_______________________________________ We don't need no steenking cognitive dissonance!

Nick Cohen gets off to a rousing start in the current issue of New Statesman, the top left-wing journal in Britain:

Before you go to a left-wing meeting, brace yourself for the likelihood that everyone you meet in the hall will be standing on their head. Do not be surprised to see communists supporting fascism, feminists throwing their arms around misogynists and liberals volunteering to be advocates for tyranny. It's been like this since 9/11 turned the world upside down, and the temptation for a journalist is to play the cynical reporter and pretend to be unshockable. I try my best to be a hard man, but the shocks keep on coming.

Read the whole thing.