Jamie Glazov's Anger and the "Overseas Contingency Operation"

I have to admit I was not initially excited about reading Jamie Glazov’s United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. The subject was a bit exhausted for me – I had pretty much lived through it in many people’s writing, not to mention my own work – and his title seemed a little overstated into the bargain. I would have preferred “Seduced by Hate” or something like that.

I was wrong. Glazov’s book “cooks,” as we used to say in the hard bop era. And it has plenty of information even for a sated information junkie like me who has previously visited several of the centers of tyranny he describes – the Soviet Union, Cuba and the People’s Republic of China .

And he doesn’t finally overstate. Hate, and as he points out, with its bosom companion Thanatos, is the underlying emotion, the motivating factor, for much of the more radical left. I would submit envy and narcissism are there too in heavy doses, but, I must reluctantly agree with Glazov, hate rules the day.

I say reluctantly, because accusing people of hating is more difficult for me. I come from a very different background from Glazov. I am from the comfortable American bourgeoisie. He is the son of Soviet Dissidents who clearly walked-the-walk when it came to the heavier realities of left wing oppression. Through them, he has earned the right to say what he does.

Still, it took me a while to get over my ambivalence to his definitive statements, but get over it I did. I think it was midway through his chapter on the Sandinistas – the last of the Marxist left and the preamble to our era of Islamism. And speaking of Islamism, who in a time when the “War on Terror” is being branded an “Overseas Contingency Operation” could neglect this book? (hat tip: fred) Buy this book, if you haven’t already. Glazov, write more.