NP Of interest

[jbor]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027034261.html

'20 Million Reasons to Rage' by Imre Salusinszky

Extract:

[...]

The good news, however, is that the contemporary Left has learned the
lessons of communism, and cleansed itself of any totalitarian impulse. As a
writer in the Times Literary Supplement remarked, a synonym for the "Third
Way" would be: "Hayek won!" This was, of course, not the case, even in the
1970s, when there was a segue in the Labor Party from social democratism
across to something much more sinister. These days, even those most wary of
Big Brother, and most committed to a market-based economy, can safely vote
Labor.

Here, I am speaking of the mainstream Left. The situation is completely
different as regards the radical, or socialist, or anti-capitalist, or
"intellectual" Left - the group that spends most of its seemingly ample free
time bitching about Labor's "sell-out". In fact, all of the very genuine
achievements of the Labor movement since World War II have been made
despite, rather than because of, their contribution.

The virulently anti-American response by this group to the events on and
since September 11 has demonstrated that Left intellectuals have lost
neither their instinct for collaboration, nor their talent for dressing that
instinct in the phoney language of concern. Even if their rote-learnt list
of American crimes were entirely accurate - and it is anything but - it
would not really matter, because those are not their real reason for hating
America.

Their real reason was summed up in a single sentence by the political
theorist Chandran Kukathas: "America stands for the idea that people should
be free to live by their own lights, regardless of the opinions or
convictions of others."

[...]

best

p.s. Kudos to Dave Monroe for an illustrious opening to the SLSL.