What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way

Nicholas Cohen has done one of the most difficult things a writer or journalist can do, truthfully examine the motives and actions of a group with which he intently identifies. Mr. Cohen was born and raised in the socialist (left) tradition. And he has found the "left" (Red Ken, Oliver Stone, Vanessa Redgrave and a host of others) corrupting and debasing their own beliefs. Mr. Cohen writes very succinctly, avoids over dramatization and his book is chock full of specific examples. His tone is a mixture of sadness and surprise that the "left" has reduced itself to supporting military, fascist dictatorships as long as they oppose the U.S. and most specifically President Bush. Occasionally, to be true to his roots, he descends into polemics of the uncaring "right" or its inability to see injustice. It's probably too much to expect him to divest himself of such language. But most importantly, he doesn't lose sight of his subject and takes deadly aim at the "left's" enormous moral failings and that they have turned themselves quite clearly into what they claim they most oppose -- facists. This book is eminently readable. Anyone who wants to understand, from an insider's point of view, how they found themselves in this moral quagmire would do well to read this book.

Before 9/11 leftist British journalist Nick Cohen's most pressing concern was attacking the Labor government of Tony Blair. Indeed since the Blair government was elected, Cohen had been denouncing it for being corrupt and altogether too cozy with big business. In Cohen's own words, "attacking Tony Blair was what got me out of bed in the morning." Like the traditional left, Cohen was perputually in opposition to the status quo. However, after 9/11, Cohen's views changed dramatically, he found himself supporting the government. He identified the new Islamic threat as fascist and much worse than the western democracies led by Tony Blair and George Bush. This is were his major confrontations with his former leftist comrades began. He concedes that they were correct in arguing that the many reasons for going to war were either false or exaggerated, and that the invasion was badly mismanaged. Where he parts company is when they start calling the terrorists "insurgents" against Anglo-American "imperialism." Cohen wants us to have a good look at the so-called insurgents that his former comrades are now supporting: namely suicide car-bombers, video-executioners, gay-bashers, women-haters, and anti-Semites. The many objects of Cohen's scorn include Harold Pinter, Noam Chomsky, the Guardian, London Review of Books, Roberst Fisk, George Galloway, Edward Said, Tariq Ali, to mention some of the most famous. Cohen is good at unveiling the twisted mental universe of the left. Prior to the invasion, both Harold Pinter and Tariq Ali supported the cause of the Kurds, as did many left-wing politicians who voiced their opposition to Saddam Hussein. Cohen also recounts how the left initially praised Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, Updated Edition which described the horrendous conditions inside Saddam's Iraq. After the invasion, when the neocons used this document as a reason for invading, the left practically excommunicated Makiya. According to Cohen, the left suffers from what Bertrand Russell called the syndrome of "the superiour virtue of the oppressed." The left has become nothing but reflexively anti-American and anti-Isreal. When Saddam was in power, they considered America his enabler, so they were against Saddam. After he was toppled, they supported the insurgents, and consider the Maliki government a version of the Vichy regime. (Inspite of the fact that the Maliki government is probably one of the most democratically elected in the Arab world.) The British left, under the pretense of multiculturalism, also makes allowances for some of the most extremist Muslim views imaginable. Not understanding the practices of female genital mutilation, honor killings, wife-beating, suicide-bombing and so forth is succumbing to "Islamophobia." The left has forgotten that multiculturalism only works when its participants believe in a plurality of opinion, not when there are those who in principle deny others their opini

In this excellent work, Nick Cohen examines some of the problems with today's political left. He reminds us that in the past century, the Left has indeed been quite successful at transforming society. If one were to look at the goals of the Left from, say, 1907, we'd realize that most of them have been accomplished. Do those on the Left still have similar goals? No. As the author points out, in the past, leftist passion tended to show praiseworthy concern for the underdog. However, "today's upsurge stands in a dishonorable contrast," because it often explicitly ignores the very victims of the far right that it used to support. Liberals in a free society have an enormous opportunity to use that freedom to a good purpose, and many are simply not doing so. As Cohen admits, one can always discredit decent people by looking only at the malevolent hangers-on who join them. But he replies that if one tries to look at the good side of today's Left, there is not much to it. Yes, there is some concern for the environment, and that's a plus. But on topics such as civil liberties, international authority, or the ability to overthrow tyrannical regimes, there's very little to praise. One example of the problem that Cohen cites is "Index on Censorship," which was founded by friends of W. H. Auden in 1972 to defend freedom of speech. Betrayinhg its principles, Index simply gloated over a case of "ultimate censorship," namely the murder of Theo van Gogh! He also shows how Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which began as trustworthy fighters for human rights and freedom have become perverted into opposing these same rights and freedoms. In previous decades, the Left was a consistent opponent of right-wing tyrannies, but that is manifestly no longer the case. We've also seen a resurgence of antisemitic conspiracy theories, and Cohen explains to us that "political antisemitism is not about Jews, it is about power," and would exist even if there were no Jews. We're reminded that terror is not some sort of side effect of totalitarian systems; it is the system. As Cohen says, "when the pretensions of the workers' state or the thousand year Reich or the glorious union of Arabs are stripped away, when the differences between communism and fascism are forgotten, what remains is the sneer of the psychopathic gangster who knows he's got the cops in his pocket." We see how the Left has abandoned its former principles simply in order to side with those who oppose the United States (or the West in general). But this places much of the Left in firm opposition to the Enlightenment, and that is quite a change. Cohen does describe some of the atrocities of right-wing tyrannies, especially those of Saddam Hussein. But to his credit, he reminds us that such anecdotes are just too easy. He calls them a form of "blackmail" where the writer appears to be telling his readers to agree with him or be guilty by association. On the other hand, we

In this fascinating book, Cohen tries to find answers to why the world is upside down, why liberals and leftists are nowadays more likely than conservatives to excuse fascist movements and governments. With the exception of their native western far-right parties, they embrace all foreign oppressive governments as long as these oppose the West. The author argues that the death of communism has brought a dark liberation to those who consider themselves on the left; they are now free to champion any totalitarian group that is anti-western and anti-American. This mindset is particularly prevalent amongst the intellectuals and the mass media, as also documented in Can We Trust the BBC? by Robin Aitken. Third world democrats, feminists and liberals have been betrayed by those who so style themselves in the West. The fall of communism and the disappearance of a coherent set of principles have liberated Western leftists into a kind of nihilism that is akin to modern consumerism. Now you can pick your issue du jour from an anti-Western smorgasbord. Cohen chronicles the etiology of the disease - how it started with postmodern theorists and obscure fringe groups, entered the mainstream and led to the failure of left-liberals to confront genocide in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Middle East until it grew into an all-consuming fever. He also attempts to salvage the best of the liberal-left's internationalist and democratic traditions. In this regard, please consult A Matter of Principle edited by Thomas Cushman. The author chronicles these developments in part by telling the story of Iraqi human rights campaigner Kanan Makiya who exposed Saddam's atrocities in the book Republic of Fear and was later shunned by his former so-called comrades. Makiya was prescient as he foresaw the outcome of these relativist multiculti tendencies in his 1993 book Cruelty and Silence. Many myths and lies are exposed by Cohen, for example those concerning Saddam's arms suppliers. For the record, between 1973 and 2002, 57 per cent of those weapons came from the Soviet Union/Russia, 13 per cent from France and 12 per cent from China. The USA and UK together did not contribute even one per cent. Other revelations concern sinister British groups on the left, like the Workers Revolutionary Party of the thug Gerry Healy, a toxic cult if ever there was one. Some of the juiciest writing is about the obscurantism of postmodern theorists - it makes you laugh out loud. The Sokal Hoax is inter alia covered here, but the very best dissection of this species may be found in Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks. Cohen observes that the utopian, the hate-filled and the irreconcileable do not dissappear with geopolitical changes, so a revived radicalism was inevitable after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the death of communism gave birth to a nasty nihilism, the breast milk of the Moonbats. Not surprising since one of their intellectual mas

Nick Cohen's argument is (in one sense) a simple one. Once upon a time, the Left championed all the right causes: women's rights, free speech, universal education, human rights, unions, solidarity with the oppressed, amongst others. And it championed those causes on behalf of the working class which the Left (largely composed of middle-class intellectuals) romanticized on the one hand and despised on the other. And then the working class got all these rights and all this education and all these opportunities but didn't support all the causes the (middle class liberals) of the Left wanted the working class to support. And in their disappointment and defeat, the middle class liberals cast about for new heroes to romanticize. They found them in the fascists of Third World countries who claimed to be revolutionaries (well, they were and are against the established order anyway) and who declared themselves to be for the people (of a certain culture and religion). The privileged of the West, in other words, found solace in identity politics which led them to support of fascism. And this, in turn, led them to identify those who support fascism with the Left. A simple argument, as I have said. But this book (which is so rich and so filled with wonderful anecdotes--from professorial mumbo jumbo to Hamas' Charter) is much more than a mere argument. It is a call to action. For this wonderful book ends by pointing out that a group of "politically aware citizens" who were not "intellectual celebrities" met at a pub in Euston to draw up a manifesto spelling out what the Left truly is. And that, by restating what should have been obvious (but wasn't) these men and women found a way to make a difference. Because they did not abandon the effort, the hope, the principles of the Left. Just as Nick Cohen hopes (and hope is the last word in this book) that he has made a difference with his book. So now it's your turn and mine. What do you say?