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The
idea that the "allies" – basically, the U.S.
and Britain – are two liberal "democracies"
that are bound and determined to "liberate"
Iraq from the evil repressive Saddam has always been
a complete crock. The "rapturists"
and the neoconservatives
have been demanding Iraq's scalp for years as the price
of their support to the GOP, and, as for Tony Blair's
Britain, the last time a gas shortage hit that bleak
little isle the
government was nearly brought down. This rotten
war's only connection to "democracy" is that
our rulers are buying votes with the blood of their
countrymen.
And
how "free" are these two paragons of "modernity,"
anyway? Compared to the Iraqis, we're all free as birds
– but is that really the standard we want to use? The
U.S. used to be a free society, once upon a time: but
then came the welfare state, the warfare state, the
Omnipresent State to rule our lives and harass us from
cradle to grave. Yes, we still have the Bill of Rights,
but, post-9/11, even this bulwark against neo-royalism
is cracking. The government can now read our emails,
listen in on our phone conversations, lock us up and
hold us incommunicado without so much as a by-your-leave.
We are now "free" to go to the mall, buy as
much junky crap made in China as we please, and then
go home and watch "Joe
Millionaire" or "American
Idol" or whatever the heck it is – as long
as we don't make waves. If this is liberty, then give
me death.
But America is indeed a bastion of freedom
compared to our ally, Great Britain, which is, today,
nothing short of a totalitarian state. The news
that Taki
Theodoracopoulos, the high
society columnist and multi-millionaire benefactor
and co-editor
of The American Conservative, is "under
investigation" by Scotland Yard, and may be brought
up on charges for a column he wrote in the Spectator
confirms what has been pretty apparent all along. They
might as well rename the UK "Airstrip
One."
We are supposed to believe that "they
hate us because we're free" – except, we aren't.
Here
is the column deemed potentially criminal by Blair's
Thought Police. Although I agree with every word of
it, you may not. But disagreeing with someone, and using
the State as a club to shut them up, are two very different
things. And please don't tell me this "investigation"
has nothing to do with Taki's position as publisher
of The American Conservative.
Taki
is a key figure in the right-wing antiwar movement:
TAC has been punching away at Bush-Blair's war
plans from the very first issue. The War Party, on the
other hand, has been baying for Taki's blood for quite
some time. A
run-in with publisher Conrad Black, owner of the
Spectator, over Israel, just added fuel to the
flames: neoconservative Bill Kristol, the War Party's
Lenin, denounced him as "loathsome," and this
was the signal for a journalistic fatwa. No news
account of the founding of TAC was complete without
a retelling of the Taki mythos: playboy millionaire
once busted for having a little coke in his back pocket
teams up with social conservative Pat Buchanan. But
in Blairite Britannia, they have more effective ways
of dealing with the opposition….
Here
is some commie cow in the supposedly antiwar Guardian,
denouncing opponents of the war as right-wing "racists":
"If you really think it's better
for more people to die over decades under a tyrannical
regime than for fewer people to die during a brief attack
by an outside power, you're really weird and nationalistic
and not any sort of socialist that I recognize. And
that's where you link up with all those nasty rightwing
columnists who are so opposed to fighting Iraq; they,
too, believe that the lives of a thousand colored chappies
aren't worth the death of one British soldier."
Either take up the white man's burden,
or you're a "racist" – never has a more pathetic
argument been made on behalf of a war. There is no doubt
this bloodthirsty shrew means Taki: how many right-wing
columnists are left in the Orwellian society that is
today's Great Britain? Just listen to this little Leninist's
tiresome tirade:
"Military inaction, unless in
the defense of one's own country, is the most extreme
form of narcissism and nationalism; people who preach
it are the exact opposite of the International Brigade,
and that's so not a good look."
Well,
then, you know she's right: I, for one, am on the other
side of the barricades from the International Brigade
– a military force controlled by Stalin's Comintern,
and organized to impose a Soviet dictatorship on hapless
Spain. I don't think that little red star on their caps
was a good look at all. As for "narcissism,"
it's odd to hear this charge coming from someone whose
main concern in life seems to be preening in the immaculate
robes of her own moral purity. I'd like to put her
in the front lines in Iraq, alongside the British Special
Forces – in the interests of "women's liberation,"
of course.
The
British Left, dominated by the Blairites, is certainly
not coming to Taki's defense – and don't expect the
others (various Trotskyoids, miscellaneous lefties,
and black-clad "anarchists") to raise a word
of protest. Never mind the totally useless Tories: the
Spectator's editor, one Boris Johnson, a Tory
MP, is groveling and declaring that the column should
never have been published. We are talking, after all,
about a country where a newspaper columnist who gave
a speech in defense of hunting was arrested for
"hate speech" – with nary a peep out of anyone
save the few libertarians who haven't emigrated to the
U.S.
Robin
Page, a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and
an ardent champion of farmer's and "countryside"
rights, was arrested
last November, accused of making "racist"
remarks in a speech urging people to attend the massive
Liberty and Livelihood
march in London. The BBC reported:
"Several people complained to
police about his speech, in which he allegedly said
supporters of the traditional country way of life should
be given the same rights as blacks, Muslims and gays."
How
dare anyone suggest that supporters of tradition are
morally equal to the officially-sanctioned victim groups?
Surely this is "hate speech" of the most reprehensible
sort! Lock him up and throw away the key!
Poor Mr. Page seemed truly baffled by
his arrest:
"I believe country people should
have the same rights and protection under the law as
any other minority group in a multi-cultural society.
It is beyond my comprehension that I am not allowed
to say that in a public place, where I was invited on
to private land."
But there is nothing "private"
under socialism: not your land, not your larynx, not
even your thoughts. And so it is not at all "incomprehensible"
that Page was arrested for having politically incorrect
ideas and the will to express them. They got him under
the same "Public
Order Act" that they're using to railroad Taki:
a totalitarian measure that gives the British government
the power to charge
and jail anyone who is "inciting racial hatred"
or "homophobia." Here's
what the British government has to say about the
definition of a "racist incident" prosecutable
under the 1994 version of the Act:
"A racist incident is any incident
which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any
other person."
Under this legal rubric, plainclothes
police routinely troll pubs in hopes of hearing "racist"
or "homophobic" remarks, so they can slap
on the hand-cuffs and cart these reactionary miscreants
off to jail. One
hundred and fifty people were recently rounded up
in a police "sweep" of suspected racists and
homophobes. To an American, what is happening in the
land of our great "democratic" ally is nightmarish:
to a Brit, it is everyday life in a society that was
never quite free, and is less so now than at any other
time since the signing of the Magna Carta.
According to a bemused account of the
targeting of Taki in the Independent:
"The investigation was triggered
by a complaint from Peter
Herbert, a lawyer and member of the Metropolitan
Police Authority. The Yard's Diversity Directorate will
assess whether the piece incites racial hatred and thereby
breaks the Public Order Act, for which the maximum sentence
is two years."
The "Diversity Directorate"
sounds like something out of a very bad science fiction
novel, or perhaps something one might find on late-night
television. But that's reality for you. Is it really
true that something known as the "Diversity Directorate"
is monitoring the speech of the formerly free peoples
of the British isles, ready to pounce at the first sign
of "hate" or "incitement"? To heck
with "liberating" Iraq – I say, let's free
the United Kingdom.
If I were the Commander-in-chief, I
would present the Brits with an even sterner version
of the ultimatum we're now handing to Saddam: either
lay off your own people, or get yourself into an air
raid shelter. Drop the charges against Taki, or we drop
a few bombs that will make short work of the "Diversity
Directorate."
I'm
anti-imperialist, but not in the least bit pacifistic,
so don't go writing me complaining letters. The militant
"transnational
progressivism" of Blair and his American compadres
is even more dangerous than the "benevolent
world hegemony" dreamed up by the neoconservative
wing of the War Party. It is dangerous because it is
the last, and the deadliest, tentacle of the socialist
octopus, one that did not die with the fall of the Kremlin
but instead took on a life of its own. John Ashcroft
still has to overcome a lot of legal and political obstacles
before they can close down The American Conservative
in this country. But in Merrie Olde England, whose libertarian
revolution was crushed beneath the weight of empire,
they don't have a Bill of Rights: heck, they don't even
have a constitution. They can go after the publisher
and chief financial angel to The American Conservative,
in a transparent attempt to silence an eloquent voice
raised against this war, with impunity. And so they
have….
What
is to be done? Friends of liberty and peace everywhere
can take three specific actions:
1.
Boycott British goods. As long as the
Blair government is intent on jailing its critics, free
people everywhere should exercise their power of choice
by choosing not to
subsidize Blairism. Let that preening posturing neo-Stalinist
stop blathering about "democracy" and the
"liberation" of Iraq, and start noticing that
his arrogance comes with a price tag.
2.
Support TAC. In a few days you'll
be getting a promotional letter from me describing all
the great antiwar articles published in The American
Conservative, and touting the magazine as a must-read.
Now that they're going after its publisher and financial
mainstay, you have an extra added reason to subscribe.
Not out of agreement with their editorial stance, necessarily,
but out of sheer curiosity at why they're trying to
shut it down. If Tony Blair hates it, it's got to be
good.
3.
Contact Mr. Peter Herbert, the totalitarian
prick directly responsible for this outrage against
the standards of a free and civilized society, and give
him a good piece of your mind:
Telephone: 020 7202 0184
Email: membersservices@mpa.gov.uk
Please
– don't be polite about it. Oh, and be sure to
tell him Justin Raimondo sent you….
–
Justin Raimondo
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