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I seldom do requests but defining your terms every now and then is good exercise. So here we have it. What exactly is a Lefty?

When I say Left, I am referring to Marxists or post-Marxist liberals who think anti-imperialism is more important than human rights.

I refer to people who will side with a foreign dictator instead of the labour unions he puts the boots to. The people who will accept the worst libel against the Middle East’s only credibly social democratic state, while accepting without question the word of goose-stepping fascists like Hezbollah.

A Leftist opposes everything our democratic government does because either, it’s a sop to their big business cronies, too little too late, or beside the point. Nothing is ever an improvement for them.

The Left for me are the nihilists who bitch at the world but have no concrete program for making it better.

Marxist in their outlook, anti-imperialist above all else, anti-compromise, and bereft of a positive program for change - take any of those ingredients, adjust them by degree to meet your local circumstances and you’ll have yourselves a capital “L” Lefty.

Now, is this too broad a brush? I don’t think so. I’m not talking about all of the left. Look closely at the definition - it does not apply to the Liberals, the Greens, or the Euston wing of the NDP (although the first two do occasionally pander to the Left fringe of their parties). All of these groups have a political program and a positive message. Certainly it is because of this that all are regularly damned by the Left.

Try listening to the splenetic verbal flatulence of the Leftist dead-enders. They attack progress and offer nothing in its place. Here they are on America, on the War, on the Army, on Free Speech, and on Trade. Contrast them with mainstream politicians like Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, or god forbid, even our own Stephane Dion. On the one hand you have substance, plans, and on the other, an attack on substance. At best the Left are critics, and at worst they’re haters.

You want a definition? Find a ‘useful idiot’ sans the utility and you’ve found yourselves a Lefty.

-ish. Canadian Political Blog Week-ish. A list of stuff found on the Canadian Political Blogosphere over the last week.

Bowie’s Blog - a short post on people not “getting” sarcasm on blogs ( … you’re so gay and you don’t even like boys). I totally agree - though my problem is people seeing sarcasm when none is intended.

Mark Steyn - Has a list of his upcoming debates - none of which are with self-described ‘pompous ass’™ Warren Kinsella. Also that Heather Reisman isn’t a bad egg after all.

Calgary Grit - on the next batch of by-elections. Guelph seems the one to watch.

Daimnation - during the last election Stephen Harper got a lot of grief for saying to an audience of Americans: “If you’re like most Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country … Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.” Mark C has a post along the same lines - showing the stunning ignorance of Canadian students.

Daveberta - with a post titled “Good on Stephen Harper”. He’s heaping a teaspoon full of praise on PMSH for wanting nothing to do with the gossip about Bernier’s ex-girlfriend. I blogged on a similar subject a while ago - though in relation to closeted MPs. The “politics of self-destruction” is un-Canadian.

Steve Janke - Liberals admit they’re poor. In contrast to the recent turd polishing of Liberal Party President Doug Ferguson. Confronted with Tory fundraising numbers, Ferguson said: “our efforts to adjust to the new rules are going very well”. According to Janke, maybe not so well after all.

Ezra Levant - on the international embarrassment Canada has become over the whole free speech thing. An editorial this weekend in the Seattle Times on the MacLeans case.

Michael Ignatieff - always a man of the people. Provided those people are effete swells …

Stephen Taylor - has got word that Liberal MP Mark Holland wants to see young people f*cking. Who doesn’t? Lord knows our country could use more of it. Oh, hold on, that’s “Young People F*cking” - some lame movie.

Red Tory - reinforcing my point that Islam is as western as capitalism - in which case we have every right to sh*t on it in the same way that people sh*t on capitalism, Mormonism, and fundamentalist Christianity.

Small Dead Animals - has the best nature picture ever. From a volcano in Patagonia.

FYI: Thanks for the links - this week from: Michelle Malkin, Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, Dust My Broom, StageLeft, SmallDeadAnimals, Marginalized Action Dinosaur, and Saskboy among others …

That’s me in the checked shirt and my mom in the bell bottoms.  I always think about her when I hear this song, so it seems a good one for Mother’s Day.   This is a song by Cholcate Genius. If you’ve ever had to take your mom to hospital, then it’ll speak to you. And if not, it’ll still make you feel a little guilty, which is really what Mother’s Day is all about.

Israel apparently is the only country in the world that can torture prisoners, murder innocent civilians, kill children with impunity, assassinate political opponents, ethnically cleanse Palestinians, demolish thousands of Palestinians homes, steal land that individuals have legal title to without compensation, and have policies that are routinely condemned as racist

That’s from Canadian Dimensions magazine responding to this quote from the Prime Minister:

I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which I think is completely unacceptable

Canadian Dimensions is saying that the Prime Minister is calling ALL criticism of Israel anti-semitic - which is clearly preposterous.  His government in fact has made pointed criticisms of Israel at several points, most recently over its actions in Gaza.

But to misrepresent the PM’s statements is one thing, to chase it with these claims is another:

• Israel willingly “murders” civilians
• Israel willingly kills children
• Israel - or in this case ‘the Jews’ - are ethnically cleansing their country
• Israel is stealing land without compensation

Does anyone want to agree with Canadian Dimensions?  Do any of you want to repeat the blood libel that Israel murders children?  Do you hypocrites want to say that the loss of Palestinian land is a tragedy, while remaining silent on the losses endured by the 850,000 Jewish refugees from places like Egypt, and Iraq?  How about some proof of the ethnic cleansing - and what do you have to say on the 1.5 million Arab Israelis, or on the Sudanese refugees crossing desserts to come to Israel?  You on the Left always talk about shades of grey when it comes to our enemies - but when it comes to Israel - it’s black and white.

It’s bollocks.  But what’s more, it is anti-semitic.  The ‘murdering civillians’ thing is likely just lefty boiler-plate, I’m sure he says the same about the USA (though of course not about France which has a far worse record).  But the children thing?  The ethnic cleansing thing?  That crosses a line.

That line straddles the boundary between criticism and demonization, between standing up for human rights, and being an anti-semite.  From Irwin Cotler:

There is yet another, and third, variant of political anti-Semitism. I am referring here to the “demonizing” of Israel… This is the contemporary analogue to the medieval indictment of the Jew as the “poisoner of the wells.” In other words, in a world in which human rights has emerged as the new secular religion of our time, the portrayal of Israel as the metaphor for a human rights violator is an indictment of Israel as the “new anti-Christ”-as the “poisoner of the international wells”…

Ideological anti-Semitism finds expression not only in the “Zionism is Racism” indictment…but the further criminal indictment of Israel as “an apartheid state,” and the calling for the dismantling of this “apartheid state”-a euphemism for Israel’s destruction. If the proclamation of “Zionism as Racism” gave anti-Semitism the appearance of international sanction, the calling for the dismantling of the apartheid state of Israel is even more toxic and virulent, once again giving anti-Semitism the appearance of international sanction. Indeed, the increased characterization or libelling of Israel as a “Nazi state” is tantamount to transforming ideological anti-Semitism into a duty-the obligation to remove this Nazi state, Israel.

Go back and look at these quotes from Canadian opposition politicians, look at how the demonize and delegitimize Israel and Jews.  Do they cross this line?  And if they do, is it wrong for the Prime Minister to call them out?  More importantly - what does it say about you, if you’re defending them or making excuses for them?

One of my new favourite quotes:

I’ve never been impressed by middle ground, or compromising, or art-of-the-possible stuff. Why would people bother with politics if that’s all they wanted to do? If you weren’t trying so see if you could expand the art of the possible at least, break the limits of the feasible, redefine them, expand them—why would you bother? Who wants to be just a manager?

After a long while as director of this and manager of that, I’ve grown to realize that he’s right - ‘manager’ is a crap job for a crap man. Unless you are the total master of your domain then you’re a sucker. Who wants to bend over and submit? And what is compromise - but a tarted up form of giving in?

As much as Hitchens hates Ayn Rand, as he evidently does, there’s something of the Randian hero in him.

That quote is from an unpublished excerpt of an extended interview with the great man in Prospect Magazine. Much recommended.

Related: The Prospect Magazine Blog

So where’s the warming? Where’s the CO2? As the facts start to pile up a lot of people on the left must be getting worried about having invested so much of their credibility in Global Warming.

Here’s the latest on the ‘warming’ oceans and ’shrinking’ ice caps:

Antarctic Deep Sea Gets Colder

ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2008) - The Antarctic deep sea is getting colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. This is the first result of the Polarstern expedition of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association that has just ended in Punta Arenas/Chile. At the same time satellite images from the Antarctic summer have shown the largest sea-ice extent on record. In the coming years autonomous measuring buoys will be used to find out whether the cold Antarctic summer induces a new trend or was only a “slip”.

And on the CO2 that is apparently choking the planet:

In the frame of the GEOTRACES project the scientists found the smallest iron concentrations ever measured in the ocean. As iron is an essential trace element for algal growth, and algae assimilate CO₂ from the air, the concentration of iron is an important parameter against the background of the discussion to what extent the oceans may act as a carbon sink.

Related:

Most sophisticated research ever shows cooling oceans

Global warming ‘on hold’ until 2015

Mount Kilimanjaro covered in snow

CO2 Models wrong

‘Skeptics’ on Global Cooling