By LARRY WILKE

On this New Year’s Day, maybe we should take a look at the year that wasn’t, which was based on the worst move of the year before, and what may lie ahead in 2010.

The “lost” year of 2009 was precipitated by the worst move of 2008, which was the nomination of John McCain. The McCain nomination was the Republican answer to “playing for a tie,” “liberal lite” or “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” McCain would have had to deal with the liberal House and Senate and as a “maverick.” He might have ended up bending where he shouldn’t have. There were enough liberals in both Houses for the liberals to continue with their “Target America First” and their “Contract ON America” programs virtually unimpeded.

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

What is the future of the Western democracy? A look at Britain over the last 12 months seems to provide some clues. In one way or another Islamism was a constant theme, though party politics were volatile by almost any standards. Having long ignored the will of the people in every area – from law and order to immigration – and demonizing those brave enough to raise uncomfortable, but important issues, the political class began to feel the heat of the nation’s boiling anger. Pressure from the top had kept a lid on things, but in 2009 politics began to spill onto the streets, with “anti-Islamization” protests emerging up and down the country. The response was to give more money to tackling the “far-Right.” However, most of the protestors appear to have been ordinary citizens.

Anti-Israel protests have been held over the last few years, though these exploded across Britain in January. In September a London march in support of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah attracted a few thousand, though it did not attract any condemnation from the political class or mainstream media. But, then, double standards and contradiction was a theme in itself in 2009. David Miliband condemned Geert Wilders’ film Fitna as “hate-filled,” but he had not seen it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer – responsible for the nation’s taxes – claimed for assistance with his tax return. Sir John Chilcot said the legality of the Iraq war would be central to his investigation, though the investigating committee would have no legal expert. And so on, and so on.

Truth itself seems a casualty of modern Britain. Instead an ideology, a zeitgeist, is apparent, with politicians and the cultural “elite” seeming merely to repackage, in more sober language, the prejudices of a fascistic-Left: Take, for example, the support for Hamas by socialist street protestors, and the interview of Hamas’ leader in the New Statesman; or George Galloway’s call for protestors to “shut down Israel shops” and the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs new labeling guidelines for Israeli products that would make them easier to boycott, and the open political propaganda that accompanied its labeling advice.

Below we have listed some of the most important events of the year, with particular attention paid to Islamism (and the backlash against it) and to party politics. Although I have listed events by month, some, such as protests, naturally reemerge at different time.

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