The Left has lost its way over Libya By William Bowles

Well worth reading through this one from Mr. Bowles....

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William Bowles

In an essentially excellent piece Sarah Flounders ‘Libya: Demonization and Self-determination‘, near the beginning under the sub-hed ‘What should be the response to this terror?’ she writes:

“Unfortunately, a minority of groups or individuals who present themselves as opponents of war spend more time cataloguing Gadhafi’s past real or alleged shortcomings than rallying people to respond to this criminal, all-out U.S. attack. Their influence would be small, except that it coincides with the opinions of the U.S. ruling class. Thus it is important to thoroughly answer their arguments.”

Then she writes:

“The response to this colonial war of aggression should be the same as the response to a racist mobilization, a racist lynch mob or a police attack on an oppressed community: Mobilize all possible forces to stand up to the crime and say “no!” Refuse to take part in the orchestrated campaign of vilification.
“This may not be an easy position to take. But it is essential to reject the racist political onslaught that accompanies the military onslaught.”

I get the impression that Sarah feels caught between a rock and an alleged leftie, else why say ‘This may not be an easy position to take’? Why is it not an easy position to take if it’s so clearly a imperialist and racist attack on a sovereign country? Flounders continues:

“Of course, such misguided groups are a small minority in the progressive movement. But there are those political organizations, which six months ago had not bothered to mention Libya, that now suddenly seek out respectable venues to add their own reasons that the dictator Gadhafi “must go” — an echo of the imperialist demand. Some even insist that in order to be part of the political discourse, every anti-war voice must first join in condemnation of Gadhafi.”

But nowhere do I find Flounders asking the question why? And it’s not merely “misguided groups [who] are a small minority” who fell (again) into the Imperial trap. We saw the same ‘misguided minority’ do it over Yugoslavia and Kosovo. At the the end of the 60s it was Nigeria and the Biafra War (over oil of course with surprise-surprise, Shell, at the centre of it).

But why is the ‘misguided minority’ even regarded as being a part of a (real) left in the West? Or does it reflect a general loss of direction, even motivation for wanting real change within what’s left of the left?

I think it’s time to take a look at the timeline of the latest barbarian attack on the defenceless of the world. I think it reveals far more about how the left in the West operates, what are its motivations, than it does about the aims of the Empire (which should surely by now be apparent even to a reluctant leftie). [...]