Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Thursday, February 07, 2008 12:59:54 AM
It is a wonder that any young person develops conservative ideas given the Leftist indoctrination that occurs nearly every minute of every day. Even a bit of escapist fantasy isn't safe from the Left's heavy hand.
Case in point: China Mieville's book Un Lun Dun. The Democrat Times of New York Book Review does readers a favor by warning them (or teasing them, depending on your politics) of the Leftist ideology Mieville is feeding his "Young Adult" (I think we used to call these "teenagers" - or are they "tweens" now?) readers.
"Beyond its abundant charms, “Un Lun Dun” never misses an opportunity to
undermine the tiresome plot devices and tedious moralizing of
traditional fantasy. When its disheveled characters are sent on
exactingly prescribed quests, you can be sure these heroes will cut
corners or otherwise fail to fulfill their missions; when prophecies
are invoked, they generally don’t come true; and any character
complacent enough to believe he or she is some sort of Chosen One is
all but guaranteed not to save the day. Like his fellow Britons Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl,
Miéville has no illusions about what utter bastards children can be,
and his novel encourages them to be reckless, mistrustful and
secretive; it also finds time to teach them lessons about caring for
the environment and being suspicious of officials who raise the specter
of terrorism for their own political gain." (emphasis added)
There you have the Leftist world-view in a nutshell: Global Warming is a greater threat than Islamo-Nazis who strap bombs to adults with Downs Syndrome and kill them, and anyone standing next to them, in a pet store. And never mind the bomb-vest wearing crazy chanting "Allah hu Akbar" who wants to see your body blown into bits small enough to fit into a Glad sandwich bag; we need to save ANWR. If the Islamo-Nazi swine, which currently target people, started targeting so-called old growth forests, perhaps then Mr. Mieville, and his ilk, would begin to think ill of them.
That this work, at least, seems to hustle his Left-wing tripe, shouldn't surprise us given that Mr. Mieville is a communist ... uh, I mean active member of the British Socialist Workers Party (a distinction without a difference). And we all know that for the Left life begins and ends with politics.