Back from Bermuda and the 20th Century!

Greetings, earthlings! I'm back from a short hiatus and ready to expound on all the vicissitudes of the modern age.

Too much news while I was gone! First and foremost, we have the undignified death of America's favorite bogeyman, the incompetent terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This has given our brave Republican leaders a convenient excuse to begin the withdrawal from Iraq, which will be "mostly completed" by - conveniently - summer 2008. Meaning that the Dems' only window to use the Iraq fiasco to whip the Republicans out of Congress will be in 2006. Better keep up that fundraising.

Speaking of which, the big liberal bloggers' convention - named the Yearly Kos - is underway in Vegas, and Democrats are lining up to pay homage to the power of the "liberal blogosphere." I like these people's energy and commitment to their cause, and I hope their rise presages a general revival of the liberal movement in America. However, I have two worries about the blogger-power trend:

1. When naming their own greatest accomplishments, liberal bloggers - most of all Kos himself - tend to list candidates that they've brought to power and prominence. I've never heard any of them boast of an issue that they've brought to national attention, or an ideological campaign they've waged. The blogosphere is supporting candidates, but what do they believe in? I'm a little wary of following a movement just because it says it's "liberal" and so do I.

2. A second, and related worry is that the blogosphere is going to turn into yet another brigade in the Democrats' "circular firing squad," by spending most of their energy savaging Democratic politicians whom they feel are not with their (nebulously defined) agenda. That's not the way a good political movement works. A good movement first promotes ideas, and then tries to force politicians to support those ideas. A good movement does NOT develop vendettas against candidates in its own party whom it thinks are "too centrist" (eg. Hillary Clinton) and then hold those grudges forever. Politicians are weather-vanes; it's their nature. Political movements have to be the wind.

Speaking of Democratic infighting, my cousin Jonathan sadly failed to win California's 41st District Assembly race, which proves once again that connections and money trump good ideas. However, the winner, Julia Brownley, is a nice lady whose heart is in the right place, and is infinitely preferable to the execrable second-place finisher Barry Groveman.

Other news while I was out included the biggest British university teachers' union boycotting Israeli universities, ostensibly to protest unfair treatment of the Palestinians. This move is surprising, given that Israel has been treating the Palestinians much the same since 2000 - where was the teachers' union five years ago, eh?

But it's not just anti-Semitism at work here. The British calculus goes something like this: 15 million Jews in the world, 1.2 billion Muslims. In their minds, the whole Global Islamist Conflict (which includes Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, etc.) is just a symptom of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we spit on Israel, the teachers reason, those 1.2 billion Arabs will see that we're neutral and leave us in peace.

If only it were that simple. Maybe the Islamist movement started in part as a response to Israel (although I think oil had a lot more to do with it), but it has a life of its own now. Al-Qaeda never mentions "support for Israel" as its first reason after committing attacks in Europe or Asia, and you have to take Al-Qaeda at their word. Sorry, teachers - throwing Israel under the bus isn't going to stop the Islamists from blowing that bus to smithereens.

Maybe that was why they cancelled the boycott less than two weeks after it began.

Speaking of Islamist craziness, three Guantanamo detainees killed themselves in a suicide pact, which they apparently intended as an "act of martyrdom." All I can say is, feel free to continue this sort of martyrdom operation.

No, seriously. I have taken a lot of flak from my fellow liberals for coming down hard on Islamists. After all, we liberals are supposed to focus on protecting ancient and indigenous cultures from the ravages of imperialism, right? Well, yes, but Islamism ain't no folk religion of the Papua New Guinea forest people. It's a recent phenomenon, an aggressive organized religious revival movement that advocates global violence, oppression of minorities and women, and a total lack of religious freedom, and uses high-tech means to achieve its ends. Islamists are the super robo-Puritans of the 21st century, and as a liberal I'm committed to opposing violent Puritans wherever they may be, whether they call their god "Allah" or "Jesus."

Alright, that's all I feel like I can write about in one post without being accused of attention deficit disorder. Tune in next post for more ringing denunciations and bold declarations! Keep the liberal cause alive...