[lbo-talk] Galloway

[Carl Remick]

>From: "James Heartfield" <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
>
>Carl:
>
>"Aha, if I'm not mistaken, James, your sympathy is for the prophet of an
>English Jerusalem that never will be"
>
>Well, I can only speak for myself. And having seen an entire generation of 
>the British left exhaust itself in the fruitless task of trying to make the 
>welfare state into socialism through the instrument of parliament, along 
>with all the nationalistic chauvinism that entailed, I am not willing to go 
>down that road again. Like I say, Galloway did the right thing in 
>Washington, and his passion makes him stand out against the grey 
>alternative, but his 'old Labour' politics are what went wrong with the 
>left here, not a solution.

Considering the intensity of Galloway's antiwar sentiment, he seems an odd 
choice to be anointed the apostle of national chauvinism.  In any event, 
James, if you find him an encumbrance to whatever Newer-Than-New Labour 
politics you are trying to create, please ship Galloway to the US.  In a 
political landscape populated almost exclusively by warmongering Jesus 
Freaks, the US left desperately needs someone of Galloway's polemical 
skills.

BTW, I was just reading Christopher Hitchens' characterization of Galloway 
in that well-known leftist publication the Weekly Standard.  Hitchens finds 
Galloway "prolier than thou, and ostentatiously radical, but a bit too fond 
of the cigars and limos and always looking a bit odd in a suit that was 
slightly too expensive."  Quite a Puritan, that Hitchens; I'm surprised he 
hasn't come out in favor of sumptuary laws.

All in all, the US politician Galloway most closely resembles is Al Sharpton 
-- another figure I admire who never fails to outrage the fatuously 
fastidious.

Carl