Sides? (was Re: the terrorist bombings in London

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Just to tidy up:

> Furthermore The only way that Anti-Capitalist Protestors and Jihadists 
> could  *seem* to be on the same side, however, is if you're stupid 
> enough to confuse method and aim (or write for a British tabloid); 
> Anti-Capitalist Protestors weren't aiming to "hijack the agenda of 
> those talks" but to protest against the idea of a 'G8' itself in as 
> peaceful a manner as possible -- though there have been riots at 
> several of the summit-meetings. The Jihadist aim and method is terror. 
>  There is a universe of a difference.

Of course there's some difference, but your PR is terrible, and calling 
people "stupid" isn't going to help. One night the main news story 
shows violent protests against the G-8 summit in Edinburgh, with masked 
hooligans attacking police and breaking shop windows; the next night 
you've got the terrorist attacks in London, another manifestation of 
violent opposition to the G-8 summit, with the police and emergency 
services swinging into action to aid the innocent civilian victims of 
the attacks. The juxtapositions are there, unfortunate or accidental 
though they might be; the politicians don't even need to make the link 
explicit. And the point remains that, in the popular imagination, it is 
an "awfully easy leap from G8 protestors (in their hundred thousands) 
to those violent brick throwers (measured in hundreds)", as Mike points 
out in his most recent post, just as it is between the terrorist 
extremists and Muslims in general. Same principles apply in both cases: 
weed out the violent brick throwers; weed out the terrorists.

The great hypocrisy of the "Anti-Capitalist" lobby -- anarchists, 
socialists, what have you -- is that on the one hand they decry the 
evils of US or UN intervention against corrupt despots and regimes 
wherein injustice is rife, minorities are oppressed and genocides are 
wrought ("non-aggressor nations" is the euphemism of choice), and yet 
their whole raison d'etre is built around the violent overthrow of a 
cultural system (capitalism) and governments which have a democratic 
mandate.

And the terrible irony of the current debate is that, to all intents 
and purposes, while the G-8 nations are working to ease poverty and 
oppression in Africa, this "Anti-Capitalist" lobby, by their opposition 
to the process, appears to be dedicating itself to prolonging African 
hardship and misery. It still remains to be seen whether or not this is 
in fact the case.

best