Parasitical Pleasure

It was above all the theater, the vulgar “art”, the grand guignol productions of the beer halls and the street. It was the provocation, the excitement, the frisson which Nazism was able to provide, in the brawling, the sweating, the singing, the saluting. Nazism, whether one wore brass knuckles and carried a rubber hose or simply played along vicariously, beating up communists and Jews in one’s mind, was action. Nazism was involvement. Nazism was not a party; Nazism was an event.
Eksteins, M., Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age, (Black Swan, London: 1990), 414.

Our office is in an incredible state. Dozens of people pass through every day and at any time there are 20 or 30 in the building. The sandwich bill alone adds up to £50 a day. There are people of all ages here, but especially young people who are outraged at what has happened….

Demonstrations can’t happen – or not on the scale we expect tomorrow- without this level of organisation and commitment. And movements only thrive when they begin to harness this energy and commitment in all sorts of different ways…

So this mood and involvement is something special again…Even at this last minute people are booking tickets on coaches, leafletting tubes and getting their friends and families to come. If we are right, this will be very large, and will catch the mood and the moment. A perfect storm is gathering, and the prime minister is at its centre.
Lindsey German,
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition

The point here, of course, is nothing as daft as the claim that the StWC are Nazis. It’s a point about the nature of mass politics; the psychology of mass political participation, if you like. Watching that morally bankrupt, anti-Israel march, it was striking that the marchers were having a party; and obviously a party that was parasitical on the suffering of the people of Lebanon and Israel. Read this, and tell me that Lindsey German isn’t just loving the whole thing.

Here are some people expressing their sorrow, anger and outrage at the events in Lebanon (and no, this is not selective photography).

This is Jerry (again), so don’t blame OB.

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