One of the odder items on Paul Foot’s lengthy CV was his parliamentary candidacy in the 1970s for the Socialist Workers’ Party.
If someone were to write a long article which began with four paragraphs about Mr Foot, and which then focused on the modern SWP’s unwise support for tyranny and fascism (with digressions covering the 1970s German militant left’s equally unwise support for tyranny and fascism, and a long interview with a random Israeli army deserter who opposed Zionism), it might be reasonable to view that as some kind of attempt to smear Mr Foot as an antisemite and a supporter of fascism.
And if the article’s author were to claim that “my post is about Paul Foot’s party, not Paul Foot” as a defence to claims of wrongly pissing all over a good man’s reputation, then it might be reasonable to suppose that the author was somewhat intellectually dishonest.
If said author were known continuously to pervert the values for which they claimed to stand (a ‘socialist’ who rates George Bush over Paul Foot?) and engage in the same casual smearing and lawyerly missing-of-the-point on almost any topic where socialists or liberals were involved, this might be evidence in favour of the same point.
In somewhat related news, I’m giving up reading Oliver Kamm, and have removed him from my blogroll. Remember kids, don’t confuse being erudite with being correct…
I shall have to bear the news of my excommunication with as much fortitude as I can muster. But I’m perplexed to find that I’m a professed socialist: I’m not, and have corrected you on this point before. As to preferring Bush to Foot – well yes, obviously. Whatever you think of President Bush, he is a member of a democratic political party, whereas Paul Foot was a member of a party that seeks to abolish parliamentary democracy and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. If you’re surprised that I regard that as a defining political distinction, then I fear I can’t be expressing myself clearly.