"The great poets are the left ones / never the right ones." C.C.

I have always had a visceral sense of repulsion toward right-wing politics. Yet I have also despised the sentimental and idiot left. I never would trust a regime that would throw someone like me into a re-education camp. Intellectuals can sentimentalize (or apologize for) governments that would kill them (people like them) without hesitation. Foucault on the Iranian revolution. French Maoists. Chomsky on Pol Pot. Goytisolo's account of a trip to Cuba. (Being gay helps you see through that regime more quickly, of course.) Account by Semprún, old-school Spanish communist, of mid-night basketball game: every time Fidel drives toward the basket, the defenders on the other team simply step out of the way so he can score.