Defending Communists

David Neiwert responds and then responds again to my response to his initial response to my multiculturalism post. Well it turns out that what I'm really doing is fighting on behalf of white nationalism! Well he doesn't say I'm a white nationalist in so many words. Neiwert links me to William Lind who wrote A Short History of Cultural Conservatism, which is a "classic example" of the call for white nationalism. Ah.

Somewhere towards the end of his Den Beste-length post, Neiwert says of my original post and "other" white nationalist screeds:

The attacks on multiculturalism are part of a cohesive line of argument that is beginning to emerge from the right. Its basic syllogism is this: Liberalism equals multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is anti-American. Anti-Americanism gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Thus, liberal attacks on the Bush regime's war effort support the enemy.

The line of argument that lumps together a whole bunch of people and attacks them all with one brush is a clumsy one. I never equated liberalism with multiculturalism, nor anti-Americanism with aiding the enemy (or treason). These may of course overlap, but not always. I only linked and provided a road map between multiculturalism and anti-Americanism. But note how I'm now apparently saying that all liberals, a huge group to be sure, are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. What sophistry.

Considering the already-vicious character of this line of reasoning, one wonders how long will it be before we hear the next logical step of this syllogism: Namely, that those who support the enemy are equal to enemy combatants.

There's that idle wondering again. Neiwert doesn't come out and accuse anyone of wanting to put liberals in camps, he's just wondering (no, one just wonders) when it will happen.

But the title of this post is Defending Communists. Where'd that come from? In his second response, linked to earlier, Neiwert says:

And there are reasons liberals don't view Communists with the same kind of reflexive horror as do conservatives.

And then he cites some nice things communists have done in this country, or at least, nice things that some people who have been accused of communism have done. On his own blog, Demosthenes too, seems interested in defending communists. Wha? Is this 1984 - the year, not the book. Demosthenes says "I'd say communists are misguided, but I agree with Eric [Tam]: not evil...." Read it for what nuance you can find.

Why are bloggers of the left defending communists all of a sudden? International ANSWER, the organizers of last Sunday's anti-war protest in DC, is really the Workers World Party. As has been reported elsewhere in the blogosphere, but not much in the mainstream media, they're a bunch of communists and Stalinists who support North Korea and like what China did in Tiananmen Square.

At the risk of lumping them all together and painting them with one brush, Neiwert and Demosthenes and Tam are saying that there's not really anything disreputable about Stalinists holding an anti-war protest, or with liberals joining that protest. After all, communists mean well, and who else is even holding marches?

Now let's put this all together so that everyone, even me, can understand. I, and white nationalists like me, are trying to stifle dissent by accusing liberals of supporting the enemy, while at the same time it's perfectly acceptable for mainstream liberals to participate in an anti-war protest organized by communists who actually do support the enemy, because communists aren't quite as bad as racists or fascists.

And David Neiwert claims that the anti-American charge is undemocratic because it stifles dissent, yet he accuses others of fomenting white nationalism, which I guess is racism/fascism lite. Racism and fascism are precisely the ideologies that Demosthenes and Tam assert are worse than communism, the two charges that the left has for years used in an attempt to stifle dissent from the right.

This is an old smear, and it reeks of desperation. It's an attempt to silence reasoned debate by merely dismissing ad hominem the motives of the opposition.

Actually, that was David Neiwert talking about charges of communism. He doesn't say whether or not it's a smear to accuse communists of communism.