Recently Jacob Laksin over at the ridiculous Frontpagemag.com snapped at Lew Rockwell, the libertarian-minded editor of the popular LewRockwell.com, for aligning himself with the most “unhinged elements of the far left.” AKA Cindy Sheehan, Stan Goff et al. I mean really, you’ve got to laugh out loud when saps like Laksin get all huffy over trivial matters. Come to think of it, though, this isn’t that trivial of a matter. Any major alliances against US Empire means the movement against the war in Iraq must be making serious headway.
The American public isn’t happy about this war, or the Bush administration for that matter. They don’t trust the liar-in-chief, and the polls are finally confirming it. In New York State, which is a liberal haven, (or is it? Governor Pataki is a foaming mouthed right-winger, and so are Mayor Bloomberg and his predecessor Giuliani, heck so is Senator Clinton but no biggy) Bush has reached an all time low of 29 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. Things aren’t looking much better for Bush and his agenda nationally, either. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup conducted on September 17, almost 68% of respondents said they disapproved of how Bush is handling the Iraq war, with 59% admitting that they thought the 2003 invasion was a mistake.
Those numbers must worry the neocons and their feeble apologists like Mr. Laksin and David Horowitz. Rather than deal with reality, they’d just as soon make up fantastic conspiracy theories that leftists are taking over the whole friggen world. Communism is all but dead. Yet, if you were ever to wander over and scroll on through Frontpagemag.com (I don’t recommend it; the prose is unbearable and the analysis puerile), you’d think Stalin was still shipping my ancestors off to the Gulag.
Sorry, but it’s the neocons we’ve got to worry about today. Not the Bolsheviks.
President Bush and Co. can only get away with their imperial agendas as long as the US public remains catatonic. But alas, citizens are slowly waking from their slumber, and Bush’s henchmen at FrontPage aren’t the least bit happy about it.
Any alliance between occasional political foes more than worries the pro-war gang; it scares the holy bejesus out of ’em. In their little, twisted, misinformed worlds, if the majority of America starts turning on Bush they must simultaneously be thumbing through the pages of the Communist Manifesto. That’s hogwash, of course. All the new poll numbers indicate is that Americans realize they’ve been lied to, spit on, and slapped around by the Bush administration. And they’ve had enough of it.
The one-issue alliance of Rockwell and lefty folks like myself only means we see it as necessary to come together and oppose this brutal, illegal war. We aren’t talking regulations, here. We’re talking about misguided US foreign policy that’s killed tens of thousands of people. And no matter what the FPM crew say, it’s not Commie of Rockwell and his readers to say that this war must stop, now. It’s humane of them.
JOSHUA FRANK is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at www.brickburner.org. Joshua can be reached at Joshua@brickburner.org.
CLARIFICATION
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH
We published an article entitled “A Saudiless Arabia” by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the “Article”), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the “Website”).
Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism.
As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi’s lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website.
We are pleased to clarify the position.
August 17, 2005