Decentists and other ex-lefties

When Decents fight…

Published on November 23, 20091 Comment

Say what you like about Marko Attila Hoare and his politics, but he knows nasty little bully boys when he sees them and he sees them at Harry’s Place:

Racism, misogyny, incitement to violence – all can be overlooked when a member of your sad little circle of groupies is the guilty party. But God forbid that anyone should hold you accountable for what appears in the comment boxes of your own website, or that anyone interfere with the right of freaks and psychos to defame and abuse whomever they want while cowering behind anonymity.

[…]

They make a cesspool, and they call it ‘freedom of speech’.

In this behaviour Harry’s Place resembles nothing quite as much as the wingnut parts of the American rightwing blogosphere. There’s the same persuction complex, the same need for enemies and the destruction of them, the same inability to understand that other people might disagree with their views other than out of sheer perversity, the same dynamics with which an already extreme worldview is made more and more extreme over time as the in crowd parrots its eternal truths over and over again while anything coming from outside the group is either rejected or seen as a confirmation of this worldview. It’s a very cultish mentality and the nasty attacks even on political allies like Marko fit in perfectly.

The ship has been scuttled before the rats could leave

Published on October 1, 2009

Further proof that Decentism is dying or dead: house organ Democratiya has been assimilated by the ur-decents Dissent Magazine, last seen ratfucking the anti-war movement in the runup to the War on Iraq. Meanwhile the Euston manifesto is moribund, while certain of Decentism more outspoken cheerleaders like Nick Cohen, seem to have dropped all pretense at being on the left and are metamorphosing into Tory supporters.

All of which might just have something to do with the slow collapse of New Labour’s prospects of winning the next election during the past two years, now made painfully clear at their party conference: barely any lobbyists and the party faithful putting their hopes in Mandy. The news that The Sun is now supporting the Tories was just the rancid icing on the Labour shitcake and the only question is what took them so long:

It would obviously be too much to expect a bullying, toadying media operation like the Sun to attack Gordon Brown when he appeared to be strong. But he’s been visibly weakening for the past year, and the paper still seemed nervous about changing sides, even when it became increasingly apparent that the illness was fatal. They didn’t attack him when he was strong. They were still scared of changing sides when he was weak. It’s only when he seems to be definitively, authoritatively and absolutely politically dead that they break into the funeral home and shoot the corpse.

It’s no more than fitting that such an embarrasing display was answered by Tony McNulty ripping up a copy while playing up his scouser roots and Harriet Harman making Page 3 jokes, something neither of them would’ve dreamed of even last week. Both sides have always been scared to test each other’s strength. But The Sun‘s “treason” does show how little appeal is left in New Labour even for business interests like Murdoch — Brown may have reason to be grateful for the economic crisis, as it meant he kept his usefulness longer. Interestingly, The Sun has not just ditched New Labour, but also its foreign policy the paper once cheerleaded. The whole idea of the Decent Left/Euston Manifesto/humanitarian interventionism seems increasingly unlikely to survive the demise of the political party with which is most associated.

The Decentist philosophy in a nutshell

Published on March 7, 2008

Jamie has it, in a quote from one Paul Rogers taken from a review in the house organ of the English cruise missile left, Decentiya:

What wretched timing for Rogers then, that his book should be released at a time when American success in prosecuting the War on Terror is possibly at its highest point since the halcyon days of early 2003.

What moves it from standard decentist “we so are winning the war on terror! We are! We are!” boilerplate is the phrase “halcyon days of early 2003”. For most of us, the “halycon days of early 2003” was when a disastrious war was started that so far has claimed the lives of a million or so Iraqis, cost literally trillions of dollars and has left Iraq a wasteland. For the decents this was the start of their glorious democratic crusade against totalitarism and the last time they could pretend that it was indeed a glorious crusade, instead of the clusterfuck it really was. Normally, they are self aware enough to realise most of us don’t share their nostalgia and hence temper their longing in public somewhat, but not Rogers.

The myth of Afghanistan

Published on October 12, 2007

John Quiggin writes:

[…] I can make the point in mitigation that, if the Afghanistan war had not been so shamefully mismanaged, most obviously the diversion of most of the required resources to the Iraq venture, it might well have reached a successful conclusion by now. But even after that mismanagement, I still, reluctantly, support the view that it is better to try and salvage the situation in Afghanistan by committing more resources, rather than pulling out and leaving the Afghans to sort it out themselves. I draw that conclusion because I think there would be even more bloodshed after a withdrawal, and that there’s a reasonable prospect that a democratic government and a largely free society can survive in Afghanistan with our help. And, even after all the mismanagement, I think most Afghans are better off now (or at least no worse off) than they would have been with a continuation of Taliban rule and civil war.

What John writes here seems to be widely believed by disappointed war supporters, but I think it’s a myth. Aghanistan was always a sideshow, a stepping stone on the way to the war that Bush really wanted: Iraq. It would’ve taken another president entirely for Afghanistan to be taken serious the way John wanted it to be. But there’s a deeper fallacy here, which is that if this war had been pursued more seriously, it could’ve been a succes. Again, it’s hard to see this happening with Bush in charge, as the example of Iraq, which has had all the funds and attention Afghanistan has lacked, shows. And let’s not forget the Soviet experience in Afghanistan either; that fiasco can’t be accused of having been underfunded. Enforcing democracy (or socialism) from the barrel of a gun is hard. That’s the lesson I wish more people would learn: that war is hardly the best way to export respect for democracy and human rights.

The other lesson I wish people like John would learn is that “things could be worse” is not a valid reason for staying the course, that hoping that spending more time, more money and more lives in doing the same thing will do the trick this time is not a strategy. We cannot solve the problems of Afghanistan and our presence only makes things worse.

Because until those on the left learn that waging war in the name of democracy and human rights is counterproductive, we will get more Afghanistans and more Iraqs.