James Delingpole Makes Stuff Up.

I was having a quick browse through Johann Hari's articles archive to see if he had some more posted up, when I found this short rebuke towards a Spectator article penned by the right wing polemic James Delingpole, who describes himself as "right on everything." Hmmm. This article is unusual for him in that it isn't an almost obsessive tract on "how climate change is just made up by communists to steal middle class peoples cash.", which for about 95% of what he writes. (It's ironic that climate change deniers like Delingpole always say "warmists" are obsessed and zealous about CC, when they themselves never bloody shut up about how it's a con.) Indeed it got him and the Telegraph in well deserved hot water, when he stupidly, and in my opinion, deliberately splashed the address of a man who wrote a letter that took a Tory candidate to task for the contradiction of Cameran being pro green, whilst the party seemed anti. (Story and letter sent here.) It was a moderate letter, but Delingpole said he was a "eco fascist" and inevitably some of the (ahem more "passionate" CC deniers) followers of his stuff got this guys address e mail and picture of his house published online, where it remained on the Telegraphs site for 20 hours. I wonder who the real CC fanatics really are sometimes? No, the article; entitled "Most gay men have realised that the Oppressed Victimhood party is totally over" is about how "playing the gay victim card" doesn't carry as much weight as it used to. I think it's in response to a survey on homophobia increasing/decreasing. I don't know in which context he is writing about. He is a terrible writer. Like most of Delingpoles writing it is loopily right wing, overblown and full of shitty pretentious metaphors, and name dropping philosophers to make you look better read. The stuff that only bad writers who are trying to look cleverer than they really are use. But it also exemplifies the casual nastiness that drips through pretty much all he writes. Stuff like this.

"Some of my best friends are gay — but now I can go one better than that: one of them is HIV positive. ‘But that’s brilliant news!’ I told my friend when he spilled the beans the other day. ‘Now I can go round claiming victim cred by association. And if anyone makes an Aids joke I can be, like, seriously offended and put on a solemn voice and say: “Actually, you know, if you had an HIV positive friend like I do...”.’

My friend agreed that being HIV positive was a very handy thing to be, in this respect. But on further consideration, we decided it would have carried more victim cred weight in the days before anti-retroviral drugs when a) it was a death sentence; and b) being gay won you many more oppressed-minority brownie points."

Yeah I mean HIV ain't that a big deal. Is James Delingpole the only man on Earth who could use the news that someone close to him was terminally ill, as an anti -PC tract.

Twat.

Normally I wouldn't comment on stuff that Delingpole writes. It really speaks for itself. But for two things I will. Firstly Delingpole has never read any of Johann Haris work when he writes.

"And obviously, there’s no hope whatsoever for the impossible Johann Hari who, even as the wall is pushed on top of him, will be squealing with his last breath that it’s all the fault of Western imperialism and white heterosexist Islamophobia. Generally, though, I think even the most obtuse homosexual male has realised that the Oppressed Victimhood party is, like, so totally over."

Hari, in typical style gave this robust rebuttal.

"I found this slightly odd, since I am so critical of Islamic fundamentalists that I have received a substantial number of death threats from them. I worked undercover at the Finsbury Park mosque after 9/11 to expose Islamists; I have debunked Hizb ut Tahrir as a bunch of theocratic fascists on live television; and after I wrote an article criticising the 'Prophet' Mohammed for having sex with a pre-pubescent girl when he was 53 years old, there was a three-day riot by over 3000 people in Calcutta calling for me to be imprisoned or killed. At no point did I blame "Islamophobia" for this lunatic behaviour. On the contrary: I was highly critical of the people who put this case."

Say what you will about Hari, he can't be considered some apologist for militant Islam. Any cursory check of his anti-religious articles will confirm all what he says in his rebuttal. It is also not taking into account how he bravely, was not swayed into self censorship vis a vis the Calcutta riots here. It is barmy to say he makes excuses for Islamic fundamentals.

Secondly, like many of these sorts of articles, it belittles genuine efforts to curb prejudice and inequality as "victim politics" and "bolshy minorities." It is also peppered with homosexual innuendo and blanket stereotyping.

" If I were gay, I think I’d feel a bit miffed about this. It would be a bit like having your Uniqlo 20 per cent press discount card withdrawn or being told that now your favourite club’s under new management you can no longer jump to the front of the queue. But I’m afraid homosexuals are going to have to get over it in much the same way Jews have had to get over it."

"In an odd way, though, I think this process has done both Jews and homosexuals the power of good. Obviously, I deplore the way they are persecuted, but you only have to look at how the cult of victimhood has sapped the strength of so many ‘ethnic communities’ in guilt-ridden Western cultures to realise that, actually, playing the oppressed minority card is ultimately self-destructive."

"if there’s one thing that ever makes me want to vote BNP, it’s when I hear a black person playing the race card or a Muslim talking about Islamophobia."

He ups the ante by claiming that these guys should really "put up and shut up", as many a defender of bullying and discrimination have proclaimed.

"Of course, I understand why these people do it. It’s a tough, competitive world and if pleading victimhood can give you that extra edge, well, why not? Also, let’s be honest, it can be tremendously good fun working oneself up into a lather of indignation over some perceived slight — and what is more satisfying than doing so on behalf not merely of yourself, but of the entire black/gay/Jewish/disabled/female/Muslim ‘community’?"

The problem is that when you play this game, you are not only undermining your own cause — think, for example, of how much funnier black comedians are when they don’t project guilt-trip vibes about their skin colour: Chris Rock, say, or Reginald D. Hunter — but you are also contributing to the moral and intellectual degeneracy of the broader culture. You are endorsing a bizarre, sick value system which rewards people not for their strengths but for how useless and feeble and needy and bitter they can prove themselves to be."

The real problem I have with this kind of thing is that it shows no insight into how better rights for minorities came about (it also implausibly implies that they are "better off" than the mainstream. Handy to dismiss them as pampered ingrates.), or even that discrimination exists at all. Whenever I hear this kind of sentiment (and it is common in right wing memes) I have to ask do these people think that anti discrimination just came out of the blue. No it didn't. The suffragettes, Martin Luther King, and the footage from Hitlers camps shocked people into their plight, and caused a change in attitude towards minorities. The mainstream sometimes weren't aware of their plight, so there was little incentive to change this. If these people did as Delingpole asked and kept "quiet", then women would still be waiting for votes that would never come to them. Gays would be breaking the law by having a relationship straight people would take for granted. I'm sure some do use "the victimhood card" for their own personal gain. But it is a small price for society being shocked into improving treatment of minorities. If they had not been so vocal in calling for them, they would never have got them, because no-one else would have done it for them. Is this perhaps the root of some of the harder rights distaste of the "bolshys", it forces them to see a discriminatory aspect of society that they don't want to see, and would rather ignore.