[lbo-talk] Gorgeous George Galloway and "saddamist money"

Etienne tim_boetie at fastmail.fm
Thu May 19 05:11:06 PDT 2005


On Thu, 19 May 2005 11:55:10 +0100 (BST), "Daniel Davies" <d_squared_2002 at yahoo.co.uk> said:
> 6) Galloway knew about 5) and thus the allocations to Zureikat were
> effectively
> used to "launder" payments made from Saddam to GG.
...
> 8) Galloway knew about 7) and was thus involved in arranging corrupt
> side-payments under the oil-for-food program.

Does this actually matter that much? We already know Galloway is a bit of a bounder - a self-publicist who is not bothered by being soft on dictators who are 'objectively anti-imperialist' (i.e., who the US doesn't like). Does it matter if he got paid to do it, as well as doing it out of conviction? Unlike, say, the allegations that the WRP used to send details of Iraqi dissidents to Saddam, which would be a serious violation of solidarity; getting bunged a few used fivers by Saddam is a moral failing, sure, but no-one takes Galloway as a moral examplar anyway.

I can see why it would be bad PR for the anti-war movement - but maybe we should combat that by explicitly arguing that we don't care about the allegations. If we act like they matter, eventually the supporters of the war are going to find some spurious moralising criticisms which are actually true; better to combat that from the get-go, I would have thought. Something like:

"Which is worse - taking kickbacks, or killing 100,000 Iraqis."

--

"The bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic; the

reverse would be better."

-- Adorno Tim http://www.huh.34sp.com/



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