In an article about today’s protests, by Dana Hull of the San Jose Mercury News, he describes the Workers World Party, one of the groups behind today’s protests,

Some of the WWP’s more controversial positions are its support for the governments of Iraq and North Korea; its backing of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic; its claims that reports of Serbian atrocities against Muslims and Croats were overblown; and its defense as recently as 2000 of the Chinese government’s deadly crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Looking at the web site, they also support the Palestinians over Israel, and Hugo Chavez. Oh, and of course, they want to Free Mumia!

The mind boggles. What heuristic would one use to predict what or who this group is going to support? You could say they promote socialist causes, but that doesn’t really tell one how to square their positions on Palestinians versus Israel and Milosevic versus the Muslims. After all, Israel tends to be socialist itself, while the Palestinians don’t really have an economic system to speak of.

Is it a White Male European against Islam thing? Hmmmm…that would explain opposition to Israel, but then it’s hard to reconcile with support for Milosevic, who’s also white, and male, and European and was murdering Muslims.

Oh, wait! The light goes on above the head. Now I get it.

It’s a very simple algorithm. If the US government is for it, they’re a’gin it, and vicey versey. Very reliable predictive technique.

And it tells you all you need to know about this group, and their fellow travelers.

Now here’s a question to ponder. Can a group whose basic premise seems to be that the US government under its constitution is the source of all evil in the world, and that all of its initiatives are to be opposed, in a knee-jerk fashion, be said to be in any way patriotic?

Hey, I’m just asking…