Ah, the memories

Mike L.



It's been a few years, now, since the Mavi Marmara episode.  The Freedom Flotilla!  Righteous, non-violent, peace activists facing off against those brutal, racist, militaristic Jews!

At the time I was still active on left-wing political blogs and, I have to say, it was quite an eye-opener. For years some on the political right had been suggesting that there was a "red-green alliance."  People like David Horowitz and Caroline Glick persistently told the world that the international left was actually siding with bloodthirsty terrorists against American interests and against the Jews of the Middle East.  I, of course, didn't believe that for one single moment.  I had marched against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had consistently opposed Bush II administration foreign policy since 9/11.  I had (and continue to have) all sorts of friends on the political left, both virtual and real.

Heck, Laurie, herself, is self-identified as on the left.  (She even threatened to divorce me if I registered as a Republican, but I feel fairly confident that she was kidding... kinda!)

So, you can only imagine my shock and awe when I learned that, no, Horowitz and Glick were, in fact, correct.  There is an element on the left that literally considers Jihadis to be "freedom fighters."  Again and again we were told that these flotilla people were "peace activists."  Knive and pipe-wielding peace activists.   And, yet, the fact of the matter is that the Mavi Marmara, and other crafts in the "flotilla" carried a combination of western-left activist types and actual Jihadis calling for the murder of Jews.




Like this guy.

They even sang a traditional Islamist song having to do with Mohammed's armies returning to murder Jews.

I couldn't believe it.  How was it possible that my own ideological brothers and sisters were actively, literally, and materially joining with radical Islamists who wanted to martyr themselves in a Jihad against the Jewish state of Israel?  When I asked that question in various progressive-left venues it was generally ignored, but not always.  Anyone who actually dares to raise this question often gets his reputation dragged through the mud by Democratic party partisans who, instead of honestly dealing with the problem in a straight-forward manner, rely on the dirtiest political tactics possible.  They demean and deflect, accuse and deny, and even sometimes threaten violence.

They didn't want to face it, then, and they still do not want to face it.  And now we have a president of the United States who tells the world that the rise of the Arab Spring, also known as the rise of political Islam, is a good thing.  Political Islam seeks the oppression of women, the murder of Gays, the genocide of the Jews, and is chasing non-Muslims out of the Middle East entirely and Obama tells us that this about democracy.  If it weren't so sickening, it would be absolutely laughable.

One of the many things that the western progressive-left doesn't seem to understand is that this policy of supporting Islamists throughout the Middle East represents a hard-line, radically conservative foreign policy.  There is nothing "liberal" about an American foreign policy that supports the most reactionary, violent, and conservative political movement in the world today.

I never have gotten a reasonable answer as to why so much of the alleged "left" refuses to acknowledge the rise of the Jihad or their own participation in the success of that movement.  Most progressives do not actively support it, but simply turn a blind eye.  The president of the United States, however, does actively support the rise of political Islam as we saw over the last year, or thereabouts, in Egypt.  I do not know that this is what he thinks that he is doing, but I don't care about his intentions, what I care about is his behavior and the results.

I can no more deny the truth of that statement then I can somehow deny the fact that in my last peace rally in San Francisco's Civic Center I saw a banner that combined a Star of David with a Nazi swastika.  Was I to pretend that it wasn't there?  Was I supposed to keep my mouth shut so as not to offend progressives who have clearly thrown their own values directly into the toilet?

The bottom line is that the western progressive-left has abandoned women in the Middle East, Gays in the Middle East, and non-Muslims in the Middle East, including those tenacious Jews.

Ah, the memories.