OxBlog

# Posted 5:06 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK at the photo on the right. It ran alongside an article in Friday's WaPo about dark-skinned Britons' concerns about police harassment. The caption under the photo read, "A poster in Central London urges the resignation of police commissioner Ian Blair and Prime Minister Tony Blair."

Now, in the upper left-hand corner of the poster in the photograph, you will notice the logo of the Socialist Workers Party, which OxBlog once described as "the British answer to A.N.S.W.E.R." In other words, the SWP is hardcore leftist organization that sees American capitalism as the root of all evil, fawns over dictators like Fidel Castro, and even denounced the invasion of Afghanistan as a Halliburton-led conspiracy to control the world's oil supply. (Perhaps they meant the world's heroin supply?)

Of course, the caption in the Post doesn't give you any sense that the poster it displays represents the opinions of a fringe minority. It's as if the Times of London or The Guardian ran some photos of the kooks who often protest the CIA's pedophilia operation in front of the White House without giving you any sense that they are, well, kooks. Of course, the SWP is not a party of kooks, but an organized conspiracy committed to some very tragic objectives.

Although I'm sure the Post's mistake was inadvertent, it should recognize the importance of not giving unnecessary credibility to extremists of any sort.

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