Paine today: decentism redux

The debate rumbles on. The Fat Man tells me to calm down. And in fact I have nothing to add to Waterloo Sunset's and my comments here, to Paulie's excellent intervention here, and in particular to the Fat Man's return to the fray here.

Here is an extract from that:

What has happened in the aftermath of 9/11 is that a section of the left woke up, and spotted that another section had drifted into an accommodation with Islamism and anti-Semitism, a trend that had been going on since the 60’s and 70’s. They promptly mounted a challenge. They haven’t comprehensively won, but now every egregious excrescence is met with reasoned argument and passionate scorn. It is hugely to everyone’s credit. This fostered a new internationalism, countering pessimistic ‘realism’ with a wholehearted belief in human possibilities across the world.

All of this is excellent. However, my concern, expressed in recent posts, is that, after our exertions, we too begin to doze off. We get so comfortable attacking the left that we forget that we are left as well. We relax and, in doing so, we forget the grotesque injustices and inequities in even those societies that are liberal capitalist democracies. We forget the shantytowns and favellas, we forget environmental devastation and we forget that, if the current food crisis gets worse, millions of poor people will starve to death whilst I poke fun at government obesity strategies. Only connect.

That sums it up well for me!

Just noticed: The Jura Watchmaker has a bit more to say too here.

P.S. And Terry gives us another reason why Marx still matters, despite what the Burkeans might say.