Cancel culture is no newer to some of us than fake news, such as the claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The gall of Nick Cohen is almost admirable, but in fact there is nothing to admire in having attained the age of 59 without having acquired the slightest self-awareness. Cohen was positively distinguished in screaming the most hysterical abuse against those of us who were right, and who spoke for the great majority of public opinion, about the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
That campaign to silence us went on at full force for many years, and it has still never quite come to an end. By contrast, I am not aware that anyone has ever been drummed out of public life for having taken the spectacularly wrong, and massively unpopular, position of support for that war.
Cohen yearns for the world before Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn, in which there was no platform except for liberals and liberal conservatives, Whigs and Whiggish Tories, Clinton Democrats and Bush Republicans. All were committed to neoliberal economic policy and to neoconservative foreign policy. Everyone else had been cancelled, not least by Nick Cohen.
No comments:
Post a Comment