[Cross-posted at Z Word.]
John Pilger, the ultra-left New Statesman columnist, infamously said, in regard to the 2004 Iraq insurgency, that “we cannot afford to be choosy” — i.e., that people of the left must support the Baath/jihadi assassins and bombers because they are arrayed against the forces of Empire. He was hardly alone in this view; Arundhati Roy and George Galloway argued the same.
So it’s interesting to see how choosy Pilger thinks we can be when it comes to supporting the new President of the United States, Barack Obama. Very choosy indeed, it turns out. (Ben Cohen fisked Pilger in this guest post at Harry’s.)
Back in January, Pilger described Obama as “a glossy Uncle Tom” — which, as a friend points out, “is not so far from what Jackie Mason called Dinkins.” (That would be “a fancy schvartze with a moustache.”)
Arundhati Roy, in an October interview, said that Obama in office will “have to prove that he is whiter than the white man.” I remember thinking at the time that Roy should just get it over with and call Obama a House Negro. Well, now Ayman al-Zawahiri of al-Qaeda has done exactly that. The Guardian headline correctly calls this “racial abuse” — indeed, and scarcely different from the rhetoric emerging from the far-left fringes.
Somehow, Roy and Pilger and the rest still enjoy reputations as fiercely independent intellectuals, critical thinkers, stars of the Democracy Now! circuit. Actually, they exhibit a lot in common with hardcore Palinites, catcalling from the sidelines, smarting from their election loss and slipping into a cocoon of denial, facing a bleak future and yet fancying themselves on a higher moral plane. Noam Chomsky endorsed Cynthia McKinney, for goodness’ sake. Now there’s someone with his finger on the pulse of American politics.
Harder these days to fawn over Chomsky’s every pronouncement, is it not? It’s my fond hope that under an Obama presidency, the bankruptcy of the Chomsky-Roy-Pilger cohort will be clearer for all to see. Under Bush, Roy’s angry dispatches could provide a thrill even to some clear-thinking liberals. But people fresh from busting their humps to elect Obama will not take as kindly to venomous screeds attacking their president as a race traitor.
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