Harry's Place

Brett brought up these comments in “the Dirty Zionists” thread, having perceptively already argued that

I fear that the reason [Khamenei] chose the British is that he knows we are the weakest link and that within no time at all we’ll be beating ourselves up over our apparent racism, imperialism and foreign policy decisions.

Wight later states that

we live in a different culture from the Islamic culture which currently dominates in Iran and throughout the Middle East. Perhaps if the West hadn’t spent the last 100 years colonising, occupying, and interfering in the region, to the evident detriment of its development, peoples, and cohesion then they may have adjudged our culture and enlightenment values as something to be embraced, rather than rejected as belonging to their oppressor.

Comment by John Wight — 19 June, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Here’s the logic -

1) The west allows women to vote.
2) But the west has been a bit naughty in the Middle East.
3) This has caused the Middle East to deny the vote to women.

Work that one out, if you can.

What a muppet.

Of course John Wight at Socialist Unity didn’t support apartheid. That’s because the people who were oppressing black men and women were white men, so the decision was easy. He supports the oppression of women in the middle East because the people doing the oppression are non-white men, who can of course do no wrong.

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa

““[…] what of the women who support the culture and social mores under which they exist in Iran? You see, this cultural universalism you espouse is something I reject. I prefer to look at the imperfections in my own culture, of which there are many, instead of judging those in others.”

Bingo. There, in a nutshell, is the sickness at the heart of the modern Left.

Comment by Jonny Mac — 19 June, 2009 @ 5:03 pm”

Even some of the SU’ers are getting the message…

Here’s John Wight again, with another gem – this time on Lenin’s Tomb -

This is a situation which does not allow any simplistic analysis.

But the role it has played as a bulwark against Zionist expansion, allied to US imperialism in the region is eminently progressive.

I have covered John Wight’s views previously, see http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/racist-thug-john-wight-attacks-blog/

Wight is a strange one, almost pathological, because you will nearly always see in his comments or articles some snide remark about Israel or “Zionist”.

Such is the depth of Wight’s obsessions that, if he wrote a sporting commentary on a football match, and one team lost, then Wight would almost immediately feel like blaming it on the “Zionists”.

That’s the way his mind seems to work.

Wight’s comment was below a piece by Yoshie (who has featured on HP already) at Lenin’s Tomb.

Here’s the gist of it -

That’s what happened in Iran… The revolution did in its leftists, as well as rightists. But, over all, the Iranian Revolution has done more good than bad for a majority of Iranians, making Iran the best country — the most democratic! — in the Middle East today.

The fate of leftists in many countries (excepting Cuba) is often the fate of Rostam: serve the rulers who are unworthy of your support, because the nation ruled by the unworthy rulers still must be defended from its many enemies.

What we have here (both in the case of Wight and Yoshie) is an argument that suggests the people of Iran should be sacrificed for the wider, apparently ‘progressive’ goal of keeping the US and Israel in check.

Utterly disgusting.

In fairness to John Game, who comes in for a lot of stick here, he finds it pretty disgusting too.

The notion that the struggle between the elites is between poorer and richer Iranians is simply propaganda. I also find the tragic call to serve those not worthy of support in the name of Iran pretty desperate really. It may have a resonance with those bewildered and frightened by events. It could not however be the call of those on the left.
johng | 19 Jun, 15:46 | #

But the role it has played as a bulwark against Zionist expansion, allied to US imperialism in the region is eminently progressive.

Oh FFS! (which is my usual response when the word “progressive” is whipped out, anyway – “progress” is the road to the GULag and Auschwitz).

ALthough here it is a little more blatant and honest and not unduly burdened by self-contradictions than is often the case – kind of like the broad thrust of “progressive” movements in the UK supporting the British side during the Boer War.

Still, it is indeed extraordinarily bizarre to see extreme leftists supporting the current Iranian regime, who, while as brutal as some o the pre-1989 Eastern EUropean regimes, are hardly that for the exact same ideological reasons: one would have thought that no less potentially oppressive but currently powerless opponents of the regime who are quite happy to dabble with communism (or who are the legacy of whatever survived Tudeh) were more natural allies. For sake of appearances and (pointless) tribal loyalties, if for no more substantive reason.

The thing is this guy is not just a blog ranting nobody. He’s quite well known in far Left circles and holds office in the STWC apparently.

it appears that Lenny, johng and the SWP have realised the line of Wight and co is untenable even by their standards and are coming out generally against the regime. johng even criticised Chavez for coming out in support of the regime :

“The statement from Venezuela is a setback for progressives.
johng | 17 Jun, 20:12 | # ”

http://leninology.blogspot.com/

I think what has happened is that the SWP has decided that it can’t oppose what is going on in Iran.

Therefore, the SWP line has changed, and all the good little SWPers are following suit.

By contrast, those unaligned with the SWP are skipping down the familiar path of BUSH DOG TONY DOG ZIOCONJEW!!!!

If you want to know why Britain was the main enemy in the friday prayer today, then consult
Christopher de Bellaigue ‘Blame it on the brits’ from Commentary magazine december 2008

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?search_term=iran&id=10477

I bet the SWP are thanking their lucky stars they don’t have to support Galloway anymore.

Respect on the other hand is becoming a laughing stock on this. Hoorah !

Haha.

Someone responded to Wight’s comment that

I prefer to look at the imperfections in my own culture, of which there are many, instead of judging those in others.”

By saying

I take it you’ll be shutting up about Israel in the future then.

Wight’s response -

Well, Steve, if you consider ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and occupation to constitute cultural values, all I can say is that I weep for your humanity.

To which I replied -

That’s funny. Just now you were arguing that denying women the opportunity to run for political office is a ‘cultural value’. Should we be shedding tears for you too?

Wight has decided to delete my comment.

Four times.

Although at the fifth time of reposting, he hasn’t got around to deleting it.

Is John Wight a Marxist? Because surely Marxism is the cultural universalist project par excellence, arguing that all societies will eventually end up with a unified communist culture that obliterate differences such as class and race and religion.

Wight’s position strikes me as something closer to Burkean conservatism. I am advancing these as serious points, not cheap shots.

David

I think you are possibly attributing a greater intellectual coherence to WightWorld than it deserves.

Dave O – of course you’re right. The interesting question is how some Western Leftism has declined into the idiotic and bizarre state it is in.

Post Modernism and the relativism it encourages is one of the reasons probably.

I blame the collapse of the USSR

Dave O – well for some reason, Wight seems to think that cultural universalism applies in the case of Israelis, but not Iranians.

There’s something a bit confusing going on.

and Michel Pablo.

More absurd Wight cultural equivalence in the comments at SU -

I have met many British people who live abroad and moved because they know their government is corrupt and evil. I felt for their plight too, as I feel the same way.

Yet there are many British people who are perfectly happy living in this country, as I’m sure there are many Iranians who live in Iran and feel the same way.

Wight’s position strikes me as something closer to Burkean conservatism. I am advancing these as serious points, not cheap shots.

You are quite correct. Traditionally, universalism has been associated with the Left, particularlism with the Right. That began to change in the 1960s with the rise of identity politics. Nowadays, it is the Right that espouses universal values while the Left celebrates “diversity”.

A similar inversion is apparent when you consider attitudes to industrialisation and consumerism, with the previous champions of economic expansion, the Left, now warning that it will lead to environmental catastrophe.

And this remarkable turn-around seems to have happened over the course of a few decades with hardly anyone on the Left even noticing it, or at best denying its reality.

“History knows many strange transformations”, some Russian once said.

Who are these Brits who have moved abroad because they feel the Government is corrupt and evil? No British person I have met has ever expressed themselves in that way, and Parliamentary expenses scandals apart and they are bloody small beer really, this country is not really corrupt like many other countries. I think people like Galloway and John Wight are self-seeking romantics at heart, they also like the toughness of Muslim culture. Fifty years ago they would have been Stalinists and denoucing everyone else as Trotskyists. Galloway has found a lucrative career, has John Wight as well, or does he just do it for self-aggrandisment?

I have met many British people who live abroad and moved because they know their government is corrupt and evil.

Indeed. That was a major reason for me moving to the heartland of Western imperialism, ie. the USA. (John Wright: if you are reading this, feel free to cite my inspiring life-story in your most amusing blog posts.)

ok, here is my two cents:

The Islamist camp will say now that Zionists are behind the disturbances.

The Far Left camp will say in a few days that Zionists prevented the success of a popular revolution.

Both will continue to be allies in the future.

Talking of Galloway, one of his valiant lackeys has been defending PressTV and the clear evidence that they push the views of neo-Nazis.

See http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/iran/

Is cultural universalism the same as transnational progressivism?

Can Nick Griffin be sent to sort things out properly?

I blame it all on Sylvia Pankhurst!

Very interesting thread. I think there is a book to be written about how left-right became a one-issue debate. People who are sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, and believe in the restriction of free speech/freedom of religion are part of the left if they believe that the U.S. or Israel is at fault while people who are pro-choice, pro gay rights, pro freedoms are considered right if they think that Israel and the U.S. are not to blame for everything. It never ceases to amaze me.

Gabriel nails it in one.

David T

yes and they have been wrong footed by historical events twisting themselves into ever more contradictory knots for at least the last 30 years.

Indeed this factor is one of the greatest reasons for their high membership attrition rate, at least in my personal but not small sample of ex swuppies i know.

There are other reasons of course.

Gabriel nailed it. I go back and forth between thinking there is no such thing as “the left” anymore, and thinking that I should accept that the meaning of the words right and left have been redefined by morons and mourning not only the death of meaningful politics but also the death of the English language.

Oh the evils of “cultural relativism”, wicked westerners pressing the much-maligned mullahs to respect “womens rights”, haranguing the noble Robert Mugabe into not killing lots of Zimbabweans.

I have many Iranian friends. They hate and despise Galloway and his ilk. And they will not forget whose side the “socialists” stood by.

Gabriel:

I’m reading it. It’s called ‘Waiting for the Etonians’ by Nick Cohen.

I am taking a liberty in crowbarring into this thread the last comment from the al-Muhajiroun thread, which I saw earlier and it has now dropped off the page.

It brought my blood to a rolling boil, and I believe its full blown reeking repugnance should be dragged back from the obscurity of its end of thread postion because it reflects the same casual dismissal of cultural universalims [What is this PC preoccupation with non-segregation anyway? What does it matter?]
and hard fought values as the other denizens of John Wight’s cesspit.

Note also the vile homophobia, directed at one of the objectors and I assume directed at Douglas Murray, judging from Murray’s reference to homophobic remarks in his own post earlier today. Note, most nauseatingly in the closing words, the blatant eroto-fascism in the adulation of the concept of Islamic macho strength:

Jeffrey Marshall 19 June 2009, 7:09 pm

To a Different Eye Witness:

I was sitting in the main hall downstairs and watched you insisting on invading the women’s section upstairs.

Some of the women who had been sitting there – among others – were pleading with you to leave.

The men around me were complaining that you were ‘ignorant’ and rude and I can only agree. You are extremely bad mannered.

(Others were joking that you were probably a transvestite!)

What is this PC preoccupation with non-segregation anyway? What does it matter?

The bulk of people at that meeting wanted a segregated environment and only a handful of troublemakers, like yourself, refused to go along with it.

My female companion sat upstairs, I sat downstairs. What was the big deal?

We were both sitting near the front so we could ask questions afterwards if we wished.

I have attended segregated meetings with Choudary speaking in the past and found them extremely stimulating.

The contrast between the real men at that meeting and the camp little queer in charge of the hall – closing the meeting down because it was ‘segwegated’ – could not be clearer.

Muslims and Islam are strong. The pussy-whipped PC British are weak.

“I go back and forth between thinking there is no such thing as “the left” anymore, and thinking that I should accept that the meaning of the words right and left have been redefined by morons and mourning not only the death of meaningful politics but also the death of the English language.”

Me too. I think there are issues that are left and right in of themselves (human rights versus morality, involvement of the state, etc…) but I think the big problem is that left and right are terms we use to fit people into quickly identifiable politics. It is inconceivable to me that some people do not think about issues one at a time rather than as a group of left or right issues. I believe that almost all thinking people will have opinions that will range along the political spectrum. Sometimes, the range will be wide, sometimes it will be narrow, but it will almost never be all in once place.

“Wight seems to think that cultural universalism applies in the case of Israelis, but not Iranians.

There’s something a bit confusing going on.”

Senseless, perhaps, but not confusing in the least. Your average Left-”Progressive” today, with many honorable exceptions, is a racist who believes that modernism and universal human rights are for white people. Darkies, because of their skin color, must pursue the politics of racial identity and cultural authenticity.

I hate to break the news to some of you guys, but “Left” and “Right” don’t exist. “Left” and “Right” are metaphors, first employed to describe French legislative seating arrangements in late 18th century.

They are not historical forces in the way that industrialism or computing power are.

If you buy into the Marxian dialectic and theory of history than you can coherently believe otherwise, in the way that Christians choose to believe Christ that died for their sins, but in that case, there is no use pretending you aren’t religious.

Senseless, perhaps, but not confusing in the least. Your average Left-”Progressive” today, with many honorable exceptions, is a racist who believes that modernism and universal human rights are for white people. Darkies, because of their skin color, must pursue the politics of racial identity and cultural authenticity.

Biff, I give the the benefit of the doubt and assume that they don’t actually have any beliefs at all, other than fitting in and not being subjected to anything inconvenient. They don’t believe in freedom or anything else for anyone. It’s not that they’d be happy to see England under a dictatorship, its that they’ve never thought through a single principle in their lives and aren’t going to start now. They’re not for or against anything by principle. They’re way too damn stupid for that.

I don’t know why schools don’t turn out sentient principled people anymore, but it’s pretty damn obvious they don’t.

“You see, this cultural universalism you espouse is something I reject. I prefer to look at the imperfections in my own culture, of which there are many, instead of judging those in others.”

There you have it Ladies and Gentlemen, straight from the horse’s Arse, the Absolute, Set in Stone, Default ‘Thinking’ of the Neo-Fascist Left.

This level of intellectual flatulence cannot be treated by the normal anti-lunatic remedies of reason, logic, reality, experience or dare I say it (without a wiki link) The ‘Facts’.

No, sadly, this level of intellectual necrosis is of the lasting and irreversible type, the odds of any attempt at a cure succeeding has, in my view, about the same chance of success as trying to get Osama Bin Laden and George W Bush to go to a Soho strip club for a Beer and Pork Scratchings ‘Lads Night Out’.

With the odds of success for either scenario, being, as far as I can see, Zero, you can try and convince these ideological bigots with logic and reason if you wish but forgive me if I remain more than just a little skeptical, I believe your valiant attempts will simply fall on deaf ears, ears which have been grafted onto the sides of closed and very disturbed minds.

Time will surely cure some of them, maybe, you never know, but don’t hold your breath.

“You see, this cultural universalism you espouse is something I reject. I prefer to look at the imperfections in my own culture, of which there are many, instead of judging those in others.”

Actually, TheIrie is a supporter of that view too. And Chomsky.

Salty Mouser

Nowadays, it is the Right that espouses universal values while the Left celebrates “diversity”.

It’s not really a left/right thing. Basically, all projects rooted in an essentially Hegelian teleogy are ipso facto culturally universalist. That goes for Trotskyism and neocon period Fukuyama alike.

What Anaximanders other sandal said.

Can’t resist this :

#170

If John Wight didn’t exist, Harry’s Place would have to invent him.

Comment by Stephen Marks — 20 June, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4248#comment-135410

However, its good to see many on the far Left are showing signs of coming to their senses. At this rate there’ll be only a few Respect’ers, GG and Zin and co left on the side of the “anti-imperialism of fools”.