With the start of the new year, the clubs on campus are in a flurry of activity as they plaster new posters recruiting members and announcing upcoming events. One series of posters that has been really noticeable was put up by the Victoria Students for a Critical Consciousness. The posters, entitled “A Better World is Possible: Empire and Resistance—At Home and Abroad,“ feature a small paragraph denouncing “Imperialist American Tyranny” on issues ranging from Colombia to globalization and Iraq.

In one poster, they twist the words from a U.S. soldier describing his shock at how quickly the Allied forces defeated the Iraqi army by making it seem he derived sadistic pleasure from seeing all the dead Iraqi soldiers. Another poster shows a comic strip satirizing U.S. President George W. Bush as a murderous dictator with no concern for the unintentional harm done by U.S. military actions in Afghanistan.

While the Victoria Students for Critical Consciousness seem to emphasize the cliché of “Imperialist American Tyranny” that is played over and over again by the leftist groups on campus, they seem to have a mysterious bout of amnesia when it comes to North Korea and Venezuela.

Are there any posters condemning communist North Korea for restarting its nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 treaty in which they promised to scrap it in return for massive humanitarian aid? Is there a single poster making fun of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for building weapons of mass destruction while his people are starving? Where are the posters chastising Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for illegally removing US$114 million in gold from the country’s national bank and shipping it to a military base commanded by troops loyal to him?

The bottom line is the Victoria Students for a Critical Consciousness and many other leftists on campus are a bunch of hypocrites who condemn “American tyranny” while turning a blind eye to the crimes of their socialist and communist comrades in other parts of the world.

A little hint for the Victoria Students for a Critical Consciousness—if you want to earn some credibility on campus, exercise some critical thinking by condemning tyranny—whether from the political left, or the right.