really are screwed.
Surely Aaro means 'broad based movement' (or whatever he said) in Iran, not the UK. Even Alan 'not the Minister' Johnson's reach doesn't extend that far.
This might well be the proof of Sarcastic B's first comment.
Look at the sponsor list for this carnival of the decents.
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/view/5624
"Organisation of women’s freedom in Iraq-UK Branch, Middle East Centre for Women’s Rights (MECWR), International Federation of Iraqi refugees (IFIR) International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (IOIR), Iranian Civil Rights Committee and others. Iranian Civil Rights Committee (Iran CRC), Organisation for Emancipation of Women in Iran (OEWI)."
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