By Donnel Jones, October 28, 2003
Posted on 10/28/2003 6:55:27 PM PST by stevejackson
| Good Old Times By Donnel Jones, October 28, 2003 |
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The 22nd Socialist International Congress met today in Sao Paulo Brazil. The event was noted for being a non-event with attendance counted in no-shows. It appears the Party has suffered a hangover.
I respectfully request all readers right now to sit still and observe a moment of silence.
There now. Feel better? We can all breathe easily, confident that we have entered the Twilight Zone and are none the worse for it. But Brazil? Remember, the tropics love their socialism. The horrid North, with its penchant for individual responsibility, is the target of collectivist blame because the U.S. is introducing a new world order.
Left-leaning politicians from around the world worked Tuesday on a declaration against U.S.-style regime changes and the spread of unfettered capitalism.
It appears the AP is totally devoid of irony or loves to dabble in adolescent rebellion when it titled this article, "Socialists Have Plan to Fight Capitalism." I'd like to ask the AP, "do they?"
Funny how the first Internationals were proud to summon a new world. But after 100,000,000 dead in the last century (and perhaps counting when more bodies are dug up in post-Saddam Iraq), you better believe the dream of radical egalitarianism is long dead. Why not be bitter and get together down South to throw stones at Bush and the Conservatives?
I know some of you think I'm an over the top kind of guy. Go ahead, flatter me. But I'll give you stuff to chew on to see just WHO exactly is practicing "magical realism." Ready?
The four-yearly gathering drew a lesser crowd than past summits. The last Socialist International in Paris in 1999 attracted top world leaders including Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. All of those figures bowed out in advance of the Brazil conference. Other leftist stars - including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev former Spanish premier Felipe Gonzalez - canceled just after the congress began.
Get this. A British socialist who sided with Bush decided not to go. Hmmm. But isn't the nefarious turncoat also to be blamed . . . for trying "to undermine multilateral institutions, to promote unilateralism and the consecration of the market and to impose the will of the powerful to decide the future of mankind"?
What about Gerhard Schroeder? Surely his anti-American credentials are sterling? But his popularity is mining the depths of his political irrelevance which would make him a guest of honor at the most irrelevant of political gatherings outside a Hamas hate-fest: the 22nd Socialist International Congress.
And Arafat? Isn't he holed up somewhere? Maybe he's dead? Maybe he's in exile? Otherwise, I can't imagine why he was a no-show.
What really disappoints me is that Howard Dean didn't show up either. Imagine the spray of lighter fluid on his constituent's hot coals of hatred for Bush and all things necessary to fight a war against those who hate civilization if Howy were down there yelling about "Oil" and "Bush's War." Makes you almost want to raise taxes on the rich—indefinitely.
The 21st Socialist International Congress convened in Paris (go figure) in 1999. Blair, Schroeder, and Arafat showed up at THAT one. Ah, the good old days when Arafat was young (somewhat), dashingly debonair for a simian, and the darling of internationalist paparazzi. But remember, that was so September 10th.
Perhaps I can send a few friends to sit where Uday and Qusay would have been ?
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