Israel's negative campaign against Palestinians is on the backburner, for now

[shira]

15. When the mainstream left embraces the rhetoric of the far right

Last edited Tue Jan 17, 2012, 10:21 PM - Edit history (6)

Read this:

http://warped-mirror.com/2012/01/14/when-the-mainstream-left-embraces-the-rhetoric-of-the-far-right/

Because some members of this forum are *mainly* interested in I/P, a lot of you seem to think that anyone who objects to a right-wing source does so just to divert from the message.

That's pretty much the case. If you read the link I provided, you'll find that the same people crying "rightwing" are among the last to speak out about the left embracing batshit insane extreme rightwing rhetoric and viewpoints. WRT the I/P debate, it's not just rightwing antisemitic rhetoric which is bad by itself, but also denying, ignoring, and explaining away the extreme rightwing behavior and views of Palestinian as well as Arab leadership (like the MB). They take away all accountability Palestinians have (Israel is always to blame / Palestinians are never responsible). That's the racism of low (or no) expectations. In addition, they're sanctimonious rightwing humanitarians as the causes they fight most vehemently for are propaganda for far rightwing authoritarian regimes.

As someone who objects to right-wing sources on *any* side of the I/P issue, this is not the case for me.

WRT the I/P issue, if we were to exclude every single source that employs rightwing rhetoric and POV's, this forum would practically be empty. We'd have to discard just about every single source.

I just think that right-wing viewpoints are intrinsically evil, and poison all discourse!

Depends on what you believe is a right-wing viewpoint. I seriously doubt you'd label leftwing views that mimic extreme far right viewpoints as being evil and poisonous - or admit this is a significant problem with the left. Any leftwing source WRT the I/P issue that excuses, ignores, denies, or explains away antisemitism and extreme batshit insane rightwingery is doing propaganda for extreme right-wingers. Talk about intrinsically evil...

At least if you said, 'Rubin is a bad man, but he's right about Abbas' or whatever, one could begin to debate the issues. But the whole concept of calling someone a 'liberal' when they want Obama replaced by a Republican, support massive public spending cuts, and accept Melanie Phillips' views on Muslims in Europe gets in the way of taking anything else about him seriously!

I'm with you on the part about voting in a Republican. Single issue liberal voters wanting a Democrat replaced by a Republican is a betrayal of liberal values. The feeling is that the liberal votes in a Republican on 1 issue hoping he causes less damage (overall) than the Democrat he's voting against. If on that one issue the Republican holds more of a liberal view than the Democrat, how do you account for the other 100 views where the Democrat is more liberal than the Republican? What do liberal values really mean to you if you're willing to sacrifice nearly all of them for 1 issue.

WRT what you believe about Rubin's views on spending cuts and Eurabia, I disagree. I think you're reading more into Rubin than what's actually there in his writings.