What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter?

[Errigal]

part of:

What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter?

by Taki Theodoracopulos on February 01, 2007



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... The same applies to world politics. As a child, I witnessed armed communist gangs rounding up teachers, priests, workers, and so-called capitalist exploiters of the people and murdering them outright in camps surrounding Athens. I was eight years old. I, of course, became an arch right-winger, a Cold Warrior, and stayed one until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Uncle Sam was my hero and guiding light. My father offered our large house near the royal palace to the CIA so that American spooks could listen in on Soviet spooks in the Russian embassy next door.


But after the Evil Empire’s downfall, I saw a different America—not one dedicated to defending freedom but an empire out to exploit friends and imaginary foes alike. Why, for example, are we surrounding Russia with NATO bases? Why are we in Iraq? Why are we threatening Iran and Syria? Why are we not restraining Israel? Why is Bush inviting the Saudi head kleptocrat to Texas and holding his hand like a long-lost brother?


What are Right and Left any more? Who is a liberal and who is a conservative? When Madeleine Albright proudly announces that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children via the sanctions on Iraq were worth it, even God becomes suspect. Which liberal or conservative can explain to me the difference between an Iraqi insurgent’s roadside bomb that kills civilian passersby and a U.S. bombing raid that also causes the deaths of innocent women and children? Both are acts of savagery: in both cases one knows in advance that civilians will most certainly be killed. Bush and Americans in general claim the moral high ground, but both are terribly wrong. War is a barbaric business. Only defensive wars are justified. ...



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