In Response To Jan Gustin's letter ‘Left Or Far Left
Reader comment on item: Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam, Explains Lee Harris]

Submitted by Jonathan Pfeffer (United States), Apr 7, 2003 at 13:37

In Response To Jan Gustin's letter ‘Left Or Far Left, of April 7.

In it he writes:

"However, I suppose that what makes me fall into the "left" category is that I think George W. Bush and his cohorts, the PNAC cabal, are the real dangers to the democracy of the U.S.A. not a bunch of utterly misguided, if not insane, fundamental Muslims or the awful dictator of Iraq. "

Jan, you give yourself far too much credit. You are probably not left, nor far left. Your baseless assertion about the Administration show that you identify with the left, all right, yet you have not shown any ability to make even a thin leftist argument. You have mastered the left's insults and can chant their cat calls, but seem to be unable to show how you arrive at these assertions.

People, like you, identify with the mass of people in the center. This allows you to curse at people that you figure already have a lot of adversaries. So any insult you hurl gives you instant allies and that makes you feel good. And don't let the fact that you don't understand the arguments stop you. I seriously doubt whether you know anything about the inner workings of our government.

No, Jan, you are not left, you are part of the center. But a particular part of the center. What I might call the "I'm proud to have an opinion" center.

Furthermore Jan goes on to say:

"You really ought to distinguish between the left and the far left, just as I distinguish between the right and the far right, the latter being not much better than the fundamentalist Muslims."

Jan, have you ever been under the domination of fundamentalist Muslims? Have you ever sat down and debated the virtues of secularism, rock music or peace with Israel as a women or teenage man with the local fundamentalists handlers? Your insults hurled at our leaders and the bravado of your words against our democratic system is offensive to me. Just felt I needed to let you know.

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