Reality Check: The Democrats are the Real Problem
Posted by Mike E on July 21, 2008
Kasama is publishing a range of views on the presidential election — including, obviously, views we do not directly endorse. This piece, originally published in Counterpunch, deserves a serious read.
By MIKE WHITNEY
Obama’s candidacy is over; kaput. He’s already stated that he has no intention of stopping the war, so he has disqualified himself. That’s his prerogative; no one put a gun to his head. His op-ed in Monday’s New York Times just removes any lingering doubt about the matter. What Obama proposes is moving the central theater of operation from Iraq to Afghanistan. Big deal. Why is it more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than in Iraq?
It’s not; which is why Obama must be defeated and the equivocating Democratic Party must be jettisoned altogether. The Democrats are a party of blood just like the Republicans, they’re just more discreet about it. That’s why people who are serious about ending the war have to support candidates outside the two-party charade. The Democrat/Republican duopoly will not deliver the goods; it’s as simple as that. The point is to stop the killing, not to provide blind support for smooth-talking politicos who try to mask their real intentions. Obama made his choice, now he can suffer the consequences.
Nancy Pelosi is a perfect example of what the Democrats are all about. Just look at the way she brushed aside the people who got her elected. They mean nothing to her. In a matter of months, the “San Francisco liberal” has achieved what former-Speaker of the House Hastert could only dream of; she’s driven the Congress’ public approval ratings into single digits for the first time in history making her the worst speaker of all time. She rubber-stamped the FISA bill, concealed what she knew about the CIA’s global torture programs, and vowed to stop any public effort to hold the administration accountable for its war crimes. (No impeachment) She has betrayed her most ardent supporters and singlehandedly transformed an already-emasculated congress into a purely ceremonial body incapable of doing the people’s work.
At least Bush never betrayed any of his supporters. Never. Pelosi is worse than Bush, much worse.
And yet, liberals still insist that we should vote the Democratic ticket. In your dreams!
What leftist or progressive is not totally fed-up with the Democrats cagey “bait-and-switch” hypocrisy? Voting the Democratic ticket is not a sign of “hope”; it’s a sign of being a schmuck. The Democrats have done nothing to stop the war and will do nothing to stop the war. The Obama candidacy is merely a way to replace one group of genocidal maniacs with another. Who needs a charismatic, flannel-mouth glamor boy to lead us into battle when a senile fogy with “anger management” issues will do just fine.
Voters of conscience should reject that choice altogether. Just as they should reject the “lesser of two evils” theory which does not apply when ordinance is being dumped daily on innocent civilians. It has to stop.
Obama is not an antiwar candidate, that is merely a fiction maintained by his public relations team. In fact, he wants to beef up the military with 65,000 additional ground forces and 27,000 more marines. He’s also stated that he will add “two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan” and encourage NATO to make “greater contributions—with fewer restrictions”. In his op-ed he boasted, “As president, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.”
He also added this ominous warning:
“The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won’t. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.”
Obama supporters should take their candidate at his word. What he is proposing is a dramatic escalation and expansion of the war into another sovereign country. How is this consistent with the demands of his base or the millions of Americans who believe that Obama represents real change.
It’s time for a reality check; the Democrats are the real problem not the Republicans. If the path to peace requires crushing the Democratic Party and its blood-thirsty candidates; so be it. The main thing is to stop the killing. If Obama won’t do it; we’ll find someone who will.
* * * * *
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state and can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com
Keith said
This is just a repeat of the line of the comintern’s so-called “Third Period.” The argument was made that social democrats are worse than Nazis. Social democrats are really social-fascists. That campaign was a rousing success as it brought Hitler to power, if that is your goal pursue the strategy outline in the above essay. It seems it is not only our capitalist who have no understanding of history…
Here is the wikipedia description of the third period:
In 1928, the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee began the so-called “Third Period”, which was to last until 1935.[26] The Comintern proclaimed that the capitalist system was entering the period of final collapse, and that as such, the correct stance for all Communist parties was that of an highly aggressive, militant, ultra-left line. In particular, the Comintern described all moderate left-wing parties as “social fascists”, and urged the Communists devote their energies to the destruction of the moderate left.
This is so simple, Communists never win when they are not in a united front with more moderated forces. And when they abandon the united front they are either crushed or if they hold state power they are forced to resort to terror to retain that power.
Nando said
There are rich layers to this issue raised by keith.
First he argues (rather mechanically) that
a) this is the same approach as the Cominterns “third period.”
b) that the method of the “third period” was discredited because it brought hitler to power.
c) that we can therefore dismiss this argument above without dealing with the argument above.
I think that every part of the logical chain keith makes is pretty unjustified.
And furthermore, i think that we will fail to create a revolutionary movement if we keep acting like archivists of some communist past.
As a method we need to dig into arguments as they are made, in terms of political issues as they are posed.
I am not against studying the past (I am familiar with the history of the comintern and the third period), I am not even against a critical comparison of the period and the lines. But i really don’t think the kind of argument Keith is making is either correct or convincing.
* * * * *
I will not try to exhaustively deal with Keith’s argument, but raise some brief points.
The comintern was grappling with a very specific problem in Germany (during the 1920s and early 1930s). The working class was deeply split, with millions loyal to the communist party (and the legacy of the revolutionary upsurges of 1919 and 1923) — meanwhile millions more were loyal to the Social Democratic Party (which had rather actively participated in the suppression of the revolutionary movements of 1919 and 1923).
This was a very deep and troubling poltical schism, and it seems in many ways it was etched in stone. Certainly, it was a split within the working class marked by blood — and rooted in very real political differences.
For many years, the German KPD tried to break out of its existing base of support and make inroads into the ranks of the SPD workers, or (failing that) find the ways to make joint struggle with them at the rank and file level.
Before 1933, the KPD strongly stressed that SPD’s counterrevolutionary legacy, and sought to win over its base (mainly by presenting the communists as mix of a better representative of the workers economic struggle, and a better representative of the socialist future.)
After 1933, the comintern changed its approach, and sought a union with the Social Democats (at the top) through negotiated alliances, and by making major political concessions.
But, without going into great details:
a) It is a very strange stretch to compare us to the KPD, and to compare Obama to the SPD, and on that basis say that we cannot treat Obama as a representative of very hostile and imperialist forces.
b) It is a wrong summation to blame the rise of hitler on the comintern (as was essentially done by some viewing history from the point of view of Trotskyism’s politics). It was not the KPD that caused the “split in the german working class” — it was rooted in objective conditions (the stratification of that class), and in very deep political difference that emerged in that class, and in the objectively counterrevolutionary role that the SPD had played in very recent memory.
In many ways I suspect that both the split between KPD/SPD, AND the SPD’s refusal to carry out common anti-Nazi activites werre not caused by anything the communists did. When hitler staged his coup in 1933, the SPD’s aparatus went over (in many ways) directly to the new regime — with much of their trade union base carrying out May Day actions in 1933 under the new Nazi banners.
In short, to take this very particular and distant history, and to try to use it as a stick to beat people highly critical of Obama… well, it just isn’t a very convincing argument.
zerohour said
“Why is it more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than in Iraq?”
I saw Carl Davidson, in an earlier comment, acknowledge that this was Obama’s strategy but that we should focus on ending the war in Iraq. This ignores the question and the point being made above. What are the principles that allow one to oppose one egregious war, but support another one? Why not oppose [or support] both?
“This is so simple, Communists never win when they are not in a united front with more moderated forces.”
The issue isnt uniting it’s leading. Whenever communists unite with more moderate forces, and water down their politics for the sake of that unity, not only do they not win, they cease to exist. When the horizon of radical politics is limited to holding bourgeois politicians accountable to their own rules, we don’t have a politics of hope, but a politics of disempowerment – and who needs communists for that?
The above article itself is problematic since it conceives of the system as defined by political parties and not a larger set of political-economic relations in which the parties play a role. I’d like to see a materialist argument as to how a third-party progressive or radical candidate could possibly attempt to transform the US utilizing the existing state structures.
redflags said
Apparently, those who can see nothing beyond the tyranny of the real think we must abide by, support, promote and dissemble on the question of THEIR terror. The argument is that what we want is impossible, so we might as well make ourselves useful to the ruling class.
If revolutionaries don’t stand up, don’t promote and fight for their ideas and independent organization – then and only then are we compelled into the apparatus of our enemies.
Obama is our enemy as surely and completely as John McCain. This is not a reprise of the 1930s. It’s now. We are not merely dancing with the shadows of history past.
The argument that we must always (and everywhere) subordinate ourselves to the (semi-) democratic wing of imperialism, which is what it is, has only led to not just defeat – but the total destruction of proletarian politics.
We can unite with others, indeed we must. But without independent forces in the field – without our own “army” – we will just be their cynical flunkies.
Obama has a program. You support it or you don’t. And if you don’t, please don’t pretend it’s just a matter of convenience or sobriety. It’s a question of who “we” are, who we unite with and who our brothers and sisters are. Will our allies be found among the liberal imperialists, even when they themselves say no? Or among the oppressed of the world, who are quite real, inchoate and lost without organization and honest leadership?
I’d rather fight and fail than lie to people about where we are in the world. There’s nothing wrong with tactical compromise, but not when you have no strategy.
inicio said
“Nancy Pelosi is a perfect example of what the Democrats are all about. Just look at the way she brushed aside the people who got her elected.”
Nancy Pelosi`s politics are revealing of the Democratic Party`s position in many other ways too. When she criticized Bush as a “total failure” there was an implicit claim that the Democratic Party could do “it” better. That is, she did not criticize Bush for being a criminal, for stripping away civil liberties, for setting the Middle East on fire, she criticized him for not doing it right. A criticism which remains at the center of the Democratic Party`s platform with Obama, as much as it was at the center of John “reporting for duty” Kerry´s presidential run.
Another point, regarding Obama`s foreign policy:
Was I the only one who noticed obvious collusion between Obama and Bush over foreign policy? I found it interesting that before Obama arrived in Iraq, Bush met with Maliki and stated a plan for a “general time horizon” for troop withdrawal. Just a little while later Obama was talking the same talk. The policies are exactly the same:
Bush:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080718/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
Obama`s visit:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/21/obama.mideast/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Stanley W. Rogouski said
At least Bush never betrayed any of his supporters. Never. Pelosi is worse than Bush, much worse.
Actually the grassroots far right feels pretty much the same way about Bush as the left feels about Pelosi and Obama. Bush didn’t manage to repeal Roe vs. Wade. He didn’t stop gay marriage. He didn’t privatize social security. He called Islam “a religion of peace” and for a “two state solution” in Israel/Palestine.
If the path to peace requires crushing the Democratic Party and its blood-thirsty candidates; so be it.
Delusional.
The “left” isn’t in a position to “crush” the mayor of Bayonne, New Jersey, let alone the whole Democratic Party.
I think at this point, you can make a reasonable argument for boycotting the election or voting third party. But you have to be clear headed about what this means. The Democrats and the Republicans will continue to exist whether they have the left’s support or not. The issue is structural and institutional, not either mainstream party. You’re not going to find a magically pre-formed left ready to jump out onto the national state in the unlikely event that you get rid of the Democrats.
The best you can say is “OK. Let’s boycott this election and start working on removing the structural barriers to third parties. We’re not going to have much effect now. It’s a long term process.”
“two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan” and encourage NATO to make “greater contributions—with fewer restrictions”. In his op-ed he boasted,
What I do find interesting is that Obama seems to have a well thought out realistic plan for escalating the war. And McCain seems all about vague belligerence. Maybe this means the “ruling class” sees Obama as their horse for bringing back the draft and increasing the size of the military and McCain is just floundering.
If this is true, the it might seem at a superficial glance that those white ethnic rednecks in Appalachia might just throw a monkey wrench into the ruling class’s carefully laid out plans by putting McCain in office.
But don’t kid yourself about this being in any way progressive. If horse Obama breaks a leg, they’ll just shoot him, and throw the saddle over the old nag John McCain. He might not be as pretty, but he probably has one good ride left in him.
Carl Davidson said
The world is rather complex these days, ‘Zerohour.’
But in a nutshell, here’s what I think is the issue:
We are ‘defeatists’ when it comes to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. We want Iraq to govern itself however it choses.
But we are ‘defencists’ when it comes to the attacks of bin Laden and the Salaffists on us. We see them as criminals for their attacks on the citizens of many countries, including ours, and we want to help bring them to justice.
Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan and ensuing occupation, and the whole rhetoric of ‘War on Terror,’ is exactly the wrong thing to do regarding the Salaffists. Not only ineffective, it makes matters worse.
When I say ‘we’, I’m fully aware that many on the left don’t share this view, at least not all of it. But I put out a paper on this in October 2001, right after 9/11, and it holds up fairly well.
Almost everyone on the left condemned the 9/11 attack, which is good. But to many, I posed the question, are you opposed to them doing it, or something similar, again? If so, what’s the most effective way to stop it? (Bush’s macho crap doesn’t count as an answer, or anything close to it).
If you work among the masses, they ask it over and over. And they expect realist answers.
I don’t think Obama’s got it right yet, on Iraq or Afghanistan, but he knows there’s a difference there somewhere. Let’s say it’s a point of struggle.
More important: What do YOU think?
Nando said
Sometimes in a discussion like this, someone says something that peels back a layer.
Carl’s post above injects a distinction he believes in:
He writes that:
But then he adds:
I think there is a whole world in that remark, and that distinction. I have (needless to say) some opinions on this… but would like to pose a few simple questions:
When you talk about being a “defensist,” you avoid saying that you support some U.S. military actions. But since the “defensists” who are talking don’t have their own military and state, what does this “defensism” mean (in reality) other than conditional support for some military actions of the U.S. military?
That is the point here, right: Arguing for conditional support for U.S. military actions internationally?
With that in mind, let me ask: Is it possible for the U.S. military to do some good, somewhere, under some conditions?
If they go after the Bin Ladens, are they doing good in the world or are they (inevitably and inherently) strengthening the domination of U.S. imperialism over some new corner of the world?
Is the U.S. military avenging, counteracting and preventing attacks “on us” and therefore worthy of support?
Are they “keeping us secure”?
And who is this “we” in your two different scenarios? When you say that there were attacks “on us,” who are you referring to? “Civilians”? “Americans”?
When we look out at the world, who (what group or framework) should we identify with?
If the argument is that the Bin Ladens attack civilians (which is indisputable), can the problem be solved by backing U.S. military action (which also, indisputably, has a way of war involving civilian massacres)?
Is your argument aorund the war in Afghanistan that the Bush government conceived of an invasion that was “ineffective” and “only made things worse”? And is it your view that it “made things worse” by increasing the popular support for the Taliban? Would you advocate a MORE “effective” strategy for imposing change on Afghanistan? What would that be?
Finally, are you saying that you have basic agreement with Obama — that the problem with Bush’s military strategies is that they were “ineffective in fighting terrorism” and got diverted into the “wrong war” in Iraq, and that U.S. forces should be redeployed from Iraq to Afganistan, and unleashed there in a way that is more “efficient” in the war on the Bin Ladens?
What does it mean to argue that progressive people (and revolutionaries) should support the international armed actions of the largest imperialist power in the world today? How progressive would they be, if they fell in line with that?
Let’s dig this out, and examine it.
inicio said
The most effective way to put an end to terrorist attacks originating from other parts of the world is to remove the U.S. military presence in the rest of the world, and end the financial backing of repressive U.S. clients.
Renegade Eye said
I’m surprised by this post. In Minneapolis the Maoist FRSO is supporting Obama, via slogans as “Defeat McCain,” and “Fight the Republican Agenda.”
Revolutionary defeatism like much of what Lenin proposed, related to his time and place.
The article doesn’t offer solutions. I propose supporting Cynthia McKinney’s Power To The People campaign, as a means to talk about issues.
Carl Davidson long ago gave up revolutionary politics.
Nando said
Renegade Eye: I think it is not particularly useful to assign political forces labels according to an old “taxonomy,” or to define people by a “tradition” they emerged from.
We could debate forever whether either of the FRSO’s are Maoist, and neither reach a mutually satisfying answer or get an insight into their politics.
But clearly there are a number of political trends who emerged from the pro-Maoist movements of the 1970s that are deeply marked by electoralism. This is true of both FRSO’s, Carl Davidson and also the forces around Amiri Baraka. The major turning point was the Jesse Jackson campaign of the 1980s, where these forces (especially the League for Revolutionary Struggle – LRS) essentially moved into the Democratic Party.
These political lines represented a fairly deep rupture with the politics of other Maoist forces (including the RCP) who have never engaged in electoral politics of any kind (including third party politics).
However, understanding that history doesn’t resolve the key political questions.
There are a number of defined electoral positions on the table:
* Supporting the so-called “lesser evil” of the Democratic Party (a position long endorsed by the CPUSA and Social democrats, and now upheld by the FRSOs)
* Supporting various third party efforts in hopes of encouraging and institutionalizing discontent with the Democratic Party. (Concentrated in the Green Party, the McKinney campaign and, earlier, the attempts to form a labor party.)
* An approach that seeks to generate independent struggle outside the electoral arena, to undermine illusions about the system and organize forces capable of overthrowing it.
You should not be surprised that we have posted an article rejecting Obama — since for many people around Kasama the question is not WHETHER to reject his campaign, but how. and how to speak to those deeply influenced (and even politicized) by his campaign.
I would be interested to hear your discussion of the McKinney campaign (which a number of left forces have endorsed). What is your strategic goal in supporting this campaign? Are there examples of that approach having produced radical results in the past? Are there any documents on that strategy that we could post and debate here on kasama?
zerohour said
“Revolutionary defeatism like much of what Lenin proposed, related to his time and place.”
What’s revolutionary about supporting Obama in order to oppose McCain and Republicans?
Carl Davidson said
You ask a lot of questions, Nando, but you dodge mine.
If you were opposed to the first WTC attack, would you oppose another by the same outfit? If so, how would you go about it?
I said Bush’s invasion and occupation of the Afghans was wrong and counter-productive.
But invasions and occupations aren’t the only tools available, are they?
Or do you think we should take the position of handing bin Laden and crew a ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card’ and take that door-to-door?
Do you really thing Lenin’s revolutionary defeatism regarding WW1 applies here? Is this a conflict between imperialist rivals?
Ordinary people must ask you what you think about this. What do you tell them? Do they find it agreeable, and adopt it as a position of their own? Or what?
I know these are very tough questions many people have avoided for some time. But we’re not dealing with Ho Chi Minh here. The Salaffists are reactionary theocrats who want to restore the Caliphate, and will murder anyone they deem useful in any country they choose, rather link the current resident of the White House.
You can avoid taking a stand, but anyone running for office, or just wants to be taken seriously by the masses, can’t.
So now it’s your turn, or anyone’s turn, who wants to take a stab at my questions.
gangbox said
Carl,
The classic Marxist position on the imperialist war question (that is to say, the line put forth by, among others, Vladimir I. Lenin) can be summarized like this – if you are a communist from an imperialist country, you oppose your capitalist class’ imperialist wars even those imperialist wars that involve defending your country from attack by another imperialist state
During World War I, the Bolsheviks opposed Imperial Russia’s war effort, even though Russia was being attacked by Imperial Germany, the Austro Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
The Spartakusbund in Germany similarly opposed Imperial Germany’s war effort – both when Germany was on the offensive in France and Russia in 1914, and when Germany was on the defensive in 1918.
This is often a difficult and unpopular position to take – but that does not make it any less correct.
As I’ve said before, the truth is not a popularity contest.
We as communists have to take the position that we think is objectively in the interest of the world working class (even if the workers in our country do not support that position).
Leon Trotsky called it ’swimming against the current’ – and that’s what we have to do.
In our case, that means opposing all of US imperialism’s wars – even the war against al-Qaeda.
And yes, that would include taking that position while the smoke was still pouring out of the rubble of the World Trade Center.
Not an easy thing to do.
I know – my website, the GANGBOX: Construction Workers News Service , took the revolutionary defeatist position against a US war against al-Qaeda within hours of the fall of the towers – my site was on record against the Afghan war even before the bombs started falling on Kabul.
That was not a popular position for a New York City-based construction worekrs website to take (after all, 54 construction workers from the city died in the bombing – and about 30,000 of us, including myself, at some point or other worked on the Ground Zero cleanup.)
But it was the only correct position for a communist to have in that situation
Quorri said
I just want to throw out there that it is not proven to me, and many thinking people I know, exactly who perpetrated the attacks on the WTC in New York.
I’m not saying Bin Laden isn’t possibly a horrible person who is a threat to people everywhere who needs to be dealt with, that may all be true.
I’m just saying I’ve never personally been given a viable target, in my mind, with which to engage in this supposed war.
If we had a communist or socialist nation right now (HOORAY!) and a standing red army, I’d be hoping we’d ask for some more proof than that which they’ve provided the citizens of this country regarding the attacks on the towers…..
Carl Davidson said
You’re a trip, Gangbox.
Lenin said we should be revolutionary defeatists against rival imperialist powers redividing the world.
The Salaffists are a reactionary religious cult–less than 20,000 at the outside edge, less than 1000 in the inner core–bent on murder and mayhem for a theocratic utopia. They don’t even have a state or country. The proper thing to do, which Bush got completely wrong, is to bust them, bring them to trial and put them in jail. And ‘busting them’ is 95 percent cooperative intelligence and police work, and 5 percent force at the end. Bush got it just the reverse.
Being ‘defeatist’ against the Salaffists is like telling the masses to fight for the police to be ‘defeated’ by the KKK or The Order of Tim McVeigh fame.
But who knows? Maybe you’ll go there too.
Opponent said
U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq over the years killed HALF A MILLION children. Madelein Albright said it was “worth it.” The invasion and occupation of Iraq has murdered over 1.2 million more Iraqis and driven millions more from their homes, and even out of the country. To compare the U.S. to Bin Laden in this context is like comparing Hitler to a guy who randomly throws a rock through an apartment building’s window. In the ultimate scheme of things, just exactly how much energy or resources should be devoted to waging “war” on that guy? It is ludicrous. Yes, the attack on the World Trade Center was not a good thing at all. Innocent people died. But the U.S. and the worldwide system of imperialism it heads up has murdered more people than that every day of the year, and probably every fucking minute when you understand the true sources of world hunger, disease, etc. Babies starving, a huge portion of Africa dying of AIDS, don’t get me started, because the list would NEVER fucking end. What about the MILLIONS of people who were slaughtered in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and elsewhere in that area of the world during the 60s and 70s? Advocating some kind of big “crusade” against the Bin Ladens of the world is like discussing preferable cures for hangnails while the building you are in is being burned down by a madman who is pouring gasoline on it with you in it and his buddies are trying to crop you up with axes. U.S. imperialism is the main problem in the world, bar none.
To lose sight of that for an instance is to lose sight of reality.
The U.S. government has NO “moral right” to try to “impose justice” on anyone in this world, because it is the biggest criminal in the world, and the biggest one in all of history, including the only murderer to ever drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities–not once, but TWICE! And THEY have the fucking NERVE to talk about the “dangers” of OTHERS getting nuclear weapons!
It is like John Wayne Gacy making a speech about how the Chicago Police should “clean up” the neighborhood by suppressing the teenagers hanging out at the corner because they sometimes snatch a purse. “Pay no attention to the dozens of bodies buried in my basement. Move along. Nothing to see here.”
The New York Times for months printed the pictures of every person who died in the World Trade Center who they could identify, along with a little biography. They even printed it up in a coffee table book. WHEN IS THE DAY, OR WHERE IS THE PLACE WHERE SOMEONE WILL PRINT THE PICTURES AND BIOGRAPHIES OF THE HALF MILLIONS IRAQUI CHILDREN WHO DIED FROM THE U.S. ECONOMIC SANCTIONS THAT MADE IT A “CRIME” TO MAIL A BOTTLE OF ASPIRINS TO IRAQ!? Yeah, I know ALL CAPS is considered “shouting,” but you know what? If I could, I would shout that sentence in letters ten miles high and carved ten miles deep into the crust of the Earth itself.
What should we “tell” people about the “solution” to the Bin Ladens of the world? How about the fucking truth Carl. Like starting with the fact that the U.S. imperialists helped to create, fund, and arm him and the Taliban to use them in Afghanistan against their Soviet social-imperialist rivals?
Or the fact that the whole so-called “war on terrorism” is being used simply as an excuse to wage a global war for empire and to batten down the hatches here in the U.S. to make this even more of a fascist shit hole for most people than it already is?
If there was an “objective” newspaper published for planet Earth that reported the true significance of events on this planet, the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 might have warranted a paragraph, I suppose. But compared to all the millions of people suffering, murdered, starving, infected, miserable, exploited, and destroyed in a million other ways by U.S. imperialism even on that one same day, it couldn’t fairly justify a very large paragraph.
Obama is by far the more dangerous of the two imperialist candidates, because he will fool more people. The election, ultimately, is irrelevant. But Obama needs to be the one mainly exposed and opposed.
inicio said
Carl,
Your question was answered when I said:
“The most effective way to put an end to terrorist attacks originating from other parts of the world is to remove the U.S. military presence in the rest of the world, and end the financial backing of repressive U.S. clients.”
Carl writes:
“Being ‘defeatist’ against the Salaffists is like telling the masses to fight for the police to be ‘defeated’ by the KKK or The Order of Tim McVeigh fame.”
“Salaffists”, what a conveniently narrow view of who and what the U.S. is targetting in its wars. If you support the War on Terror, you in fact do support not only the killing of “Salaffists”, but the killing of Palestinians, Lebanese, Shiites, Secularists, Men, Women, Children, the Elderly, Intellectuals, etc. Even if U.S. bombs were “smart” enough to tell “Salaffists” from anyone else, would you support the killing of “Salaffist” women and children?
This war is not about islamic terrorism. It is about neocolonization at gunpoint. If someone asks me what I would do to stop another attack, again, I would tell them that we have to force the U.S. government to end its aggression overseas.
Carl Davidson said
Inicio, you’re worse than the liberals. Just leave the Salaffists alone, and hold back the money from their adversaries, and everything will work out.
And ‘Salaffists’ isn’t ‘conveniently narrow.’ It’s exactly on target. That’s who did 9/11, the subways in Spain, the embassies in Africa killing Africans, and so on.
Bush and crew made it conveniently overbroad by foolishly calling it a ‘War on Terror’ or against ‘Radical Islamists’.
I oppose the ‘War on Terror’ exactly for the reasons you state. For the sake of oil, it went after everyone BUT the 9/11 culprits. I denounced it in October 2001, when I said Bush handed the Salaffists a major political victory on 9/12, the day after, when he first declared his ‘War.’ I agree its not about ‘terrorism,’ Islamic or otherwise. It’s about strategic control of oil and unilateralist hegemonism. Even your ‘neocolonization at gunpoint’ is only half right.
‘Opponent’ carries on about the US government having no ‘moral right’ to try terrorists. True, especially because it is the only one convicted of terror in the Hague, over the Nicaragua Contras. But it wasn’t only the American government attacked on 9/11 by bin Laden’s crew; it was also the American people who were attacked, and they certainly have a moral right to demand justice under international law at the Hague, don’t you think?
Or does the KKK, the Mafia, the Sallafists or any band of criminal fanatics get a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free Card’ from you so long as the Empire stands?
Do you want to try to dress these people up, or let them off the hook, as misguided or ‘objective’ ‘anti-imperialists’, and count them among your allies?
The world is far more complex, and so are our tasks, especially if you really want to among the masses, and speak the real truth, not just a one-sided cartoonish, cardboard version of it.
Opponent said
Carl wrote: “Lenin said we should be revolutionary defeatists against rival imperialist powers redividing the world.”
No, that’s NOT what V.I. said. He said that the task of revolutionaries in a country is to be defeatist against the participation of their own ruling class in the imperialist wars to redivide the world. That DID not mean that he “supported” the Kaiser and Germany militarism.
Being defeatist against the U.S. imperialists’ aggression against other countries, even countries led by reactionaries, DOES NOT equate to supporting those reactionaries, be it the Taliban, Sadam Hussein, or the current leaders of Iran, all bloody butchers who murder and oppress their own people.
It is the worst kind of great nation chauvinism to suggest that somehow an imperialist country like the U.S. somehow is doing something positive or progressive in overthrowing such regimes in order to install its own puppets. Only the people of those countries themselves have the right to topple those regimes.
Carl also, ridiculously, in my opinion, also said: “Being ‘defeatist’ against the Salaffists is like telling the masses to fight for the police to be ‘defeated’ by the KKK or The Order of Tim McVeigh fame.”
Carl, the police and KKK are not really, objectively (and sometimes not even SUBJECTIVELY!) on opposite sides. And frankly, in most recent modern times, it is the POLICE who murder many more African-Americans (and other oppressed people) than the KKK. I don’t want the police to be “defeated” by the KKK, or the KKK to be “defeated” by the police (their objective allies). I want BOTH the police and the KKK, and the ruling class whose reactionary rule they BOTH support and bolster, to be defeated by the people!
The world, Carl, is far SIMPLER than you think. We should be “defeatist” about ANYTHING in the military arena U.S. imperialism tries to do, since U.S. imperialism is the major reactionary force on the planet at this point in time.
I don’t think Bin Laden and company are “objectively” anti-imperialists. Not at all. That is a straw man. (There are some people who make that argument, but I think that is obviously untrue). But the German Kaiser in World War I was an imperialist, not an anti-imperialist. Lenin was still correct in being a defeatist. Sadam Hussein was not a progressive force, but it was correct to be a defeatist about the U.S. war against his government and people. The Taliban are not progressive in any sense, but it is correct to be defeatist about the U.S. war against Afghanistan.
The key point is the role and nature of the U.S.–NOT whether the forces aligned against it are reactionary, progressive, or revolutionary.
So anyhow Carl, you’ll carry on your crusade against Bin Laden and crew, and talk about being “defencist” in relationship to them, I’m sure. But have the decency, if you can, not to try to do so in the great name of Lenin, who would vomit at the thought.
gangbox said
Carl,
Marxists who live in imperialist countries believe that it is their revolutionary duty to oppose any imperialist war that their country might be waging against Third World countries.
That includes Third World countries that have truly horrible repressive governments.
Or, terrorist organizations based in Third World countries.
That is an unconditional part of being a proletarian internationalist.
In other words – if you live in an imperialist country, and you claim to be communist, you absolutely must oppose your country’s wars against the Third World.
Otherwise, you do not deserve to call yourself communist.
It’s really just that brutally simple.
So, if the US were to invade North Korea, on the pretext of saving North Korean farmers from starvation, we as American communists should unconditionally oppose that invasion.
The same if the US were to invade Sudan on the pretext of saving the Darfurians.
Or if they invaded Cuba on the pretext of saving the dissidents.
That’s why communists should have opposed the US/Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 (remember? when they were coming to “save the Kosovars”?)
It’s pretty basic black letter Marxism Carl.
On al-Qaeda, it’s kinda funny.
Back when they were allied with US imperialism, they were perfectly OK, they were still murderous terrorists, but they were killing Afghan civilians and Soviet soldiers, so it was OK.
Then they started killing Americans.
And that’s an unforgivable sin.
Because, of course, the killing of 2,900 Americans was a horrible crime -
but when the US Army and yet another Afghan terrorist group (the Northern Alliance – who, for the moment, are still “good” terrorists) killed 6,000 Afghan civilians and massacred 5,000 Taliban ‘enemy combatants”, that was just “collateral damage”.
You see, Carl to the folks that Lenin would have called “jingo socialists”, as well as to their national chauvinist pro imperialist allies, the lives of folks from the metropolitan imperialist powers are far more valuable than those of the folks Kipling would have called “lesser breeds below the law”.
I’m not trying to say that you think like that, Carl.
But, when you support imperialist wars, you put yourselves on the same team with those enemies of humanity.
And no real communist ever wants to be on the Imperialist Genocide team.
Bottom line, our enemies are here at home – first and foremost among them the Wall Street bankers, and their puppet politicians (including your buddy Barack Obama – probably the most dangerous imperiaist politician in the world today)
As for Osama bin-Ladin – I’m quite sure that when the workers of the Arabian Peninsula have their revolution, they’ll settle accounts with him and his ilk – much as the Iraqi and Afghan workers will deal with their fundamentalist enemies.
They have their revolutionary tasks.
We have ours.
And since ours involve trying to remove from power the most brutal exploiting class in the history of our species, we’ve got our work cut out for us.
zerohour said
Carl -
Inicio has already answered your point: “The most effective way to put an end to terrorist attacks originating from other parts of the world is to remove the U.S. military presence in the rest of the world, and end the financial backing of repressive U.S. clients.” To this I would add that we should build support for revolutionary, democratic, secular forces where we can.
This is what communists should tell people because it is the truth and because it is realistic, more realistic than believing we can pressure imperialism to reject its own nature, and somehow become humane.
Whoever was responsible, it’s pretty certain that the WTC attacks were planned years ago and and there’s no evidence that even a Nader presidency would have prevented its execution. The “Salaffists” have some traction, not because they are cruel, but because they are responding to a genuine source of anger and resentment, the predominance of US interests in the politics and economics in the Middle East. Their anti-Americanism isn’t knee-jerk. The rise of this virulent kind of political Islam can be traced back to the failure of the secular Mossadegh to resist his own removal from power and the imposition of the Shah. Through the years, Democrats and Republicans perpetuated US interference in the region, primarily through its proxy, Israel. Somehow Obama is going to change this when he has already said he wouldn’t?
There is a scene in Platoon where a squad of US soldiers burns down a village of suspected communists. A young soldier [played by Johnny Depp I believe] goes to his commander and asks “are these communists?” because all he sees are old farmers and peasants. The commander says “they are now.” While they might be killing some actual communists, the US was creating the conditions which would produce even more. Even if the planners of the WTC attacks are caught and punished, the conditions in which they arose will remain, conditions perpetuated by the US to maintain is position in the world system. So what if they were caught and punished? What would this achieve other then momentary satisfaction? Making this a focal point of discussion legitimizes imperial authority. While I don’t feel sad that Saddam is gone, I am also aware that the US prevented the rise of any independent Iraqi organizations that could have challenged his power, and brought him to justice in ways that would not have reinforced the image of the US as the main force for good and justice in the world.
“You can avoid taking a stand, but anyone running for office, or just wants to be taken seriously by the masses, can’t.”
We’ve taken stands, just not under the wings of the imperialists. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously by the masses needs to tell the truth, even if it’s unpopular. Telling people what they want to hear [or what you think they can handle] in order to win them over might work in the short term, but in the long term it prevents us from building the kind of revolutionary politics that can really get us out of this mess. People trained to confine their politics to stretching the limits of the system will be invested in that system. Not only will they not see moments of revolutionary potential, they will resist them because there is always that one more thing they believe they can squeeze out of the system.
Our choices are not limited to getting behind a charming imperialist or giving bin Laden a pass, and any suggestion that they are says a lot about what you think the masses are truly capable of. It is illusory for you or any leftist to think they are genuinely mobilizing people to vote for Obama, as if they were going to vote for McCain until you came along. Whether people vote for him or not, it is our responsibility to engage with their sense of justice, and desire for change in the most radical ways possible. That means accepting that some problems cannot be solved in the short-term, and definitely not on the terms of imperialism.
What will ultimately not work is the pragmatic strategy of not advocating a revolutionary politics today, to win over as many as possible, with the intention of articulating one at the right moment in the future, which the masses will take up if only through inertia. The problem is that, for the pragmatist, the future lasts forever [apologies to Althusser].
BTW, knock off your condescending remarks. I know the world is complicated, and I deal with it. I do not try simplify it by reducing complex matters of principles, ethics and practice to those of technicalities and efficacy.
Carl Davidson said
Gangbox, you miss the obvious point. The Sallafists don’t have a country or a state, so they’re hardly imperialist rivals of the US. That’s what makes them different, and more analogous to the KKK and other criminal fanatic reactionary cults. And by putting all your ducks in a neat row, all bad guys on one side, all good guys on the other, you play at revolution in the chessboard of your mind, not down here on the ground.
Zerohour, I know Inico offered an answer. I replied that it wasn’t a good one, rather like the liberals. You want to add a ‘truth’ that only revolutionaries in other countries can put criminal gangs like this out of business, but we can’t do anything here.
Well here’s a puzzle for you. A few years back, the feds busted an al-Quada operation at a suburban restaurant outside Chicago. One waiter had an extra card swipe device on his belt, and we would swipe twice all night. At closing time, he would meet up with a partner in a car, with laptop and modem, and they would upload the numbers, which ended up being skimmed, with deposits ending up in accounts in Afghanistan funding the Salaffists.
Rather clever.
But the question for you is, Would you oppose the arrests and trials here? Would you defend the theft of money from Americans eating out to supply the Salaffists? Or let’s make the puzzle a little more complicated. Suppose you were also a waiter at the place, and knew something about this beforehand, and were asked to testify. Would you? On which side?
Now this was not a hypothetical, but a case in point. What is your ‘truth’ to tell here?
Opponent said
Ok, Carl, I’ll bite. I hadn’t heard of that particular case, but for purposes of argument, I’ll accept your description of what the waiter allegedly did. (And we ALL know that there are many instances of the feds MAKING this stuff up, framing innocent people who actually did nothing, and/or actually instigating or provoking people into “conspiracies” through use of their agent provocateurs, etc.).
Assuming, for the purposes of argument that the waiter actually did what you are talking about, I seriously doubt that the feds were planning to treat the arrest and prosecution of the person as simply a credit card funds theft case, resulting in the normal criminal process that would be brought against any waiter who did the “double swipe” manuever but then was using the funds to pay off their student loans, go gambling in Vegas, go out and get drunk or high, or simply pay their rent.
No, instead, they would be invoking one or another of the enhanced methods of prosecution that have been brought into being as part of the overall and highly ideologized “war on terror.” Secret evidence, possibly even a secret case with the label “Suppressed versus Suppressed” listed on the federal court docket (and there are hundreds and hundreds of these, by the way, just look at recent filings for ANY of the hundreds of federal district (trial) courts across the country, which you can do on their websites–but you won’t be able to see ANY documents from those cases).
The waiter would probably be charged under one or another of the sections of the USA-PATRIOT Act which criminalizes “material support” for any organization that the President designates.
Or, it is even possible that the waiter, perhaps even without the opportunity to come before a judge at all, would be whisked away into military custody as an “enemy combatant,” placed in a military brig in the U.S., shipped to Guantanamo, subjected to rendition that would ultimately result in them being tortured and interrogated in one of the secret CIA prisons currently operating in a number of countries overseas, perhaps even being murdered in secret in such facilities as a number of persons have been, or put into the custody of the country that was their place of birth or departure, and tortured or killed there.
The process that would be applied would become part of the ideological campaign utilized to promote both the global “war on terrorism” that is about to be used to justify the U.S. or israeli attack on the 71 million people of Iran, half of whom are youngsters, and to promote the climate of hysteria and fear here in the U.S. which is being used to try and whip up xenophobia, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim and pro-racist sentiment, and support for endless war and fascism.
If it were merely a question of ordinary, routine, criminal prosecution being applied to the waiter for what they actually did, it would not be so troubling to see that happen to them. If you commit credit card fraud, it is not that surprising to be facing a criminal trial for it, any more than if you park in front of a fire hydrant, you receive a parking ticket, whether you are Joe Smith, auto worker, or the allegedly Al Quaeda supporting waiter.
But that is not the case. The waiter, instead, may be denied a lawyer, the right to communicate with his or her spouse, their children, or the outside world in general. The family may not even know where they have gone. They may be confined for years without charges of any kind or a hearing of any kind, and with no opportunity to present any evidence to show that they really didn’t do it to begin with, or that, if they did commit the credit card theft, they did it so that they could buy a car, rather than to fund “international terrorism.”
These laws about material support of “terrorism,” by the way, at some point are going to be used, not against Al Queda, but against anti-war groups, black nationalist organizations, environmental groups, groups that oppose police brutality, immigrant rights groups, abortion rights groups, and, most of all, against anyone with even a vague pretense of revolutionary ideas within this country.
These laws target people not for what they have actually done, but for their ideas, ideologies, associations, and, even worse, for their SUPPOSED ideas, ideologies, and associations, on the declaration by fiat of the executive branch of the government.
So, no Carl, if I were another waiter, knowing everything I do know, I would not be jumping at the bit to present evidence to the government to serve up that waiter to possibly be detained, whisked away never to be heard from again, tortured, and/or murdered by the U.S. government, especially since it may be very possible that he was doing it for personal gain, not to fund a reactionary religious sect.
The so-called “criminal justice” system in this country, even under the “best” of conditions does not offer poor and working class people any real justice, and many innocent people wind up being unjustly imprisoned, or being treated very harshly for relatively minor property offenses.
A waiter pulling the kind of credit card scam you describe, absent the ideological motive you ascribe to the person (or which the feds ascribed to him, which may have been true and may have been concocted) would not ordinarily justify, in my mind, working with the authorities to send a fellow co-worker away to the deplorable prison facilities in this country for five or ten years anyhow, much less to the much harsher treatment meted out to the growing number of victims of the government’s bogus “war on terrorism.”
In short, no, I wouldn’t testify, no matter what the waiter’s motive for the credit card scam was. I am not part of the government’s apparatus of repression, its war on “terrorism,” or its “criminal justice” system which is a bulwark of its repressive rule and its dictatorial use of force to oppress the vast majority of the people.
And neither should anybody else, particularly someone who purports to be a revolutionary.
gangbox said
Carl,
Ok, let’s talk about restaurant workers jailed for being al-Qaeda sympathizers.
You have your anonymous waiter.
I have Tariq Shah.
Shah was the bass player for the house band at the Lenox Lounge, a jazz club in Harlem.
He’s African American, born and raised in this country, and has never ever committed a crime.
Except for being Muslim, that is.
About 3 years ago, a Saudi Arabian-American doctor who was in danger of being deported cut a deal with the feds – in return for getting to stay in America, he’d help them arrest “terrorists”.
This doctor happened to be an aquaintance of Shah – and knew the man well enough to know that Shah was really into martial arts.
He approached Shah with the idea of setting up a martial arts dojo for physical fitness-minded Islamic fundamentalists in the New York City area.
During the course of the conversation, the doctor goaded Shah into bragging about his martial arts skills, and about his hatred of US imperialism.
All of this ended up on tape.
One Sunday afternoon, as Shah was getting ready to go to the bar and play some music, federal agents bashed in the door of his Bronx apartment with a battering ram, and dragged him off to a federal prison.
Shah – a man with no priors who had never done anything criminal in his life – would spend the next 2 years in solitary confinement.
Finally, the feds gave Shah a “choice”.
17 YEARS in a federal prison.
Or the rest of his life in Guantanamo Bay.
Shah took the 17 years – even though he is not a terrorist, and committed no crime.
There are lots of Tariq Shahs in the federal prison system today – should we support that?
Cause that’s how you fight dirty wars against terrorist groups – that’s how the Argentinians fought their dirty war in the 1980’s, that’s how the British fought the Irish Republican Army, that’s how the Israelis fight the Palestinian resistance – you get the idea.
If you are a “defensist” against the “salafists” that is what you are supporting.
As a communist, I absolutely can not support atrocities like that.
Can you?
onehundredflowers said
Moderator’s note: Opponent, please separate your paragraphs with spaces in order to make your comments easier to read.
Carl Davidson said
It’s not just the waiter, ‘Opponent,’ but also his partner uploading from the parking lot.
I would have demanded a fair trial for them in a regular court. In those conditions, if I knew something pertinent one way or another, I’d testify, but not in any ‘Star Chamber.’ You’re right, going along with the Patriotic Act is the greater evil, since it doesn’t really protect the American people from terrorist crimes, but actually promotes greater dangers through its ‘phoney war.’
I don’t know if you’d go along with that, but that’s a truth I could take door-to-door, even though it would be a minority opinion among the masses at the moment. They’d want sterner measures. I work on the Campaign to Stop Funding Torture in Iraq, and have found that a very sizable minority among the masses, apparantly watching too many episodes of ‘24,’ erroneously favor the use of torture against anyone accused of terror. So I’m not opposed to ‘going against the tide.’ I just want something better than you’re offering here to go against the tide WITH.
What I find unacceptable, at least under current conditions, is arguing like Gangbox, telling people there’s nothing they can do to protect themselves short of establishing the ‘d of the p’ here or somewhere abroad. Contra Gangbox, if I knew what Tim McVeigh was up to ahead of time and had no direct way of stopping him, I’d call the cops and/or the FBI to stop it. As you’ll recall, it wasn’t only an FBI headquarters taken out, but quite a few workers and a day care center as well. Or in the most classic case in my lifetime, I’d have no problem at all with Eisenhower’s putting troops in Little Rock to protect the eight kids integrating Central High when Gov. Faubus refused to protect them. If Gangbox is true to his tradition, he’d call for worker militias, under the leadership of a Labor Party, to protect them instead, but that’s what you can do when you just play out ‘politically correct’ class struggle on the great chessboard of your mind, rather than down here on Earth.
gangbox said
“Or in the most classic case in my lifetime, I’d have no problem at all with Eisenhower’s putting troops in Little Rock to protect the eight kids integrating Central High when Gov. Faubus refused to protect them. If Gangbox is true to his tradition, he’d call for worker militias, under the leadership of a Labor Party, to protect them instead”
Carl, you’re right on the money.
In a situation like Little Rock, where working class Blacks were fighting to desegregate the local school system, I would call for workers militias to defend them from attack by the racists, instead of relying on the bourgeoisie’s army.
That is the only correct communist position to take on that question.
And, if you’re at all familiar with the history of the Black liberation struggle in America (and I’m sure you are) you know that Black communities in struggle indeed ended up relying on militias (petty bourgeois-led all class Black militias rather than working class militias, but militias independent of the capitalist state nonetheless).
The most famous of those militias of course was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
They did not rely on the state, or call the cops on people – they took arms in hand and defended the community.
As to your call for “fair trials” for Muslim detainees – let’s look at the facts.
Even in normal times, the justice system is notoriously racist and systematically anti working class.
Working class defendants of color almost always get the shaft, except under the most exceptional and extraordinary circumstances.
Thats why the relatively small proletarian Latino neighborhood of West Harlem, where I live, supplies 6% of the prison population of the whole state of New York.
5,000 folks from this neighborhood of less than 100,000 are locked up – mostly for victimless crimes like drug dealing.
There are 6 other New York City neighborhoods that, between them, supply 60% of our state’s prison population [Central Harlem, the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvessant, East New York, Bushwick and Brownsville]
So, forgive me if I have just a little less faith in “fair trials” than you do.
I’m sure Tariq Shah has even less faith in your “fair trials” than I do.
And Muhammad Butt would have had even less faith in those so called “fair trials”
Butt was a 55 year old Pakistani immigrant who was beaten to death by US Bureau of Prison officers while in detention shortly after 9/11.
He wasn’t a terrorist – and he was charged with no crime.
But he got the death penalty anyway.
Bottom line, say what you will about al-Qaeda (and I take second place to nobody in opposing them – both when they were American allies back in the 80’s and now that they’re American enemies) if America hadn’t spent the last 50 years meddling in Middle Eastern internal affairs, then they would not be launching attacks on America.
In other words, if you don’t want to see Islamist terrorist attacks on America, oppose American meddling in the Middle East and military support of Israel.
And that’s assuming that al-Qaeda even did the 9/11 attack.
The 9/11 treuther folks (and the majority of New Yorkers who agree with them) wouldn’t necessarily agree with you on that.
Now, as I’ve pointed out before, the truth isn’t a popularity contest – just because a lot of people believe something does not make it right.
But, considering al-Qaeda’s longstanding pre 9/11 alliance with US imperialism, there is some room for doubt here.
Finally, I conclude with the basic concept that we as communists do not support the capitalist state – and a very basic part of that involves us not being police snitches.
Quorri said
Carl says:
“What I find unacceptable, at least under current conditions, is arguing like Gangbox, telling people there’s nothing they can do to protect themselves short of establishing the ‘d of the p’ here or somewhere abroad”
But there is nothing we can do to truly protect ourselves short of this…..
Until we establish proletarian rule “terrorists” will continue to be directly funded by our shadowy CIA/FBI programs, “terrorist attacks” will continue to be perpetrated against our own people on our own soil by our own government, both sides of any conflict will continue to be supported and fed by the capitalist filth who carve up the world based on their tastes, our own people working toward real change or not will continue to be oppressed/suppressed by the system that works way too well after 9/11, and every idea we ever had about what it means to be free will remain meaningless and unrealized.
Everything else short of establishing the D of the P is a fairy tale, lesser of two evils, foot dragging measure that will see us get nowhere but further down the road they’re already leading us down.
Carl Davidson said
If there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves, ‘Quori,’ why do we work to save Mumia’s life? Why do we rally vs the MinuteMen? Why do we mobilize against police brutality? Why are we trying to get Burge on trial even after we got him fired? Victory in any of these doesn’t require the ‘D of the P’. Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center has go to court, bankrupted several KKK organizations in various states, putting them out of business. Should he and his allies have bothered?
You’re a prisoner of your own dogma here. If you can’t win a modicum of peace and justice on these issues, how in the world do you expect to ever have gathered the strength to win the whole thing?
Quorri said
Carl, the point was that we will not be truly safe or protected until the ruling elite is smashed to smithereens. That’s the point. I never said it wasn’t worthwhile to try to create better outcomes within the world as we move toward the ultimate goal, please don’t make assumptions or put words into my mouth or add meaning to things I say without clarifying. It only makes it harder for us to connect with one another in a purposeful, clarity encouraging way…
If I thought there wasn’t anything positive we could do PRIOR to a revolution and the establishment of a more just social order and economic system, I wouldn’t be a teacher, I wouldn’t give food to the hungry, I wouldn’t be on this site talking to you….etc. Obviously there are many steps on the road to any worthwhile social change and many small occurrences are worthwhile fights, that doesn’t change the fact that winning them won’t make us safer or more protected from the plans of the uber rich.
Quorri said
P.S. It really is more helpful to approach people in a way where you seek to understand them BEFORE you attack them. Truly.
Mike E said
carl: the issue is not whether there are things to be done short of revolution, obviously there are.
The issue is whether supporting the U.S. MILITARY’S AGGRESSION AROUND THE WORLD is part of what we should do (or encourage) as part of “protecting ourselves.”
At the risk of stating the obvious, claiming that the U.S. military is part of “protecting us” is wrong on many many levels. It is not protection. It is not the U.S. military purpose. and it establishes a notion of “us” that is profoundly nationalist and anti-internationalist.
Mike E said
As for historical examples:
In the civil war and the brief reconstruction afterwards, the U.S. bourgeoisie and its army played a progressive role (inrelationship to slavery).
the history since has been (IN ESSENSE!) a history of armed enforcement of opression. And since the world wars, the U.S. military has been a KEY PILLAR of oppression on the planet earth.
to go through that history with a magnifying glass, and try to identify moments when one or another group of U.S. soldiers may have played a positive role is to miss the point and to get it wrong.
No, we should not support federal troops in Little Rock or in Boston. No we should not support people thinking the federal government was their ally in the civil rights movement. No, the U.S. government was not up to any progressive or anti-fascist purpose in Ww2 — it was laying the basis for the greatest empire in world history (and fighting desperately to return to its colony the philippines, replace France in Indochina, and get its claws deep into china and Korea.)
More the point, you can never overthrow your oppressors if you promote a love-hate relationship towards them. If you train people to look for a progressive needle in the haystack of genocide and imperialism.
the U.S. military is a pillar of oppression on earth. when they go into Afghanistan it is to encircle Iran and China, it is to threaten Pakistan, it is to deny the Afghanis their right to sovereignty and self-determination. there is nothing in this that serves the people — especially if you proceed from the larger and overall interests of the people (and if you are an internationalists, not a U.S. nationalist).
It is an amazing distortion to claim that Lenin’s view of “revolutionary defeatism” only applied to wars with other imperialists. You think this was not applied when Tsarist butchers rode against people in Asian regions? You think that Lenin thought the french workers should be “defeatist” in regard to the wars with Germany, but “defensist” when French imperialism went into its African colonies?
no. This is an approach to your own ruling class that corresponds with both objective reality, and the necessities of preparing people for revolution. It is not about “which enemy is our ruling class fighting today” — because that “pick and choose approach” is EXACTLY what Lenin was opposing (as any look at this history will show).
I am amazed at the argument that says “we can’t tell the people there is no way they can defend themselves against terrorism, so in the name of political necessity and the justified (read: hyped) fears of the people, we must tell them that, yes, it is understandable to support U.S. invasions in places like Afghanistan.” All i can say to that tangled mass of illogical self-justification and raw chauvinism is “wow.”
And the fact that someone can wrap this pro-imperialist argumentation in a thin (thin! very flakey!) veneer of Lenin (!) should be a lesson to all of us — that anything can be twisted into its opposite if the will is there.
Carl Davidson said
I don’t need any veneer of Lenin. I was arguing against someone using him against me.
Whether you are defencist or defeatist depends on time, and circumstance. For the most part, as in inter-imperialist war, or wars of national independence or liberation vs our own imperialism, we are defeatist, as in the war in Iraq today.
But when a fascist wacko like McVeigh, or die-hard segregationists as in Little Rock, or the Salaffist cult attacks the America people, and other peoples around the world, then defencism is very much in order. The ruling class usually goes about it in the wrong way, more intent on defending their own interests rather than the popular interests. Like executing McVeigh so as to shut him up. So class struggle still exists even under conditions of defencism. Liquidating the class struggle under those conditions, as Browder did in relation to the ‘Double V’ movement–victory against fascism abroad, victory against Jim Crow at home,’ and the ‘No Strike’ pledge,’ are examples of that. Spell out what you would think the defeat of the US bourgeoisie vs German and Japanese fascism would look like. Do you seriously think the US working class was in a position to seize power?
I’m not saying anything new here. And I’m a bit surprised to hear the you take a ‘defeatist’ line regarding WW2. Does your position here differ from the Trotskyists? If so, how?
Carl Davidson said
As to my ‘tone,’ Quori, I suggest you re-read your comment. You’ll the one who said everything short of the ‘d of the p’ was a ‘fairy tale,’ and with that, my comment, which simply posed some sharp questions to you regarding your assertion, seemed quite appropriate. Some of us, if not all of us, have worked for years on things you dismiss as ‘fairy tales.’
Quorri said
You are right, Carl, I shouldn’t dismiss people’s heartfelt hard work to obtain some modicum of justice now and then as a fairy tale. I’m sorry.
What I’m trying to say is that everything we do that is not revolution or working toward revolution falls short of the ultimate goal. What I’m trying to say is that what we do and how we proceed toward accomplishing a total restructuring of society and economic relationships is of utmost importance, more important, even, than freeing Mumia. I said it, there it is.
It is definitely not a waste of time to seek positive changes in small doses…. I just have to say that most of those things we do, or at least those little things I do, are done because I DO think they play a role in revolution. A lot of the smaller issues we pick up, like doing exposure and awareness raising around a racist cop shooting an unarmed latino for no reason, IS work toward revolution. The more we expose the crumbling structures behind things, the more people might start to see the truth we have been shown….sometimes they even join in the struggle because of it.
I never meant to say that your work is meaningless.
Nando said
I think we need to differentiate between reform and fantasy.
Is it possible to force the system to grant concessions? Yes.
Is it possible to force the system to grant minor tastes of justice (if only temporarily)? Yes.
Through struggle and exposure it is possible to prevent this system from doing criminal things that they might otherwise press forward and do.
For example: the demand “Stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal” was not meant as just propaganda — it was a sincere demand, and it was possible to build enough pressure upon the system (enough attention from people worldwide, enough exposure of the frameup, enough knowledge of what he represented) that the system simply HAD to let him go.
Similarly, the movement in the U.S. against the war in Vietnam (and the Black urban rebellions, and the burning campuses) contributed to a situation where the U.S. was forced to accept defeat in Vietnam and withdraw. (Obviously the Vietnamese people were the main reason that the U.S. was defeated, but international support played a role). And it is clear that this system (its rulers, its military, etc.) was HIGHLY reluctant to accept defeat, but at some point decided to pull out rather than risk larger loses (including within the U.S. itself, and including the further disintegration of their army.)
However, to say that we have goals SHORT of revolution is not to argue that our struggle for reforms are SEPARATE from the struggle for revolution. On the contrary.
It is true, and correct, that revolutionaries sometimes fight for things that are reforms. And we do this (or should do this) while carrying out revolutionary work — in ways that bring more people toward an understanding of the basic NATURE of this system, its irredeemably oppressive nature, and the need to replace capitalism with a new form of society.
And further, we should not be involved in struggles for reforms or short-term goals in ways that fundamentally contradict or prevent the development of revolutionary forces. And we should not demand things in a way that increases profound illusions (among people broadly) that this system can provide BASIC justice — that it can be modified, or cajoled, or pressured into being a system that serves the people in a larger sense. And this is a contradiction, because often we work in alliance with people who DO believe that it is possible for the U.S. to adopt a “progressive foreign policy,” or who believe “we need to take the country back” (as if “we” ever had it!), or who believe “the U.S. military needs to play a progressive role in the world.”
And perhaps one of the most clear examples of WHAT NOT TO DO — is to endorse this system’s own claims that their military ( a ) “protects the American people,” and that ( b ) it can be a force for justice, democracy and positive change — in the world today. Their armies cannot do that. The U.S. is a hegemonic superpower, whose armed forces defend that hegemony and enforce the exploitation that imperialism rests on. That is why they exist. That is why they leave U.S. shores. That is the purpose of their threats, murders and invasions. It is inherent in their nature, and in the nature of U.S. society.
And so it is wrong to promote a view where people are supposed to look at every move, policy, strategem and maneuver of the U.S. military — in order to parse whether it is good or bad. No. This military is a pillar of human suffering on earth — and this needs to be firmly grasps. When their guns go in, it strengthens our oppressors. And the rest is smoke and deception.
We do need to expose each of their actions separately — we can’t limit ourselves simply to some abstract overall condemnation of this military (drawn simply from history and an abstract sense of what capitalism represents). But the reason for analyzing each action separately is precisely to bring out how each such action is part-and-parcel of the whole, how it is stamped with the fundamental class nature of this military, how it furthers their overall geo-strategic goals… We use the particular to illuminate the general. (Because, after all, the general resides in the particular, and nowhere else.)
Quorri said
Well said :)
saoirse said
I agree with Nando that the demand to “Stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal” was not meant as just propaganda — it was a sincere demand,” but I dont agree that it was about putting pressure on the system to just let him go.
In many ways the campaign around Mumia was some of the best united front style work on the left during the 90s. It had a mass character and a sharp critique of the system. It also had concrete demands and engaged a broad section of people.
The “stop the execution” seems to me to be more of a middle ground demand between those openly arguing to “free mumia” and those more oriented towards demanding a new trial with the hopes that the new trial would at least lead to a life sentence rather than a state execution.
I tend to think the state cannot afford to be preceived as lossing a case involving a murdered police officer (ditto murdered FBI agents although I would argue Peltier would have a better chance of freedom).
However I think the demand
Nando said
saoirse is right about the details.
The mumia campaign was a coalition (between those who thought Mumia should be free, and those who thought he should have a new trial.)
And the demand ’stop the execution” was even broader — in the sense that there were forces who thought all immanent executions should stop, and were not as focused on his particular case.
This alliance (and all such alliance) had a complex and nuanced nature. And the coalition collapsed when that dynamic was fundamentally disturbed.
However, in practice, the strategy of demanding a new trial also (objectively) a struggle to free mumia. Everyone understood that if the old trial was thrown out, the state was unlikely to be able to pull off a new trial (old evidence had been discredited, old witnesses were no longer available, public opinion had been affected by the exposure and do on).
The state was in a bind — if they had executed mumia, the whole world would have been watching. And the questions around his conviction were glaring, and his highly political persona made many people aware that there was a repressive edge to their persecution of him. They were not (in the final analysis) forced to throw out the conviction but only the execution.
People were pressing to expose and reverse an unjust conviction and barbarous sentence of execution. And through struggle upended plans of the state to murder him, but have not (yet) freed him from unjust incarceration.
saoirse said
I apologize as my last response got cut off mid thought. my bad.
I dunno Nando I don’t think “everyone understood that if the old trial was thrown out, the state was unlikely to be able to pull off a new trial,” I have a more pessimistic here. I think the state was in a bind but I also think the state had the upper hand. The trial while a sham was ground in some damning “facts” that would have been a challenge for the defense to dismantle. I dont know all the nuances of evolving nature of mumia’s legal defense. But there seemed to be a shift from Weinglass’s approach which I think had potential to a more, how can I say, wide-reaching defense which I think the state would have had an easier time with. These shifts in strategy speak to the very real challenge the campaign faced. Mass public opinion of state execution never as popular as the right wanted it to be swung again sharply against the policy. But with that the campaign didnt have the traction or the focus to move forward. This too had a big effect on left organizing in my mind.
I guess my real point was to say that the Mumia campaign held within it alot of ambiguity amongst the left and progressive circles. On some level the mass character of the campaign by its very nature meant folks had different ideas of what they wanted but could co-exist with others with very different ideas. All the while our energy was constructively focused on the state.
Anon said
Seems to have already gotten the likes of Carl Davidson, huh? It’s very peculiar to see a self-proclaimed progressive (revolutionary even!?) to talk about “police tactics” and such… and for what? The protection of U.S. empire. Follows Obama’s line to its ugly and reactionary conclusions.
Carl Davidson said
Not quite, ‘Anon.’ I’m for defeating the American of Empire, while defending the American people themselves, the America of popular democracy. It’s a hard distinction for some to make, but it’s an important one.
That’s why I think it’s fine the lock up fascists like the KKK or the National Alliance for their attacks of the masses, and demand that the police do so. At the same time, I’m for the defeat of all in the ruling class for sustaining and defending the system of white supremacy.
I think the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan should be defeated, while I support the efforts of all countries to capture and bring the Sallafists to justice, as the Spainish government hase and others. Our country, unfortunately, with its outrages at Gitmo and its occupations, makes this more difficult. We need to wage a struggle with it to take a different course.
I know it’s sometimes complicated to sort these out, but the world is a complicated place these days. If your line is simply to promote revolution vs reform, then you don’t have to be troubled with these matters. But I think doing that comes at the cost of placing yourselves in a cul-de-sac of irrelevance.
If you simply oppose all police activity all the time in all conditions in the capitalist world, I suppose life is a lot simpler. You don’t had to thing or analyze things very much. But the cost is that you often look rather silly.
Finally, if Obama is the main danger, then it’s incumbent upon you to do your best to take him down. You’ll even find a good number of allies to help you out here where I live, but not among the Black masses or the more progressive youth and workers. Your allies, even if in an objective sense, will be those who put the ‘N’ word in front of his name.
Which leads me to ask a serious question. Do you folks pay any attention at all to the practice of the ‘mass line’ in developing these things, or do you just pull them out of the air of your own internal debates and directives?
Artemio said
The Coup said it best,
“i was taught dont rely on pigs for protection
shit, i dont even ask em for directions”
Artemio said
Carl,
We live in the same state, but at opposite end’s- I’m in Philadelphia. In Philly there is a real problem with violence and crime in the camp of the people.
I invite you to take your message out door to door here- the part about relying on cops for protection.
There was an initiative here to stop violence- and an alliance of police and “established” community leaders. The call was for 10,000 volunteers to patrol the streets, work with the cops as community liasons, etc. It tanked. Less than 500 went on patrol for 1 night before the thing completely collapsed.
Many street vendor’s here sell a polular t-shirt, a red stop sign with the words – “Stop Snitching”. The mayor and police commisioner have come on TV calling for an end to a culture that distrusts the police (specifically nameing this shirt). Their message really hasn’t resonated, thankfully.
These are sentiments among the people to consider, when applying the mass line.
Quorri said
The irony of asking the police to protect you when the police are more often the ones committing unjust violence against the people we aim to help free themselves, against us, is beyond me….
The police physically assaulted me for not a fucking reason, none at all. Oh yeah, I knew my rights, I think that was why. Anyway, I agree with Boots Riley on this one :P
P.S. I’m not saying that people don’t need protection, I’m just saying cops are part of who we need protection from, for the most part…
Quorri said
As an afterthought, there IS a contradiction when you see something awful happening, like a small child getting abused, and who can you call? What can you do? Sometimes using the state is the only way to try to get that child to safety…. contradictions…
Artemio said
Quorri,
I think many of the masses recognize this as well. Violence in the camp of the people is something that is deeply disturbing. Much violence is attached to the underground economy, much is not and is pretty random- people getting into fights over a parking space and such. This kind of violence takes it’s toll and the basic masses have a desire for it to end- and they don’t see the police as part of the solution. There is a general sentiment that the police only add to the problem. If someone gets robbed, beaten, etc- and the police are called, they don’t really investigate and just nab someone who matches the description, and the prosecutors railroad, the judges jail- completely innocent people all the time. The people (rightly) recognize this as the problem.
My experience taking out politics, has been different from Mr. Carl Davidson’s. Many conversation’s I’ve had with people specifically about 9-11 are characterized more by a general distrust of the US government, and a sense that they were involved. To be fair, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, I’ll mention that I did come across sentiments from the people of “brining terrorist’s to justice” etc. Those sentiments have changed- lately and for the past several years- people are much more skeptical about the US’s motives post 9-11. Those who call for “fighting terrorism” and “bringing the fight to the middle east rather than having them bring it here” are often the most backward and reactionary. Mr. Carl Davidson, objectively, finds himself on the same side – as these people. He’s doing a pretty good job of making their argument’s for them, seeing how they don’t have a voice on this site.
Mr. Carl Davidson often tries to lump those who are critical of Obama with those who place “the N word in front of his name”. Fair enough. Let’s consider this. We don’t want to be on the same side of the battlefield as those people.
Mr. Carl Davidson should also consider- just who he is aligning himself with, when calling for bringing the terrorist’s to justice and defending the american people.
Mike E said
Moderator note: why would you call Carl “Mr. Carl Davidson”? — why we should have an edge of personal hostility and insult, in a discussion of political differences.
saoirse said
All the anti-cop sentiment certainly makes us feel better but the role of the police in our society is far more complex than that of an occupying army. The masses ask the police for far more than “directions,” although in NYC cops play that role for everyone from tourists on 42nd st, commuters on the A train in Harlem trying to get downtown when there are train delays to plumbers driving over the manhattan bridge.
The “stop snitching” is certainly a popular sentiment amongst some hip hop/youth market, though wasnt it the Roots who popularized the “start snitching” t-shirts? But what is this campaign really about? Is it to protect wc communities from an occupying army? or protect petty drug dealers and criminals? Sure there are some shades of grey in here but come on! When I’ve been robbed I called the cops. When I’ve been threatened with sexual assault by my building janitor I call the cops. When there two drug dealers shot dead in front of my apt. I call the cops. And many others in my community do the same.
I am all for figuring out where we DO draw some lines here. What is actual police and state collaboration. But I think we need to strive to be honest about what our capacities are to protect ourselves and our communities. And also the real life mulitifacted roles the police play in our society.
Carl Davidson said
Thanks, Mike, but “Mr. Carl Davidson,’ while I get the barb, is rather respectable considering some things I’ve had to deal with. No matter.
I think if some of the posters here thought a little more, they wouldn’t be so absolutistic on ‘the pigs.’
When I lived in Brooklyn, with a wife and two young daugthers in the house, and woke up one night to hear two intruders in my house downstairs, I had no problem at all calling 911, whereupon they were promptly nabbed.
On the other hand, when I was accosted by three white jerks and beaten as a ‘faggot’ because I had a pink shirt on leaving a Brooklyn Disco one night, two young Black guys came to my rescue, and we kicked a little butt, and sent them scurrying, street justice style, no cops involved.
But when mothers, girlfriends or daughters are assaulted or raped, I think common sense and the need to protect other women prevails, and whatever you do on your own, the police are called, or should be. Sometimes the results are satisfactory, sometimes not.
I know ‘pigs’ was common in the 1960s and 1970s, and some still use it today. For spiritual reasons, I use ‘adversaries’ instead. The dehumanized ‘Other’ helps no one. Read Thich Nhat Hanh’s long poem, ‘Call Me By My Truth Name,’ for a deep political lesson in dialectics.
In the course of working for years with ex-offenders and gang kids in Chicago, I’ve come across too many cops–a minority , to be sure, such as the African American Patrolman’s League, who have a decent head on their shoulders, and try to do the right thing with youth programs and the like. On the other hand, Burge and his little crew of torturing fascists worked right out of the Shakespeare station in my neighborhood.
Working with Ra Chaka and the Prison Action Committee over five or more years, going into the jails and station houses to meet with new releasees, taking with all kinds of staff, I have few illusions about our criminal justice system and its endemic injustice of class and race privilege and abuse.
At the same time, I have a realistic assessment–not romanticized–of what Black families want and demand from the police–community supervision, justice for the brutalizers, but also increased protection from those sociopaths that prey upon them. I know I had an awakening as to the good number of Blacks supporting the death penalty. I’m an absolutist against it, and expected something like that there. While you’ll find much wider opposition to it there than among whites, don’t kid yourself in you think it’s universal.
The truth is concrete, as a wise man put it. And while it’s deeper and fuller dimensions have to be teased out with the practice of ‘the mass line,’ I think it best to begin there, as a starting point.
nando said
the ruling class both rules society and oppresses the people. And so their armed racist thugs both regulate a million things and oppress the people.
Carl says we should not be “absolutist about the pigs.” Well, we should not be absolutist about ANYTHING. But we should be clear about the pigs.
first: the racist brutality of the police is one of the most intense and widely felt outrages in this society. It is a constant source of struggle and exposture. The brutality of the police has given rise to repeated rebellions — including during th 1960s and in the 1992 LA rebellion, but actually far more often than people know all through the twentieth century down to this moment.
second: this is because the oppressive acts of the police are IN THEIR NATURE — not their nature as individual human beings (though they are, in the main, reactionary and racist human beings), but in their nature as a social force and institution.
third: we need to expose and isolate such institutions (the armed branch of this government, its instrument of force, whether the militayr and the police) because of the role they play now, and because of the role they play in acute crises.
fourth: we must not be confused by the fact that the police play roles mediating “contradictions among the pepole” and we should (to the extent possible) help the people find ways of resolving their contradictions (domestic disputes, people going off their meds, petty crime) withot resorting to the armed thugs of the state. we should support the “no snitch” sentiments. And, as we devleop a rev movement with deep roots among the people, we should to the extent possible assume some of the functions — a form of embryonic state and parallel power even before we actually are even close to having real parallel power.
fifth: are there times where people will “call the cops” no matter what anyone thinks? sure. we don’t drive through the streets and ignore cops directing traffic. If a dangerous rapist is lose in the neighborhood, no one thinks “better the rapist escapes than anyone provide information to the police.” But overall, and in essense, it is politically wrong to “divide the cops into two” (just as it is wrong to “divide the U.S. military interventions into two.”
In that sense we should be a bit “absolutist” — the cops are “pigs” even if the slang may be exhausted and outdated. When the Panthers tagged them the “murdering pig police” it was a revelation and an exciting “speaking truth” and “speaking bitterness.”
and there are parts of the population who have no idea what we are talking about when we say this… for them the police have always been polite and respectful. For them the police are always a comfort when they enter the subway car. For them, it is reassuring to see a police cruiser, and infuriating when there don’t seem to be enough of them. Speaking for myself — i find everything about those views unjustified and jarring. I think people who look at things that way need to be confronted (in a comradely way, of course) with where this leads them, and who they will end up supporting.
This conversation is a place where you need to think about class stand: whose outlook, whose experience, whose partisan side does our movement stand with? whose eyes do we see through?
It is the youth, the black, the illegal, the hunted, the persecuted, the homeless, the penniless, the profiled, the abused. Those are our people. their experiences are our experiences. And we must find ways to merge our consciousness with them and find our voice in a new time.
nando said
two specific notes:
Carl writes:
“Working with Ra Chaka and the Prison Action Committee over five or more years, going into the jails and station houses to meet with new releasees, taking with all kinds of staff, I have few illusions about our criminal justice system and its endemic injustice of class and race privilege and abuse.”
You have a method, Carl, of rolling out a resume, and using it to argue that you know the truth. But it is a wrong method: it is one that favors the jaded veteran, and is so often used to hammer down the young militant.
No, Carl, this statement is wrong: You have had many experiences (who can deny that) but despite that you have many illusions. And we can judge that, not by looking at your resume, but by looking at your line (your views and proposals).
It would be nice if experience automatically led to wisdom. but there is nothing inherent in that.
carl also writes:
the fact that people want something doesn’t make it possible. Sections of the oppressed want THIS STATE to protect them not brutalize them. They want to call the cops (when there is some madness among the people), and not have the cops respond by brutalizing or disrespecting the people some more.
but the fact is that in life and politics, you can’t simply imagine your way to reality.
Women often want their abuser husbands to just stop the abuse. People with bi-polar want the manic high to stay, and the bitter depression to leave. Immigrant workers just want to be left alone to make their money and settle into America. Black people just want to finally get respect in america, and not constantly wake up back on the bottom.
But in fact, there are laws and dynamics to reality. As marx said we remake the world, but we can’t just remake it any way we want.
The fact that sections of the people have illusions about the police (or about what is possible without a revolution) does not mean we should embrace and promote those illusions.
saoirse said
Nando,
I respect your positions though we may disagree here and seek to tease some things out further. I couple of points and questions.
First you state that the “the racist brutality of the police is one of the most intense and widely felt outrages in this society. It is a constant source of struggle and exposture.”
1) Im not sure I agree. In my experience it seems like the struggle against police brutality is an uneven one. There are instense upsurges of struggle in such as the ones you mentioned in the 1960s and the LA rebellion but these are often regional, diffuse and not sustained. Campaigns against police brutality also have an uneven quality when during periods such as the shooting of Diallo or Bell there is a spike of activity but this spike very challenging to sustain. After 911 at least in NYC police were held in a higher regard than I had experienced anytime during my life. This has changed over time but real ground was lost in the ideological front.
2) I agree with you that the nature of the social institution is one of social force.
But the real challenge for me is the rest of your argument,. For example the police is pigs thing. I do tend to agree with Carl here that this kind of dehumanization gets us nowhere. And since most socialist states have had cops that were in fact called cops somewhere some part of this whole thing divides into two. No?
Further the whole slogan calling police pigs divides people unnecessarily and as a slogan has not had the same mass character since the 1960s. Could this change in the future again. Yes absolutely but I don’t think we can will this into being.
My experience will always be a cornerstone in how I relate to the world. I see your point in how it can be limiting but I find it important to trust my instincts and personal feelings. Call it whatcha will. That said you say, ” and there are parts of the population who have no idea what we are talking about when we say this… for them the police have always been polite and respectful. For them the police are always a comfort when they enter the subway car. For them, it is reassuring to see a police cruiser, and infuriating when there don’t seem to be enough of them.”
I don’t think things are this simple. I don’t think… white folks. Middle class folk, etc have all uniformly positive experiences or do the oppressed have uniformly negative ones. I do in general the role of police in certain communities is one of oppression while recognizing that in those very communities the cops play a social role in mediating all kinds of disputes petty and other wise without using force. This complicates things.
At the end you lay out that in many circumstances you understand that the police will be called but that doesn’t mean we should let the cops off the hook. Okay but what is the criteria here? And who gets to make this criteria? Again I am not going to throw verbal stones at folks for calling the cops when I myself have needed to call the cops many times in my life.
Carl Davidson said
I try to speak concretely, from my own experience and the experiences I have shared with others, when it’s appropriate. If that’s ‘rolling out a resume,’ so be it, but I’m trying to make an illustrative point, not get hired for something. Sometimes it’s not possible, and points have to be made once removed.
People are free to refer to the police with whatever term they like, but I’ve yet to see how the struggle is advanced calling them ‘pigs.’ I didn’t care for it much back then, and even less now. I don’t like delegitimizing anyone as subhuman–and once it becomes OK in one set of circumstances, it opens the door to others that you may wish to see remain closed. And I really don’t see how it moves things forward in any case. The police are what they are, which is bad enough that extra hyperbole doesn’t add much. Plus when they’re human rather than subhuman, they’re accountable, or can at least be held to be.
But that’s me. I certainly understand the anger that produces it, and rarely get on people’s case when they do.
I have plenty of illusions I work on all the time–whiteness, maleness, being American. As a student of Zen and the The Way, I work on the toughest one of all, the independent self. But I’ve worked through enough of them in the political realm over the years, knowing where many bodies are buried, in the left, as well as in broader arenas, that I’m fairly less starry-eyed there.
Mike E said
saorise:
Yes, we should tease this out. and i can only be brief here so we may need to do it another time.
On your points:
In a movementist way you seem confuse ongoing organized campaigns with constant outrage. Police abuse is constant (not regional, or episodic). Every saturday night, the police humiliate or abuse people in every city. It is a daily, hourly, constant thing. black women with large sons are afraid to have them run into the cops.\
Of course you are right that the actual struggle and consciousness around this is episodic and uneven. All struggle and consciousness is.
I am not for de-humanizing our enemies — but i do believe in exposing and isolating them. I do be believe in fighting for a powerful summation that they and their system have nothing to offer us. and when you contemplate the process of actually breaking up the armed forces that uphold oppression, you appreciate that people need to develop a certain clarity to actually defeat them.
As for “cops who are called cops under socialism” — in China the communist fighters were called “fighters” not soldiers, to differentiate them with the whole instituion of soldiers that had caused so much suffering. Police were no longer called police. The organized forces patroling communities were called militia (and were in many cases actually militia and not police). This changed, of course, as certain things instituionalized. but it is correct to develop new institutions of “social order” after a revolutoin that are not “cops” and don’t become “cops.” What we call those forces is not the issue, of course, but the essense of creating something different is more to the point.
Quorri said
I see the value in not devaluing the humans in cop uniforms, in not calling them pigs or some other label aimed to dehumanize…. But it’s hard when you’re terrified EVERY time you see a cop that they are going to beat you, arrest you, rape you, or otherwise fuck up your life for absolutely not a reason…. It’s somehow psychologically safer to just get immediately angry and call them pigs. Maybe not helpful for the movement, but helpful in my head.
Furthermore, any cop joining a movement I supported would have to entirely break from the state in all ways for me to begin to be satisfied, so, I like the idea of not calling people cops post-revolution.
saoirse said
Mike I see your pt about movement v. social relationship. Perhaps I ended up conflating the two in my arguments. Still in sentiments similar to Nando’s I believe police play a more complicated role in our society. I am not arguing against pervasive police misconduct nor there specific social role, I just think they fulfill a number of concurrent functions and communities including ones under seige utilize them. And do in fact relate to the police in roles that are not solely negative.
I look forward to further engagement.
I know of some of what you speak about re: milita v. police, fighters v. soldiers. But my knowledge is insufficent to speak with much clarity. As you said its the institutions essence not its name that is the issue.
Linda D. said
I think Nando has pretty much gotten it right! He’s not talking about individual cops, he’s talking about who the police, as an arm of the State, serve. When it comes to the police/cops/aka “pigs”–which is kind of unfortunate since animal pigs are highly intelligent as animals go–this is a very partisan issue. (And BTW–this is not at all exclusive to the U.S.)
Where I will take SLIGHT issue with Nando is:
“The fact that sections of the people have illusions about the police (or about what is possible without a revolution) does not mean we should embrace and promote those illusions.”
I would say that a small section of the people have illusions about the police, but unfortunately more people than not have illusions about what is possible without a revolution.
Carl Davidson said
Is there a difference between people not agreeing with you, or your group’s line, and their ‘having illusions?’ Is there something special about you or your group that inoculates you, at least to a considerable degree, against ‘illusions,’ while others lack this special quality?
TellNoLies said
Carl has a point. In the sense of holding false beliefs I presume that all of us (indeed everybody) has “illusions” of one sort or another. But as a way of talking about differences in viewpoint it is not very constructive and it is deeply imbued with the idea that questions are settled and the correct answers are “there for the taking.”
Linda D. said
Carl. I am not exactly sure who you are referring to about “you or your group’s line,” disagreements vs. illusions, inoculations, etc.
First of all, Kasama is hardly a consolidated group, and am sure you are well aware of that since you are a solid participant in the debates around many issues. There are many contending lines and outlooks within Kasama and I would hope that after much struggle we can come to some consensus and move forward. But that struggle is also vital to the vitality of any organization.
I’m like you in so far as I’m from the “old school”–and sometimes it is hard to break with old ideas — which unfortunately often times contain some illusions from even a revolutionary standpoint. A case in point: for many years, and even though like you, have always tried to apply the mass line, I’ve been inundated in the illusory school of determinism and voluntarism–which to me end up being idealism.
What I think Nando was trying to point to in his little sum up re illusions amongst the people is to show a more realistic and material view of the political landscape that very much exists, and which landscape we have to study, be in tune with and even dare to criticize or struggle with people around. Why? because we do have a more collective revolutionary outlook and we try and utilize a real scientific methodology. If there weren’t illusions amongst the people, the political landscape would look a whole lot different than it does today.
And those illusions present very real contradictions, but I forever emphasize the difference between contradictions amongst the people vs. contradictions between the people and our shared enemy.
If I thought that Kasama was some sect whose theory and practice was etched in stone, “there for the taking” I would eliminate it from my “Quick searches” key immediately. And if K. was so inoculated, guess what? you wouldn’t be a respected participant.
Hesitated to say something about the following, but what the hell. Nando commented:
“You have a method, Carl, of rolling out a resume, and using it to argue that you know the truth. But it is a wrong method: it is one that favors the jaded veteran, and is so often used to hammer down the young militant.”
I pointed out this resumé thing several posts ago. I don’t agree with Nando that your m.o. (often times) is “used to hammer down the young militant” because I don’t think the new, young and militant forces are going to be hammered down by a lot of the veteran revolutionaries, although B.A. has tried to make this into a science. (Uh oh…probably used the word “science” incorrectly. So what?) There is the objective situation and the subjective forces. And within the subjective forces I think there is, and should be, room for the likes of people like you and me. None of us is starting from scratch and in fact have an entire history of revolutionary movements and actual revolutions to both revere and criticize. And when a more personal experience is used to illustrate a point, I think that is fine…but our own empirical experience is not the end all be all.
What we do have on say Kasama, are some shared principles. How those principles are enacted is up for debate. And those same principles can never be divorced from the people in our revolutionary aims and goals, otherwise we’re living in an ivory tower, and our ideas are limited to some political hothouse. I think it is time for us “veterans” to learn how to be more flexible and not just rely on our own years of experience. Hopefully we’re not some careerists, but sincerely want to be part of the genuine struggle for revolution, side by side with the struggling masses, to make history.
I agree with Nando: “This conversation is a place where you need to think about class stand: whose outlook, whose experience, whose partisan side does our movement stand with? whose eyes do we see through?”
But I would add that we need to be thinking of class stand, etc. throughout our conversations, discussions and debates. At the same time, we don’t need to tail after some wrong-thinking amongst the people even if that wrong-thinking is dominant at particular junctures. And as part of our struggle to know and understand truth and the world–and not in some dogmatic way–we need to combat illusions and ideological persuasions not only among the people, but within ourselves.
Carl Davidson said
I was trying to make what I thought was a simpler point.
I don’t especially like to argue from a position assuming that I’m standing on ‘objective truth’ while those who don’t agree with me are in the thrall of ‘illusions.’
As far as I’m concerned, the ‘Veil of Maya,’ a degree of ignorance about the universe that we use science to push back, envelops us all, to one degree or another. Likewise, today’s ‘material realities’ are tomorrow’s landfill. And very few of us are ‘awakened.’
For instance, I know many people who make fairly accurate assessments of the market and politics, but who also think they’re ‘white,’ a rather large ‘illusion’ from a certain perspective.
What I’m saying is that when I’m engaging in political discussion and debate, I find it more fruitful not to put my head higher than someone else’s, nor lower, for that matter. I put out my working hypotheses, and they put out theirs, and we see which can better solve the problems at hand. And sometimes, coming to agreement as to what the ‘problem at hand’ is, is the larger difficulty.
In brief, I worry more about promoting unworkable solutions than I do about ’spreading illusions.’
Quorri said
Unworkable solutions and illusions go hand in hand and feed upon and reinforce one another…. I’d worry about them both equally as much.
Could you elaborate on what it means to be awakened?
Opponent said
Briefly, on Carl Davidson’s argument that to oppose Obama, and expose him as the main danger, is to ally with people who would put the “N” word before his name.
This is utter crap. Let me draw an analogy. Over many years, I and many other leftists have been involved in support activities for the Palestinian people, and opposition to the zionist entity currently occupying Palestine.
In the course of calling demonstrations, whether large or small, anyone who has engaged in such activity knowns that inevitably some right wingers, or even neo-Nazis will show up with their own signs, which talk about “Jewish conspiracy,” “Zog,” or even display the Swastika. Obviously, this is completely reactionary, and all people on the left oppose such ideas and slogans, and symbols. The zionists, of course, try to use incidents like this to say that to be anti-zionist is to be anti-Jewish.
In demonstrations that I and groups I worked with have been involved in, when such actual anti-Jewish people show up, we have acted to try to isolate them, and, to the extent possible, exclude them from the main ranks of the demonstration.
We have also come up with chants to make the demarcation clear, such as: “Jewish People, Yes! Zionism, No!” etc.
The mere fact that leftists and neo-Nazis BOTH may oppose zionism and the existence of the “state of israel” (the illegitimate bandit entity currently occupying Palestine) does NOT mean that leftists, in doing so, are allying themselves with neo-Nazis! Because the opposition of leftists to zionism and the “state of israel” (the illegitimate bandit entity currently occupying Palestine) is based on an entirely different viewpoint and framework, and is explicitly ANTI-racist, and anti-fascist.
Similarly, one can oppose Obama from a variety of points of view. Yes, there are people who oppose Obama from a racist point of view, but there are also those who oppose Obama from an anti-racist point of view, and I believe there are ways to make that demarcation clear.
If, for example, one goes out into the community and opposes the Obama campaign from the point of view that he is pro-war, calling for the expansion of the U.S. assault on the people of Afghanistan, and is calling for a wide variety of measures that, far from fighting the oppression of African-American people, in fact will ignore or even increase it, I believe that only someone acting in a dishonest way can really claim that the opposition is the same as those using the “N” word.
And I have enough confidence in the people, including African-American people, to believe that lots of them will understand the difference.
To fail to take the actual truth about Obama, that he is a stone reactionary, an enemy of African-American people, a representative of U.S. imperialism, and, indeed, by far the most dangerous of the two main contenders for the presidency of the empire, is, in a sense a racist approach of not trusting the African-American people in being able to grasp the truth, or somehow too “stupid” to see the distinction between the Klan chanting the “N” word, and the left chanting “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE! U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! OUT OF IRAQ, OUT OF AFGHANISTAN! HANDS OFF IRAN!” or “DEFEAT OBAMA AND MCCAIN, FREE MUMIA, SELF-DETERMINATION AND LIBERATION FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS!”
So give it a rest Carl, NO ONE is talking about allying with those using the “N” word in opposing Obama. Not subjectively, and not objectively.
Linda D. said
I actually have a question. This coming off of lots of arguments with friends and acquaintances recently around Obama–and one specifically a die-hard fan who kept saying it’s the “audacity of hope” and how Obama has inspired so many young people, “no longer apathetic”–blah blah blah…
I was kind of wondering about another aspect to all this.
While personally I don’t harbor any “illusions” about Obama, much of the recent discussions were reiterating the out and out hatred of W & Co. and their more blatantly reactionary (some were saying fascist) administration, policies, et al. So, do we think that is a good thing? and how do we build on that sentiment?
Carl Davidson said
We publish critiques of Obama all the time, ‘opponent,’ some of the best around. Both in the form of warnings about wrong paths, exposures of limitations, and pointing to positive ways forward. We want all concerned to have an all-sided understanding of him, and his rivals.
We can do so because we share a common objective in defeating the main danger, McCain. We exercise our independence and initiative accordingly. Since you don’t share our view of the main danger, but see the main danger as Obama, and the main task of defeating him, you’re in a different camp with those who share your main task.
You can denounce them if you like, but the way you’ve framed the issue, you’re objectively allied with them in any case. That’s why getting these things right is important.
I would hope you would apply our same lesson regarding Israel. You should share a common aim with many Israelis for living in peace with their neighbors, and working with some Israelis to expand democracy in their country to include Arabs.
That way you expose and distinguish yourselves from the opponents of ‘ZOG’, and expose their real aims, the liquidation of Israel and the Jews generally, even if they raise similar slogans to yours on other more immediate matters.
As for Quorri’s query about ‘awakened,’ it was a reference to the Buddha, which means, literally translated, ‘the one who is fully awake,’ ie, without any illusion, even of an independent self, in tune with the ‘Suchness’ of True Emptiness. Recall the old rock song, ‘First here is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then then is.’ The third mountain is the mountain ‘as it is,’ without illusion. In the Mahayana tradition, the ‘awakened’ Boddhisatvas make it their business to return to the realm of the ‘Veil of Maya,’ the lifeworlds still clinging to illusions, and work as teachers and servants of the people, to bring everyone along, for the sake of wider compassion, liberation and wisdom.
Quorri said
I would rather leave “awakening” and other metaphysical allusions out of the discussion, but that’s my personal preference. Perhaps we could start a thread on Kasama Threads about religion and metaphysical world views…. But here we’re talking about electoral politics and the mass buy in of otherwise politically forward/left people to that system.
I think when Linda brings up people’s love of Obama’s “audacity of hope” and all those various pathos inspiring statements he uses so well, she brings up a crucial point. How do we respond to people’s seeming need to have their crushed dreams for the future of this country/world reborn through a democratic president who talks like he’s “one of us”?
I think it’s really important to pull out that hope that people genuinely have, and to support that hope and focus on it, while also unmasking their ideas about what it is this guy’s really going to do, or what he’s even really capable of. We can show lists and lists of things that supposedly “good” president’s like Bill Clinton did that were AWFUL for people. We can show the things Obama does/says that are directly in line with the things the supposed ‘other side” (W and camp) does and says…. We can try to help people see that their hope is powerful and that if they give it to Obama it will be misused.
People in my generation may seem apathetic to many people, but I think if we look closer you can also see a generation that believes it might be able to save the biological life on this planet, a generation that has huge elements of people that were never apathetic to begin with, but just aren’t often focused on by mainstream media, like SDS and other groups.
It’s important, too, to unmask these generational divides for what they are, weaknesses in any movement that wishes to make lasting progress. People’s apathy, after all, is a symptom of a system that consistently forces them into powerless positions in life…
Carl Davidson said
I think it’s important to recognize that we don’t have a crystal ball. None of us knows for a certainty what Obama will do or won’t do, now or later. Making pronouncements like we do isn’t all that helpful.
We know the conflicting things he has asserted, and those around him have asserted. We know the class interests anchoring him, and the limitations there. We know what we want, and where what we want can intersect with certain points of the campaign.
Our task is to do education around all of this, to instill a sense of both realism and determination, and to identify the best points of struggle, both what we want to gain and what we want to avoid.
Most of all, we want to help activists in the campaign to organize independently, so there in a position to continue the struggle when the campaign is over.
Quorri said
I like your point, Carl, that it would be helpful to connect with some campaigners for when the campaign fury is over, to keep them engaged in a political process, and hopefully one that is much more realistic, materially, and imaginative and hopeful for humanity….
I think also that determining what the points of struggle and unity between ourselves and any other person are is a worthwhile, nay necessary, task.
However, I have to say, nothing I want intersects with Obama’s campaign whatsoever. Period. Is that too absolutist? It’s genuinely how I feel, and I’ve been given no evidence that Obama campaigns toward any end I support.
Anyway, It’s really hard to connect with Obama campaigners on a politically more forward level because of the buy in to electoral politics and the illusion that this might actually get us somewhere. The hardest part to combat is the fear of McCain winning if Obama doesn’t. It’s hard to convince someone who otherwise agrees that electoral politics are NOT the way to make change to work toward anything else BECAUSE they are so scared of McCain…. and it usually doesn’t help to point out the similarities between the two. Sometimes it helps to point out the failures of past democratic leaders…etc.
One of the best tools, though, has been given us directly by Obama’s campaign: Hope. People wouldn’t respond to this call to pathos if they didn’t genuinely have that hope alive inside of them, and the wish to see their hopes manifest. This is a point of huge intersection because if anyone has a crapload of hope for humanity, it’s communists :P Unity over the hopes we have for the future of the world, of humanity, is a strong unity to have. It’s also a very easy unity to work off of since those hopes that people really do have will likely be let down by the man they are placing their hopes upon…..
Carl Davidson said
Look a little harder, or more all-sidely.
He wants negotiations with Iran, and McCain doesn’t
He wants to uphold Roe v Wade, and McCain won’t.
He’s for a serious industrial policy for new green industry, where McCain only tinkers around the edges.
You could find a dozen more, if you bother to look. All that ‘hope’ is not rooted in hype alone.
But it helps when you realize that our socialist tasks are in the realm of propaganda among the advanced in this period, and not action slogans and mass agitation of the day.
Linda D. said
Without getting into all the various ins and outs of some very rich comments, I would like to point out just a couple of things.
First of all–the people I was originally arguing with around some of Obama’s latest moves and positions, was met by some saying–referring to Bush & Co. “look what has happened to this country. It’s in the toilet,” etc. And I tried to point out, that while these last 8 years have produced more blatant attacks, the U.S. and it’s supposed democracy has been in the toilet for the majority of people, especially the oppressed nationalities, since time and memorium. The people I was arguing with are good people, the majority definitely anti-war veterans, concerned about the environment, pro-Choice, etc.–they’re not the enemy–but they are looking at all this through their own position in class society. And I for one am not going to automatically dismiss these types just because they don’t agree for the need for revolution, a radical rupture of the existing society, etc.
But Carl says:
“He wants negotiations with Iran, and McCain doesn’t
He wants to uphold Roe v Wade, and McCain won’t.
He’s for a serious industrial policy for new green industry, where McCain only tinkers around the edges.”
I think what is missing from the above is–it’s not “He” (aka Obama) vs. McCain, nor what either of them “want.” Obama is a lot sharper in “touching base” (am gonna throw up for using that terminology) with his constituency, and it is that growing and more vocal progressive constituency who have forced the likes of Obama to even present “another side.” Funny, but MoveOn was more critical of Obama’s seeming moves toward “the center” than Carl.
Carl Davidson said
Me vs MoveOn.org?
That’s a mismatch!
That’s probably because I knew, from knowing Obama since his first race in Chicago, that some of this wasn’t ‘moves to the center,’ but the fact that Obama had been standing in the center for a long time on a number of matters, no ‘moving’ required.
But yes, I take a tougher line than MoveOn.org on some things, but others they get bent out of shape about, don’t worry me so much.
Right now we’re pushing hard on him not to get sucked into ‘the Great Game’ in Afghanistan/Pakistan. If he does, even if he wins the presidency, that misadventure will destroy it and him. He can go after the Salaffists, but he has to find a better way.
TellNoLies said
Carl,
How, precisely, can Obama “go after the Salaffists” without getting “sucked into ‘the Great Game’ in Afghanistan/Pakistan.” What I don’t understand in this formulation is the notion that Obama (or US imperialism) is “getting sucked in.” It seems to me that Obama’s calls for more troops in Afghanistan and intervention in Pakistan must be understood principally in terms of attempting to advance US global domination and not in terms of “going after the Salaffists.”
One of the reasons I think revs should welcome an Obama victory, perhaps a bit paradoxically, is the opportunity it will present to expose not just the crimes of the neo-cons, but the nature of the system as a whole. The left has largely capitulated to the liberal idea that Afghanistan was the “good war” while it has single-mindedly focused on stopping the war in Iraq. It looks like this will no longer be tenable under an Obama administration and our contradictions with liberalism are going to have an opportunity to come out in sharper relief.
On a related note, I think its interesting how aggressively and unanimously the capitalist media has pushed Obama to acknowledge the “success of the surge in Iraq.” What seems to be at stake here is that if US military involvement in Iraq is to be wound down (which may or may not prove to be the case) that it is critical to frame the outcome as the product of US military victory. For reasosn of electoral expediency Obama has sp far gently resisted this formulation, but I suspect he will come around because the ideological stakes are just too high.
Linda D. said
TellNoLies and others:
And as you mentioned along with Afghanistan–the rulers are already prepping the way in Pakistan. (And least we not forget that Musharref is on the skids.) In yesterday’s NYT (July 30th) an article:
“CIA Outlines Pakistan Links with Militants: The agency presented Pakistan with evidence showing that members of its spy service had deepened ties with militant groups responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/asia/30pstan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Anon said
LOL @ post #74
Davidson: Putting Imperialists Feet to the Fire
/sarcasm
Carl Davidson said
TellNoLies Asks:
“How, precisely, can Obama “go after the Salaffists” without getting “sucked into ‘the Great Game’ in Afghanistan/Pakistan.” What I don’t understand in this formulation is the notion that Obama (or US imperialism) is “getting sucked in.” It seems to me that Obama’s calls for more troops in Afghanistan and intervention in Pakistan must be understood principally in terms of attempting to advance US global domination and not in terms of “going after the Salaffists.”
Good question. The short answer is: ‘with difficulty, and over a somewhat long period of time.’ Read the new RAND study just out, especially the last chapter, for a longer answer.
And if it weren’t for the Salaffists and the instability of Pakistan’s nukes, I don’t think many imperialists, fortunately or unfortunately, would bother much with the region or care whether it was run by warlords or not.
Of course, if revolution here or there is the only answer, then it doesn’t matter if the peace movement, or the left, for all practical purposes, gives the Salaffist’s a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card. You’re not concerned with shaping a progressive majority on the topic in any immediate sense, or finding any solution that would be implemented by any existing governments, or running any credible election campaign.
You only have to unite a small number of revolutionaries and speak ‘the truth’ whether anyone cares or agrees. In other words, you have a much easier task.
Andrew Austin said
This is not Germany 1933.