Back When They Were Smart
I always get a kick out of Rightwing Pundits and their supporters who lay claim to having been fanatical adherents of all things Left in their youth, but then they saw the Light, and became fanatical adherents of all things Right - as if this lends them credibility instead of just indicating they are probably suffering from early onset Alzheimers, or perhaps simply that they've gone stupid.
They all do it, too, some later than others - witness Christopher Hitchens veering wildly to the Right because something bad happened or Barbara Amiel switching her allegiance from men on the Left to men on the Right because George Jonas happened - but it's a common denominator amongst them all, it seems, to hold up their conversion from Left to Right as some sort of Revelatory sign, as opposed to, well, early onset Alzheimers. Or, perhaps, drinking induced dementia. Or, like I say, simply that they've gone stupid.
Let's face it, other than revealing them to be quite mad, I'm not sure what their point is. And their insistence that the Left has a diabolical plan in the works to take over the world is really quite laughable to anybody who has ever attended a unit meeting of their local union. I wish we had such a plan. Cripes, I've been at unit meetings so democratic and inclusive and not even remotely preparing to take over the world that it's taken until midnight to get through the minutes of the last unit meeting.
Trust me, if the Left ever takes over the world, it's a sure sign that the end is nigh - because the sun will be near to dying out.
So what does drive the Left, you may find yourself asking, Dear Reader. Well, it's quite simple, really. Far from having a diabolical plan to take over the world, the Left is in chronic "sounding the alarm" mode about the fact that the Right already has taken over the world and pretty much all we can do now, is prevent the further erosion of our individual civil liberties in favour of the insatiable greed of monolithic corporations, by electing governments that are, at the very least, not in bed with them, colluding with them, allowing them to fuck us over again and again and again until we no longer even have political infrastructure to react when they change "House of Commons" to "GloboMart".
That's what drives the Left, Dear Reader.
Meanwhile, a whole lot of crazy is what drives Rightwing Pundits.
That concludes today's Sooey lecture on Left/Right Political Science 101.
