Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Radical Puppetry

One of my "favorite" things back in the exciting runup to our Great and Glorious Adventure in Iraq is that people who supported the Iraq war were always advising its opponents how they should be opposing it. You know, protesting this way is bad, protesting that way is good. The best was when they all agreed that if The Left really cared about Iraq then they would have spent the last several years protesting Saddam Hussein. Yah, that would've shown him! Saddam, fifty hippies have formed a drum circle in Washington, DC! Oh my, I must usher in a new era of human rights and economic justice for all of the people of Iraq!

There's been similar commentary in the UK, about how The Left should be protesting Assad, or whoever it is we're/they're at notwar with in Syria this week, instead of the actions of their own government. (The Syria case is especially "hilarious" as no one can keep track of whether we're more interested in ousting Assad or fighting "nonmoderate" rebels that week).

The most politically powerless group in most countries these days is always supposed to be using their mighty power in support of whatever it is the people with actual power want them to use it for. Of course The Left in these cases generally has a pretty simple message, right or wrong, which is "how about we stop bombing other countries it doesn't seem to be helping much." No matter how bad Hussein was or Assad is, protesting them was/is likely to encourage the bombs, not discourage them.

The Left really should be listening to centrist pundits who don't share their goals at all. Then they'd be powerful!