Re: NJC Two great articles on war

[sl . m]

Susan, I promise I'm not being obtuse, but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. "The speed of my reply"; I wasn't "that" conservative until more recently; the childishness; your "exact words" you noticed, "fun and games" etc etc - I really have no idea what you mean. Please do say.

Regarding what you say about liking the distinctions of ideologies, because you like to know where your enemy is coming from - this is likely to lead to labelling people wrongly. I don't think it's possible any more to lump people together into old 1960s ideologies of left versus right, because there are so many new ways of looking at things and so many new issues. Take animal rights for example. Is supporting animal rights leftwing or rightwing? If you go to an animal rights meeting, you'll find every shade of political opinion there, united in a belief that animals have moral, and ought to have legal, rights. Same with feminism, campaigning against homophobia, anti-racism, campaigning for the rights of disabled people, environmentalism, you name it. And the war in Iraq is the same. One of the (so-called) left's darlings in Britain, Nick Cohen of the Observer, is passionately in favour of war in Iraq, because he wants to see the Iraqi people liberated, and he sees the war as an issue the left should embrace, and is astonished that they don't. And another one: if you support nuclear power, are you left or right? Until a decade ago, you'd have been on the right, but now, with Kyoto, an increasing number of people traditionally regarded as leftwing are wondering whether nuclear power is better than burning fossil fuels. And so on. I think a point comes where the labels don't refer properly anymore, and maybe should be abandoned.

Sarah

PS The speed with which I'm replying doesn't mean anything. It's just that I'm sitting at the computer.