Why Do Leftists Like Islamic Terrorists So Much?

[jordan179]

(this started as a reply to banner's posted question of the same name)

Introduction

Why do leftists (socialists/communists) like islamic terrorists so much?

Comments

[drewkitty]

When you talk of the American Left, would you please do me a favor and name the groups and perhaps politically prominent individuals you are talking about? Do any of them have any influence or political pull? Presumably if they could win the 2004 election, that would be a lot of power

[jordan179]

When you talk of the American Left, would you please do me a favor and name the groups and perhaps politically prominent individuals you are talking about?

Given that my post covered over 100 years of history, you are asking me to research and write a book, or at least a major essay.

Do any of them have any influence or political pull?

Some do, most don't. Fortunately, in America, most Communists and Socialists have been thoroughly marginalized -- everywhere save on campus.

Historically, what has tended to happen far more often is that the moderate Left (which is not what I'm talking about here) has sympathized with the radical Leftist individuals. Most of the Hiss sympathizers, for instance, were not Communists; in fact most of them believed Hiss wasn't a Communist.

To take the modern world, Noam Chomsky is a Terrorist sympathizer. Chomsky has some influence, but no real power. However, many people sympathize with Chomsky (often because they misunderstand him) who do have both influence and political power.

Presumably if

[finnkveldulfr]

Jordan179's statement:
"Given that my post covered over 100 years of history, you are asking me to research and write a book, or at least a major essay."

Hmm... In short, your entire post is a "straw man" attack-- one long string of propaganda masquerading as a summation of over 100 years of history. Nothing but lies and bulls*** and over-the-top generalizations on targets in the U.S. that only existed perhaps on the fringes and in the deluded imaginations of a few very very very far right-wingers.

If you haven't done enough research to name your targets, to be able to note specific groups and people AND explain what their views are (accurately) and explain why you think their particular views fit the generalities you're attacking-- you haven't done enough research to back up the words you've written here in this post of yours. You're just parroting the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who is equally irresponsible in his lack of research and forethought.

[jordan179]

Given that my post covered over 100 years of history, you are asking me to research and write a book, or at least a major essay.

Hmm... In short, your entire post is a "straw man" attack-- one long string of propaganda masquerading as a summation of over 100 years of history.

Nope.

In short, my post is a short essay rather than a book. Can't you read for content?

Nothing but lies and bulls*** and over-the-top generalizations on targets in the U.S. that only existed perhaps on the fringes and in the deluded imaginations of a few very very very far right-wingers.

Yet, oddly, your reply also names no names and gives no specific reasons. Wait, I'm not being fair, let's repost a little more of your post ...

If you haven't done enough research to name your targets, to be able to note specific groups and people AND explain what their views are (accurately) and explain why you think their particular views fit the generalities you're attacking-- you haven't done enough research to back up the words you've written here in this post of

[darthbeckman]

In the meantime, the task of the West in terms of foreign policy was to avoid war with the East.

Uh... what exactly are you saying here? Do you think we should have gone to war over, say, Hungary in 1956?

[jordan179]

In the meantime, the task of the West in terms of foreign policy was to avoid war with the East.

Uh... what exactly are you saying here? Do you think we should have gone to war over, say, Hungary in 1956?

No.

I'm saying that the actual task of the West should have been, all along, to defeat the East by a combination of diplomatic, economic, military and political action.

For instance, a wiser policy in 1956 would have been to militarily accept (while condemning and mentioning at every later opportunity) the Soviet invasion of Hungary; while also supporting the Anglo-French-Israeli seizure of the Canal Zone.

If we'd done that, Nasser would have fallen in 1956 (probably assassinated, in the sharkswim of Arab politics) and the lesson would have been "don't mess with the Western Great Powers" rather than "defy the West for easy brownie points at home." Heck, Ba'athism might have died in the cradle, instead of surviving to the present day.

Note that when Reagan and Thatcher chose to confront, and then negotiate from strength, the

[bellisaurius]

For the meantime, I'm just going to say this is a great piece of writing with some really good lines (rich enough to oppress, too poor to invite to the salons had me laughing out loud.)

[jordan179]

I'm glad you liked it.

It's really ticking the leftists off, and they're not getting specific in counterargument, so I can tell that my humor really hit home.

[patchworkmind]

Great googlymoogly. I found your post quite an interesting read with several chuckle-worthy lines, but I found some of the responses to it positively jaw-droppingly, laugh-out-loud funny. It never ceases to amaze me how so many, on the right and the left, love to make allegations rather than refute, as if somehow it's merely the charge that "you're stupid" or a pawn/parrot of some secret global cabal that will somehow make all of what someone says go away.

Many people, these days especially on the left, really hate it when people point out facts-in-evidence. Many on the right hate it too, but they get less press time and attention, and so it's the tinfoil hat crowd for the left we usually read, hear or see.

Keep posting this kind of thing. It's interesting.

Reason for Lack of Leftist Debating Skills

[jordan179]

On the issue of capitalism vs. socialism, one of their major issues of the 20th century, the modern Left is suffering from a combination of rejection by reality and strong influence in academia and the media. This makes them want to ignore reality, and gives them the ability to do so mostly unchallenged.

This makes them very angry -- frothingly angry -- when someone challenges them on it. They froth and vent rather than debate because they are used to arguing in forums where the moderators (teachers or editors) are on their side. They're unused to having to come up with actual reasons for their positions, and furious at the demand that they do so.

Re: Reason for Lack of Leftist Debating Skills

[patchworkmind]

Yes. I noticed this back in my university days, back in the late 80s and early 90s. Ivory towers are marvelous insulators against the horrors of the reality of the real world. The thing many cannot seem to comprehend is that at some point in time the rubber has to meet the road, and it is at the time that the practical value and efficacy of all the theories, figurings and philosophizing is shown. And quite often it is the ideas and notions of the Left that are found wanting. They hate that, I know. So they go for character assassination and petty sophistry in an attempt to deflect reality, and alas, with a great many people it works -- because so many people would rather feel than think.

Re: Reason for Lack of Leftist Debating Skills

[bellisaurius]

The shame is that socialism made a lot of inroads, and got a lot of stuff done, stuff that even the right considers simply part of society (like social security, some basic environmental stuff, etc...), that it can often come off as being childish pouting about not being able to get everything they wanted.

[fpb]

Frankly, you wasted a great deal of space. The reason for the immediate and unthinking empathy between hard left of whatever colour (and a lot of the hardest left is not necessarily marxist or even socialist - take the anarchists, for instance) and Islamofascists, is that they both are institutionally in revolt against things as they are, and that they both believe it possible to have a perfect social order on this earth. This gives them all the same enemies, almost the same rhetoric, pretty much the same mood, and pretty much the same procedures. Add to this that in all cases the really dominant element is the hate of reality - to which the various ideals and beliefs are really appendages or excuses - and you realize that there really is no reason why they should not go together.

[jordan179]

Well, I tend to think about things primarily in their historical contexts, and there was a time when the hard Left would not have sympathized with the Islamofascists. As a matter of fact, there was a time just a quarter-century ago when the Soviet Union was stymied in conquest by an alliance between America and the Islamofascists, in the Soviet-Afghan War.

The reason for the long essay was to show how reality "failed" the Left, over a prolonged period of time, thus reducing them to the despair required for them to cheer for the Islamofascists -- who stand for pretty much everything the Left opposes -- save for opposition to the world order.

In other words, the Left is now so desperate it will take any allies.

[fpb]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Your problem, as someone else told you, is that you make a heap of everything from middling Democrats to black-banner anarchists and imagine that they are all of one mind and one purpose. What has been happening is a flattening of most of Western public opinion - manipulated, of course, by the media - on the traditional positions of the extreme, especially Marxist, left. These people, let me tell you, have been pro-Palestinian for decades. The links between the PLO and European terrorists in the seventies are well known: it is certain that the PLO trained hundreds of Italian Red Brigade members in its camps. Some of them eventually converted to Islam, like the hideous Hamza Roberto Piccardo, the Muslim Brotherhood's man in Italy. What is new is that what was once a murderous lunatic fringe that no respectable Social Democrat (or Italian Communist - the Italian Communists were practically the same as Social Democrats in the seventies and early eighties) would touch with a barge-pole, has now drifted into

[jordan179]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Your problem, as someone else told you, is that you make a heap of everything from middling Democrats to black-banner anarchists and imagine that they are all of one mind and one purpose.

I don't, actually, where American politics are concerned. In America, only the most extreme left wing of the Democrat Party actually likes the Islamofascists or wants them to win (joined, amusingly enough, by a few extreme-right Republicans). From what I've heard (and from what you're confirming) European leftists are a good deal more radical.

What has been happening is a flattening of most of Western public opinion - manipulated, of course, by the media - on the traditional positions of the extreme, especially Marxist, left. These people, let me tell you, have been pro-Palestinian for decades.

Yes, especially because (back during the Cold War) the Soviets were one of the PLO's main funding sources.

What is new is that what was once a murderous lunatic fringe that no respectable Social Democrat (or Italian Communist -