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The Left lies down on the midden of all conspiracies.

By MICHAEL BLACKBURN.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES CAN be very entertaining when you read about them, but not when you have to spend a couple of days alone with a committed believer in the wilds of Ireland. That’s what happened to a friend of mine recently. After he told us about the conversations he’d had with his host – 9/11, the moon landings, lizards, all the usual stuff – I put it to him that in the end I bet his friend thought the Jews were behind all of them. And if not the Jews, then aliens, who, I suppose, can be counted as a type of extra-terrestrial Jew.

He said, yes, that was the case, though this theorist also believed some of the conspiracies were caused by Satan. In league with the Jews, of course. I reckon I won on points.

bjenngdnThe biggest conspiracy theory around, though, as I’ve argued before, is socialism in all its varieties. It identifies its enemy in capitalism, which is the evil force at work responsible for every ill in the world: slavery, class division, misogyny, the patriarchy, sexism, racism, imperialism, colonialism, homophobia, Islamophobia, poverty, inequality, etc. Capitalism is the Great Satan, and, since antisemitism is the ur-conspiracy, the begetter and template of all conspiracy theorising, it follows that it’s the Jews behind capitalism. Scratch a socialist and you’ll find an antisemite, even if that socialist is, perversely, a Jew. That’s another bucket of psychosis I have no wish to delve into. Conversely, because there’s no way they’re not going to be hung out to dry, the Jews are also responsible for socialism. This is a win-win situation for all antisemites.

Back to the left. It is now slowly dawning on some of the more perceptive comrades that the socialist movement, from Guardian cartoonists to the Oxford University Labour Club to Labour party activists and foreign ministers of EU states, is riddled with antisemitism, and that the ascendancy of Corbyn to the Labour leadership, with all his pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist baggage, has acted as an encouragement to this “growing darkness on the left” as Nick Cohen describes it.

Cohen’s reaction to the realisation of this fact has been to identify more with his own attenuated Jewishness and to encourage others on the left, non-Jews included, to do the same:

They will need to make a brief acquaintance with European history and understand that the left has no guaranteed immunity from fascistic ideology. They will have to see antisemitism for what it is and understand why it always leads to despotism and despair. Like me, in short, and if only briefly, they will have to become Jews themselves.

The left is not just a system based on a conspiracy theory, it is a religious one and if you wish to leave you have to go full apostate.

A bit late in the day, one might say, but it’s a start. The problem is that Cohen, having not fully detached himself from the left still trots out the old lines about fascism and racism and so on, as if all these terrible things only come from the right. The left is not just a system based on a conspiracy theory, it is a religious one and if you wish to leave you have to go full apostate. There are no half measures. Cohen is stuck with half measures and hence cannot accept that leftism ineluctably merges with antisemitism. He may think his being Jewish experiment will only be needed temporarily. He’s wrong: it’s permanent.

Well, that’s my theory anyway, based on personal experience and observation, and no “lobby” paying me for it. In searching for the Cohen article, though, I clumsily typed in “Nock Chen Guardian” and the miracle that is Google worked it out instantly. It brought the links up, with the word “Jew” in them. Is there some kind of Zionist plot going on here? It makes you think, doesn’t it?


suxcoverCurrente Calamo columnist, poet, writer and lecturer Michael Blackburn lives in Lincolnshire . From 2005–2008 he was the Royal Literary Fund fellow at the University of Lincoln where he now teaches English Literature and Creative Writing. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies over the years, including Being Alive (Bloodaxe) and Something Happens, Sometimes Here (Five Leaves Press). His most recent collection is Spyglass Over The Lagoon. A selection of his Fortnightly Currente Calamo columns, Sucks To Your Revolution: Annoying The Politically Correct (US), is available as a Kindle ebook.

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