To The Far Left: You've Lost It

I'm a mainstream moderate to liberal Democrat.

The other day I was listening to Pacifica Radio, as I sometimes do to catch up with what is going on at the left fringe of the political spectrum.  For those that aren't familiar, Pacifica is a left-wing radio network with several stations in California, New York, and DC, probably most famous as the carrier of the news and comment program Democracy Now.

The topic at hand when I tuned in was an interview show about UFOs.  Now, there are actually fascinating psychological and sociological insights into the UFO and alien encounter phenomenon these days, so I was hoping the show would head in that direction. 

But instead, the host and guest talked about how UFOs and alien encounters were totally real.  In fact, the guest had had many such encounters himself, complete with gobledeegook about how 'electromagnetic fields' around the aliens caused his watch to malfunction and hair to stand on end.  The host and the guest then went on to shock even my jaded ears with a new insane conspiracy theory that I've actually never heard before: 

See, many people including myself are amused by the way that supposed alien encounters so often involve an anal probe, as though these transcendent beings capable of interstellar flight and communication just can't overcome a serious dirty banana fetish.  But what these Pacifica people had to say about that was that the anal probe stories are actually a government conspiracy - a disinformation campaign, a false flag operation of sorts - to sew doubt and ridicule about real alien encounters, like the kind the guest apparently has all the time. 

People at the CIA cooking up anal probe stories and then hiring (or brainwashing?) tens of thousands of people to go out to the media and claim them?  It was absolutely as insane (and inane) a conspiracy theory as anything one could encounter on the Far Right these days.  Glen Beck or Alex Jones could do no better.

On this blog we have often remarked that the Far Left and the Far Right have become quite similar.  But what I have concluded now is that the Far Left has now even dropped any pretense of being different than the Far Right.  No more "reality based community", and not even claims thereof!  And as goes rationality down the drain, so goes human rights and other pillars of what once defined the left.

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I first became acquainted with Pacifica radio around ten years ago, and it seems that as of then the Far Left still saw itself as in the tradition of enlightenment liberalism, albeit a harder core version.  In those terrible days after the 2000 election fiasco and the post-9/11 Bush worship by the media, it seemed a bastion to me.  They did the reporting that other media outlets didn't, and there was even a science show called Explorations hosted by Physicist Michio Kaku that I loved. 

However, I was able to witness the descent to madness in real time.  By 2004 I stopped listening for any reasons other than oppo-research of the type mentioned above.  To my disappointment the network was peddling the fiction that John Kerry was no better than Bush, and in a hip-hop style sound clip they played repeatedly, someone ranted about how they couldn't vote for Kerry because "he doesn't look like me."  Can you imagine a less liberal, less enlightenment thing to say, let alone highlight??   Again, this is identical speech to what one would encounter on the far right, about Obama.  Already by then, they had begun to be interchangable.

My next witness of descent was via Daily Kos.  What started as a roughly mainstream forum which may have pioneered the phrase "reality based community" has now become a place where most people enthusiastically excused cop (and civilian) killer Christopher Dorner, where one encounters the exact same rhetoric in regard to Israel and Jewish Americans as one would find at a far-right website, and where Hugo Chavez is lionized.  I see no difference between how they equivocated and ultimately excused Christopher Dorner and how a far-right group would excuse and accept a domestic terrorist who was murdering abortion providers.  There is a lively and lengthy debate today on Daily Kos about whether North Korea or the United States is worse.  Most people are picking the United States.

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So what does the Far Left stand for now?  Do they stand for anything in the liberal tradition of enlightenment and human rights?  Do they care about gay rights?  Women's rights?  Abortion rights?  Racial harmony?

The answer is a big fat 'no'.  Witness the Far Left's embrace of Hamas and Hezbollah, the most genocidal, misogynistic, and homophobic societies on Earth (and the word 'homophobic' doesn't really capture it because these societies don't fear gay people, they just torture and kill them).   Think I'm exaggerating with the word 'embrace'?  Here's what Judith Butler, a professor of philosophy and queer theory at UC Berkeley and widely respected and quoted voice of the Far Left had to say on the matter:

"Understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important."

 This is the same Hamas that executes gays, tortures political opponents, doesn't let women and girls participate in sports, advocates for the genocide of the Jewish people, and believes as fact a notorious antisemitic hoax from 100 years ago.  This should be the OPPOSITE of what it means to be the left.

But instead the Far Left has embraced Hamas, just as they have embraced the Iranian regime, Hugo Chavez, and anyone else, no matter how regressive and oppressive they are.  The sole qualification is whether they are hostile to the US and/or Israel.  They will also embrace any ideology, no matter how illiberal, if it is somehow in opposition, again, to the US and/or Israel.  Witness the UFO anal probe conspiracy theory I discussed at the outset - I'm sure the primary appeal of it is that it is a way to blame the US government for something. 

This has absolutely nothing to do with the traditional values of the left.  The contemporary Far Left has a ton of rallies, and has dedicated a ton of editorial content to anyone or thing opposed to Israel, and anything having to do with either Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, or the M.O.V.E. siege.  But where are the rallies against female genital mutilation?  Where are the editorials against the way that gays are executed in Saudi Arabia and Gaza, and subjected to 10 years imprisonment in Jamaica?  Where is the outrage at neo-Nazi language in their very own ranks?

Hell, they don't even give a damn about Tibet anymore.  Because the Dalai Lama is just a leader who wants a gradual transition to independence and freedom for people, not a macho terrorist who wants to blow up America - how borrrring!  Listen to Pacifica, or read Counterpunch, or browse Daily Kos and you will hear or see nothing about Tibet.  For years.  In contrast, Israel is bashed and illiberal Islamists and dictators are championed every hour.

If you haven't checked in on the Far Left in a few years I suggest you do so, because you will probably be surprised.  It is not a bunch of peaceniks and hippies.  It is now the domain of hard core haters and paranoiacs, and people absolutely on a mission to destroy Western Civilization - even the liberal parts.  Actually, especially the liberal parts. 

As a mainstream Democrat, I wish that the Far Left was just a more left-wing version of mainstream liberalism, so that it would put me and my beliefs right in the center of the Overton Window.  But instead, the Far Left has become something completely different, and completely disgusting.