“To be good you had to be on the left.” (Nick Cohen)

In what sense, except that they are foul and there is a reflexive habit of calling nasty things “right wing”, are the Counterpunch troops of the right? Smaller state advocates? Responsibility, not rights? Free trade?

Oliver Kamm has shown, in his posts about the Peace Pledge Union, how similar the Stoppers are now to the left-orientated apeasement of the ’30s (“Europe wouldn’t be so bad under Mr Hitler”).

Another lurch of honesty is needed: the far left is the far right. There’s almost no difference – just hatreds chosen along slightly different lines. Both are statist, collectivist, communalist. Both have longstanding histories of anti-semitism; both have long histories of collaboration with Islamofascists (going back to the early days of the Russian Revolution on the one hand, and reaching an apogee with the Mufti of Jerusalem and the nazis on the other).

The BNP’s use of Islam as a proxy for racism is convenient, not intrinsic. Equally, the SWP (and similar) attachments to gender and racial equality was also merely convenient, as is shown by the ease with which these have been shed.

Left and Right are of decreasing use in contemporary politics (except perhaps as in this case as a way to see provoke some of the usual suspects into amusing squeals). Pragmatic libertarians and social democrats are placed on opposing sides by this dichotomy, but in fact they have more in common with one another than either do with the fascistic ultras whose adamantine certainties – religious or political – threaten so much that was hard won and that remains fragile.

Admittedly, on some issues it’s getting harder to tell the difference.

Atzmon’s saxophone is the pillar on which the entire fragile structure of reactionary resistance to the benign global hegemony of the neocons rests. Kick the sax away and watch those fascists flee!

I hate floor.