Wretchard, of the Belmont Club asks: "Is the war on terror necessarily a war with the Left?" The answer, as I'm sure he realizes, is that Totalitarianism transcends such outdated Second Millennium conceps as "Left" and "Right," which were merely the relative positions that people adopted at the Tennis Court, and the mere existence of which Hannah Arendt saw as predetermining the inevitable rise of the "awful center:" Robespierre. But in relation to the new strain of the old disease Wretchard has such an elegant way of putting it:
There remains a third answer. That the existence of these two great religious totalitarianisms -- one secular only in name and the other religious only in dissimulation -- is required for their mutual defeat. It relies on the observation that both the Left and Islamism react together to produce an extremely toxic combination which neither could have achieved alone. It takes some reflection to remember just how far both the notions of Islamism and Leftism have moved since September 11. The former was an unknown towards which the man in the street would have been indifferent while the latter was a kind of eccentricity, rough yet without danger. Neither will be again. Both have mutated in interaction or perhaps have become that which they really were.Both are struggling for the space in which conservatism can never go and for the prize which no sane man ever covets: the dominion of souls. Without their mutual presence either could have occupied a kind of cultural sanctuary in which they would brood, proof against interference from people with simple day jobs. Together they guarantee that their places of safety, every media outlet, every school and every place of worship will be transformed into arenas of unparalleled ferocity -- to the possible benefit of the world. Is the Global War on Terror necessarily against the Left? We shall see. We shall see.
Armed Liberal also has a few thoughts on the ancien theme as well, but the website is down for some reason, so the link will have to wait.
Posted by Demosophist at March 30, 2004 06:02 PM | TrackBackThe american left controls the universities. This means that it generates tomorrow's journalists who shape public opinion, and creates tomorrow's teachers, who shape young minds.
The left was badly humiliated by the west, when russian and eastern european communism fell. The abysmal economic failures of Cuba and North Korea stand as living rebukes to the utopian plans of leftists. The american left, in control of the academy and much of the media, wants much more. But it has no army to humiliate america, so it needs a proxy.
Just as islamists are humiliated by the failure of the islamic world in comparison to the west. The left is quite willing to partner with militant islamists, providing political flack, in order to bring down the offending west.
Posted by: RB at April 1, 2004 12:58 PM