Veteran's, Soldiers, War and Antiwar: A Debate

From Chicago.indymedia.org

Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by Makhno

18 Oct 2005

While I empathize with those families, spouses, children, friends and loved ones who have lost someone in Iraq or Afghanistan, I have to ask, what are we expected to 'honor' them for? For invading someone else's country and killing thousands of people? For rape, looting, torture, and the daily oppression of the Iraqi people? For their efforts, knowing or not, to protect the interests of corporate capitalism?

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Honor the Warrior?
by Bob Schwartz

18 Oct 2005
I agree with Makhno. Last night I viewed the 'Two Days in October' program on WTTW. A portrayal of US government lies in Vietnam and cop repression of student-led dissent at the University of Wisconsin, it showed among other things how working class guys were used to kill peasants in Vietnam and bash and even kill protesters in the US.

One thing we need to make clear is that our friends, sons, daughters, sisters and the like are not fighting for 'our' interests but the interests of the Haliburton's and Bechtel's of this nation.

This won't happen if we continue to 'honor' the warriors, thus blurring the lines between the class interests being defended and sacrificed by war criminals on Wall Street and on Capitol Hill.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by Carl Davidson

19 Oct 2005

'Honor the Warrior, Not the War' has been one of the main banners carried by VVAW in every antiwar action since Vietnam.

I'd put on my thinking cap, guys, if you can't figure out why this slogan is a good one. I would NOT start lecturing the vets on the evils of imperialism and its wars. Believe me, they know far more than you do about it -- what they did, what was done to them, and what they had to do to survive. Arrogant diatribes from those who have never smelled the stink of war and all its horrors are not appropriate.

Back to the issue.

Who is the slogan aimed at?

First all of, the warmakers. It says we soldiers won't honor or support your wars. There is nothing the ruling class fears more than that emerging sentiment in the ranks of their army. Second of all, it's aimed at all the sunshine patriots who like to think soldiers don't do things like speak out against wars while the wars are being fought. It says, wake up to the truth of this war.

Second, honor the warriors -- who is that aimed at?

First of all, other soldiers and their families. And by putting honoring themselves in the context of dishonoring the war, it says we are in solidarity, we have suffered and caused suffering together at the hands of these warmakers, we are now affirming our humanity in the midst of inhumanity, and we are affirming a bond AMONG us and AGAINST them.

Second, it aimed at others in the antiwar movement. It says, deal with us, we are your allies, but you can't pigeon-hole us with a one-dimensional moralism. We don't want your petty bougeois contempt or your liberal sympathy. We want your solidarity. We are the section of the antiwar movement in uniform, and if you can't figure out the importance of that, then you have a lot to learn.

I've gotten behind VVAW's 'Honor the Warrior, Not the War' banner every year for more than 30 years, and I'll keep on doing it.

Usually 50 or 100 folks show up at Wacker and Wabash on Veterans Day and Memorial Day each year. Why don't we make it 500 or 1000 this year? You can talk with the vets and exchange views on the matter, and we'll all learn a few things.

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Honor the Warrior?

by Bob Schwartz

19 Oct 2005
problematic.

...Carl's patronizing lecture to those who haven't participated in US imperial wars cannot change the fact that 9-11 was a consequence of US imperialism and that the attack on Afghanistan was not a 'necessary war' any more than was Vietnam or Iraq.

'Love of country' is, after all, patriotism which is held by Marxists to be intrinsically reactionary in the imperialist states, as Carl recently reminded me in another matter. Remember Lenin's 'Great State' chauvinism, Carl?

What I hear in the WAW slogan is a liberal critique of policy rather than a radical critique of the system that promotes a necessary policy. In other words, imperialism is not a policy.

While I may march with vets who oppose particular wars like Vietnam and Iraq, I do so with the consciousness and critique that I have advanced, and will continue to advance.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by Carl Davidson

19 Oct 2005

I wouldn't try to frame VVAW as 'liberal' and yourself as 'true anti-imperialist,' Bob. It's just wrong and you'll get yourself in a mess.

But then, you're a 'white mother country radical,' to use the old Panther Party term, who frequently lectures Black leaders for not being sufficiently antiracist, so I guess you're used to it.

Also, if you want to take on VVAW, why not criticize them directly rather than their ally, whom you quote?

And besides, while we're 'revolutionary defeatists' on the war in Iraq, do you really want to take the same stand vis-a-vis bin Laden and his gang? Don't you also want to see him captured, brought to justice and his group put out of business?

Perhaps you just don't want the U.S. and a war to do it. If so, then how and by whom? Or would you just go along with a few more 'victories' like 9/11 for al-Quada, and blame them solely on Bush?

I think Bush lost half the battle with bin Laden the next day after 9/11 when he called for a 'war on terrorism.' But that doesn't mean a worldwide campaign to bring bin Laden and his group to justice should be dropped. Or do you think it should?

The world gets complcated, a little beyond a few slogans sometimes. As Lenin was fond of saying, quoting Goethe, 'Theory is grey, but life is green.'

As for 'intrinsically reactionary,' you seem to have ignored my answer to you on the topic, so here's the repost:

'You got part of it right, Bob, except for the word 'intrinsically.'

'The chauvinism and nationalism of the Great Nations is reactionary for all practical purposes in this day and age. But I'd watch out for 'intrinsic' or 'in essense' -- these are terms that can drag you into idealist metaphysics, a la Plato.

'But Lenin also upheld what he called the 'national pride' of the Great Russian workers, and opposed the petty bourgeois 'national nihilism' of the Great Russian and European intellectuals.

'But you're also right that there is a slippery slop from chauvinism to patriotism, especially among the 'Great' or oppressor nations.

'The way I tell the difference is to ask 'Who is it aimed it?'

'When Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan wave the flag, it's usually aimed at 'Jose' -- immigrants and undocumented workers -- and thus divisive and reactionary. But when Woody Guthrie says 'This land is your land, this land is my land...' it's aimed at the rich and welcoming to all working people, whatever their nationalities.

'One patriotism hates internationalism; the other, like the Abe Lincoln contingent in the International Brigades that fought in Spain, defends Internationalism and sees itself as one part of it, but without repudiating its own country's democratic tradiitions and values.

'Nationalism will eventually go the way of the Dodo bird, as will classes. But I'd bet that classes and class identity dissolves and withers away before nations and national indentity does.

'As someone who studies Zen, I think these are all social constructions, including our notions 'masculine' and 'feminine,' or even constructed self identities like 'Bob Schwartz' and 'Carl Davidson.' They're always changing, and the point is neither to cling to them nor to repulse them, but to let go of either approach to identity, step by step, in favor of awakening to the interconnectedness of all things.

'But the time frame for this process is probably longer than this life.

'In the meantime, we should contest the right over patriotism, first, because the large majority of folks we need to stop the war see themselves as patriots even as they are coming to hate the warmakers. And second, because we shouldn't hand the right anything on a silver platter.'

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Jackson and bin Laden: reply to Carl D

by Bob Schwartz

19 Oct 2005

Carl wrote, 'But then, you're a 'white mother country radical,' to use the old Panther Party term, who frequently lectures Black leaders for not being sufficiently antiracist, so I guess you're used to it.'

This I have not done, Carl. What I have written you seem to have ignored: I have opposed the antigay lectures of Jesse Jackson, most particularly his statement that, 'Some slave-owners were gay.' And his opposition to marriage rights for same-sex couples. I have also written that Jackson has said and done little or nothing about racist cop attacks IN CHICAGO.

And now a question for Carl: Do you really want Osama bin Laden hunted down and killed or tried under the bloody banner of US imperialism? That's worked out reallly well in Iraq with Hussein, hasn't it? There you have the Bush gang arrogating to itself the right to try a former ally who fell out of grace, while they continue their global rampage of destruction and death, with victims numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

We need to keep our perspective: Bush and the rest of the mob in the White House, on Capitol Hill and on Wall Street are the enemy. Not bin Laden.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War

by J.

19 Oct 2005

I'd say both the Bin Laden gang, and the Bush gang, are enemies.

It's not an either/or proposition.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War

by Carl Davidson

19 Oct 2005
I rest my case, Bob, your remarks on Jesse and police brutality prove it.

On the other matter, if you'll notice, I said I wanted to see bin Laden brought to justice and his group put out of business, not slaughtered. But maybe it's all the same to you.

As for bin Laden not being an enemy, I suggest you make the case to his victims -- the 3000 families at the WTC, the families of Africans slain on the street at the embassies bombings, the families of subway and train riders in Spain, the tourists and hotel workers in Indonesia, the Shia and Kurds beheaded or just blown up in markets or mosques, and more I've probably overlooked.

But then, if you want to make an ally of billionaire Saudis into restoring a theocratic fascist Caliphate via the slaughter of innocents, why don't you ponder what that means for gays and lighten up of Jesse?

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by Joshua

19 Oct 2005

You don't have to 'honor' them. But you can give them credit for having the guts and the testicular fortitude to do what a lot of people won't.

While people sit in coffee houses sipping lattes and espouse the 'greatness' of communism, anarchism and socialism, these people got off their asses and served their country.

Granted military service is not for everyone. I suspect a goodly number of people who hate the military would piss themselves or start crying if they found themselves in bootcamp. I was in Marine Corps bootcamp and I've seen the people that weren't cut out for it.

As a Marine Corps vet I think Afghanistan was a good idea. Let's hope that the earthquake over there dropped several tons of rock on top of Bin Laden and his cronies.

Iraq is another story. Bush has been trumpeting for a while about 'the march of freedom'.

Sorry W, but I don't give a damn about the Iraqi's freedom. If revolution was good enough for the U.S. then it should be good enough for other countries.

Quit pissing American money and lives away on these people.

Not worth it.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by Ernst Thalman

19 Oct 2005

I don't know if Mr. Schwartz's characterization of VVAW as 'liberal' illustrates the scope and power of the ideological blinders he has chosen to impose upon himself or just sheer ignorance.

VVAW's actions during the last years of the Vietnam War were a radical and POWERFUL challenge... it may not look like it from our contemporary perspective but as an observer AND participant I can tell you it was. Enough so that the organization was targeted by the Nixon administration for COINTELPRO actions similar to those experienced by the Panthers, SWP, et al.

For example:

'In May 1972, Bill Lemmer, Southern Regional Coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a key group in the convention protest coalition, surfaced as an undercover FBI operative. Lemmer's false testimony enabled the Bureau to haul the VVAW's national leadership before a grand jury hundreds of miles away during the week of the convention.'

There was even an attempt during the 2004 elections to use kerry's brief association with VVAW in 70 and 71 to 'smear' him as a 'radical'.

A purer than thou or more anti-imperialist than thou approach to ideological debate and organizing is no way to build a mass movement. The histronics remind me of Pavel Antipov/Strelnikov in Pasternak's famous novel (and not the cheesy movie)

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Vietnam Vets Against the War Have Played a Significant Role

by Bob Schwartz

19 Oct 2005

Mr. Thalman, I do not mean to suggest that WAW have not shown courage and played a significant role in challenging US government policy in Vietnam and in Iraq.

Of course they garnered the wrath of the Nixon crowd in the 1970s. Nixon, like Bush and almost all of the Democrats today, brooked no opposition to US war policy, even if aimed at only particular wars. Former military men and women attacking government war policy is especially troubling to the war makers.

That a gang of right-wing extremists charged Kerry with being a 'radical' in 1970-71 does not make it so. The right-wingnuts chant a mantra about a 'liberal' media, but you and I probably agree that it is not.

If we don't get underneath the idea that bad leaders (Nixon, Bush, maybe Johnson) sometimes get the US into 'mistaken' foreign wars, we'll be back here a few years from now to challenge the next 'mistake.' Maybe even sooner, if the Bush criminals attack Iran, an attack that(liberal Democrat)Barack Obama has already OK'd.

The ideological debate that you say you support is exactly what I'm trying to promote.

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War

by Carl Davidson

19 Oct 2005

Can't resist, can you Bob? No matter what you're talking about, you've got to find a way to take a shot at a Black guy -- Obama, Jesse, whoever...

But more to the point, I don't think you know much of anything about VVAW or its history in the left, and I suggest you take a little time to bone up on it. You'll find their anti-imperialist creditials, in both theory and practice, second to none on the left -- and probably considerably deeper and more nuanced than yours. Better yet, just give Barry Romo or Bill Davis or Dave Cline a call and tell them you have a critique of their 'particular war' liberalism and their lack of understanding of imperialism and how it works, and then come back and tell the rest of us how it went...

Meanwhile, I'm serious about Vets day this Nov 11. Let's all make a united effort to get 500 or 1000 folks down to Wabash and Wacker at 11am

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Re: Honor the Warrior, Not the War
by H.G. Flynn

19 Oct 2005

I don't agree with you often Carl but I have to give you props for your last comment. Bravo.


you may just have convinced me to join you on 11/11

In my opinion Bob's attempts to twist the history of VVAW to make a 'political point' puts him in the camp of such 'historians' as david irving

--end-- Read more!

Privilege, Weather Underground, Science, Postmodernism: Another Round with Anarchism

[This thread, starting with queries about white-skin privilege and the Weather Underground and ending with a science vs postmodernism exchange, took place October 2005 on Chicago Indymedia]

By Makhno

I would like to point out that the Weather Underground was an extremely authoritarian group, and the Prairie Fire Organizing League's politics seem to be in the same vein. When revolutionaries start calling for a 'united front' against 'white skin privilege', fascism, or anything else, watch out. That is an old tactic that has been used since Stalinist times to take over movements.

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By Carl Davidson

If you really want to get into this, why not go to the source? Read Ted Allen's essay, 'Can White Radicals Be Radicalized?' He was the father of the term 'white-skin privilege' in the 1960s, and all factions studied this piece as a starting point. I have a hard copy if you can't find it on-line.

The Weather Underground didn't have the best line on this; instead I'd look to writings that came out of the RYM2 faction, which tried to implement it more seriously, along with Sojourner Truth Organization and Harper's Ferry Organization (of which I was a member).

Later, of course, the line was developed further by 'Race Traitor' journal, Noel Ignatiev and others.

But the mother lode is Ted Allen's 'Invention of the White Race' (two volumes, Verso) and WEB Dubois's 'Black Reconstruction in America' Re: Discussion on 'Racism and White Skin Privilege Politics'

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By Makhno

My interest here is not so much in the idea of 'white skin privilege' per se (although that concept is of very questionable usefulness, as Alan Spector points out); so much as in the way such a notion has been used as an organizing tool by authoritarian political groups such as the Weather Underground to further their agenda.

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By Carl Davidson


Naaaw...The idea, as one of the original people put it, is that 'treason to whiteness is solidarity with humanity.' 'White race' doesn't exist biologically (ask a biologist); it's a social construction that makes some ordinary folks feel more solidarity with their rulers than other ordinary folks. If you could truly get beyond thinking you're white, you could see the world more clearly.

But if you're in love with your special privileges and cling to them come what may, you'll love to discredit it however you can. The privileged often use the term 'underprivileged,' but you rarely hear them say 'over-privileged', do you?

And Makhno, if you're looking for the seeds of authoritarianism in the notion, I don't think you'll find it. If anything, it's biased toward leveling us all to our common humanity, albeit with all our glorious diversity.

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By Makhno

Carl, again, it is not the specific ideology of 'white skin privilege' which I am critiquing here, but rather, its use by authoritarian political groups to further their agenda of gaining control of organizations and movements. The Weathermen's takeover of SDS is a perfect example of this, but the whole 'united front' concept goes back at least to the 1930s, with its use by the Communist Party in its Stalinist glory days. In addition to 'white skin privilege' other buzzwords used in calls for 'united fronts' these days are 'anti-imperialism' and 'anti-fascism'.

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By Carl Davidson

I guess I'm just not in the same 'universe of discourse' here, Makhno.

Or I'm too far removed from the youth. When I was an anarchist in my 20s, when we chanted 'down with patriarchy,' we all thought 'right on!' because we had our fathers in mind. Later on, after we were parents -- and fathers ourselves with responsibilities to care for our young ones, well, it didn't seem quite so simple.

To me, who saw and participated in all this first hand, well, I could easily accuse the Weathermen of many sins, but 'authoritarianism' would be way down on the list, if I put it there at all. Hell, when I and my partner decided to get married in 1969, Bernadine and Mark Rudd sent us a post card threatening, partly in jest, to picket us at city hall for capitulating to monogamy and the state. Or when they stormed high schools, encouraging kids to walk out and rebel against the 'pig principals and teachers,' weren't they being more anarchist than authoritarian?

But some people think that if a group discusses a project, takes a vote on whether to do it, and the project gets a majority, then expecting everyone to lend a hand in carrying it out, no matter which side they voted on, well, that's somehow 'authoritarian.' They don't ever want to be obligated to do anything.

Besides, the Weather people hardly 'took over' SDS. When they were finished drawing their 'You're either with us or against us' lines in the sand, and precious few followed, there wasn't anyone left but them, so they just turned out the lights. You see, they hated the notion of the 'united front,' too.

Any united front, coalition, even mass organization itself, requires cooperation where everyone's interest is respected and everyone gives up a little autonomy in order to work, i.e., for everyone to gain a lot more than they would working alone. The authoritarian mindset wants everyone subordinated except oneself.

I guess I just don't see authoritarianism as a big problem in the left. First, no one has all that much authority on the left, and how does one go in for authoritarianism without much authority? That's what's so silly about the 'Chairman Bob' weirdness in the RCP. He's got some authority within its ranks, but hardly any on the outside. Yet they carry on as if he did, and just look foolish in the process.

Now on the right, authoritarianism is alive and well, since its core program is to restore the patriarchy and structures of privilege, white and male, that have been challenged and weakened over the last few decades.

If you want a fruitful place to harvest on the matter, I'd start there.

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By Makhno

Carl, Your fond personal memories of the Weathermen aside, the fact remains that they espoused a rigidly authoritarian political line, as can be seen from the article I posted a link to earlier in this thread:

The last sections [of the Prairie Fire Statement] dealt with the necessity of building a new Communist Party based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The tactics for building such a party were to be divided into two parts. The first part was the formation of underground cadre organizations that would begin attack against imperialist power positions within the US. These cadre organizations would weaken the government and inspire the people. The second part was the formation of above ground organizations that would lend support to the cadre groupings and educate the general public. As time went on and processes of internal criticism were carried out, the correct revolutionary position would manifest itself. With this position, a Party could be formed to lead the revolutionary War.

And furthermore:

Other sections of the Weatherman position paper dealt with what it called 'United Front' politics. It stated that the revolutionary situation in the United States would necessarily be different from situations in the 3rd world colonies due to the fact that the United States was the homeland territory of imperialism. It stated that Class politics were different in the United States due to the spoils of imperialism; crumbs of which kept otherwise potentially revolutionary segments of the population from revolting. This section laid out which classes in the United States would be potential friends to the revolution and which class groups would necessarily be enemies. These enemy groups were marked for destruction.

As this article makes clear, the Weathermen made use of both the ideologies of 'white-skin privilege' and 'anti-imperialism' to further their authoritarian political goals, and did advocate a type of 'united front' strategy. While right-wing authoritarianism is a given, left-wing authoritarianism is all too often ignored or excused.

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By Carl Davidson

Again, Makhno, I don't see from these quotes what you're driving at, unless it's the revolutionary process itself you find 'authoritarian.' In that case, it applies not just to Weatherman, but any socialist or communist. Google Engels 'On Authority,' where among other points, you'll find the following:

'But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon -- authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?' And, yes, the 'white-skin privilege' analysis, while no one has a monopoly on it, is rooted in and consistent with an orthodox Leninist analysis of the relations between class and nation, oppressor and oppressed. Both Ted Allen and DuBois were communists and members of the CPUSA at one time or another.

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By Makhno

Carl, It's funny you should use that quote from Engels, since it is the same one I posted on another site recently to support my point about the authoritarian nature of the concept of the 'dictatorship over the proletariat'. Yes, the revolutionary process is inherently authoritarian, if one accepts the traditional paradigm of revolution used by such groups as the Weathermen; however, one of the great advantages of the anarchist critique is our relentless challenge to that very paradigm, our rejection of political power, and all the hierarchy, bureaucracy, and mediation that comes with it.

Of course, not all Left groups subscribe to quite such an authoritarian ideology as the Weathermen did, although all of them, by definition, accept some form of State authority or political power as a given.

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By Carl Davidson

Yes, Makhno, but this gets back to our old debate.

For me and at least every other Marxist of any sort, politics is about the 'Who: Whom' ,i.e., 'Who Can Do What to Whom.' In this sense, your revolution is non-political or anti-political. It's really a spiritual quest. Which is fine, but don't mix them up, or have one try to accomplish the tasks of the other.

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By Makhno

It's too bad that the only alternative you can see to 'political' is 'spiritual'. As an anarchist, I'm not particularly interested in either option; what I am interested in is creating a society where people relate to each other and work together in a non-political, non-coercive, non-hierarchical way. Revolutionary violence, if there must be any, would only be a means, not a permanent condition, as it is for authoritarian leftist groups that believe in nonsense like the 'dictatorship over the proletariat'.

I do want to thank you for pointing out the Marxist-Leninist roots of such notions as 'white skin privilege' and 'anti-imperialism'.

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By sabate

Carl, It's funny that you mention that anti-Imperialism is consistent with Marxist ideology. I can't necessarily say that you're telling the whole truth, though.

Especially due to Marx's support for 'civilizing' the indigenous people of the Middle East, at the objection of his contemporary mainstream liberals. Also, the Stalinist USSR taking over neighboring countries is pretty indicative of this as well.

I can say, however, that your statements are true for many Marxists, especially later--after the USSR was done being a 'defunct worker's state,' as well as some people from the pre-Stalin era.

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By Carl Davidson

Reply to 'Sabate.' First, Marx considered his work science, not ideology. When he used the term 'ideology,' it was a put-down. He would have distanced himself from anything like the frame of 'proletarian' ideology vs. 'bourgeois' ideology. He preferred science vs. ideology, if it had to be framed.

Second, there's no doubt Marx was considerably Eurocentric, although in a very critical way for his times. If you want to get at the heart of internationalism, though, read him and Engels on the Irish Question vis-a-vis the English. And remember, he was writing in an era before imperialism was full blown, which rose mainly after the U.S Civil War.

Lenin mainly defined the politics of anti-imperialism, enhanced later by Mao, the Cubans and the Vietnamese. Here the main art of politics is creatively combining national liberation with the project of class liberation.

Stalin's party was primarily a disaster for the Soviet Union. And Trotsky didn't offer anything realistic or better. The one who did was Bukharin, but Stalin put a bullet in his head. As for the 'deformed' and 'degenerate' workers state stuff, I never went in for it all that much. States are states, and they all have warts, even if they're needed for a while and no matter what 'class' they supposedly serve.

Finally, we now live in the era of globalization, and it's best to bracket all the old dogmas and take a fresh look at the world. Some of the old lessons will apply, some will not. Mainly, we should seek truth from facts, not from quotes.

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By Vigilante

I really do have to laugh when orthodox Marxists like to claim Marx was free of ideology or idealism for that matter.

There does indeed need to be a critical analysis of anti-imperialism and white skin privilege as it has been painted by a Marxist brush. The brush is usually an economic class reductionist one. Anarchism has always been better in that it was a power and domination critique as opposed to class and economics.

And you're not the fist to talk about 'objective' thinking and seeking facts. The fact is everything we know is constructed through discourse and linguistics.

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By Carl Davidson

Vigilante says:

'The fact is everything we know is constructed through discourse and linguistics' Yes, Vigilante, 'everything we know,' plus everything we fancy, dream, and lie about. Wisdom lies in a method to sort them out. I'll stick with pragmatism and science over POMO any day of the week, especially, say, when choosing a doctor or a plumber or someone to help me troubleshoot computers.

As for Marx and ideology, my point was not that he was 'free' of it, but that he opposed it as best as he could, and better than most in his day. He was hardly free of Eurocentrism, as I pointed out.

I also don't think you'll find most Leninists 'class reductionists' when it comes to anti-imperialism, either. Lenin's whole point was to begin from the analyzing the world from the perspective of oppressor and oppressed nations, then bring in the matter of class and other factors. That was also part of the reason for the split between the 2nd and 3rd Internationals, where those in the 2nd International tended to be 'class reductionists' of a sort, but eventually capitulated to their own nationalisms.

As for the Weather Underground, they tended to be reductionist in favor of nations rather than class. They considered US workers counterrevolutionary and were nihilists towards their own nationality. Prairie Fire later backed away from some of this, but that was the core of it.

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By Vigilante

CD: 'Yes, Vigilante, 'everything we know,' plus everything we fancy, dream, and lie about. Wisdom lies in a method to sort them out. I'll stick with pragmatism and science over POMO any day of the week, especially, say, when choosing a doctor or a plumber or someone to help me troubleshoot computers.'

Well the fact that you stick with such blind faith in specialists really says something. There's certainly nothing wrong with pragmatism and science so long as it is always decentralized and contextualized and not put in overly materialist/economic shades.

CD: 'As for Marx and ideology, my point was not that he was 'free' of it, but that he opposed it as best as he could, and better than most in his day. He was hardly free of Eurocentrism, as I pointed out.'

He gave the world a grand narrative. That kind of says it all doesn't it.

CD: 'I also don't think you'll find most Leninists 'class reductionists' when it comes to anti-imperialism, either. Lenin's whole point was to begin from the analyzing the world from the perspective of oppressor and oppressed nations, then bring in the matter of class and other factors. That was also part of the reason for the split between the 2nd and 3rd Internationals, where those in the 2nd International tended to be 'class reductionists' of a sort, but eventually capitulated to their own nationalisms.'

The problem with anti-imperialism as defined by orthodox Marxists is that it was never multi-dimensional. The fact that the state was never seen as an imperialist project in itself from the Marxist perspective is proof of this. As a result you back Vietnam regardless of what the 'oppressed' might be doing to the indigenous peoples in that area. Things were not helped by the idiot vanguards redefining communism as state collective. Fundamentally anti-imperialism is way to narrow, and way to Manichean. It needs a good old fashioned anarchist style redefinition which looks at things from a more ubiquitous non-Manichean power analysis as opposed to economic.

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By Carl Davidson

'Vigilante' says:

'Well the fact that you stick with such blind faith in specialists really says something. There's certainly nothing wrong with pragmatism and science so long as it is always decentralized and contextualized and not put in overly materialist / economic shades.' I don't think so, Vigilante. Blind faith is the postmodernist's or POMO's cup of tea, as in their effort to get rid of the rigors of science for the 'narrative' where everyone gets to be an expert, whether they know anything or not. They just have to be glib and against modernity.

And as for materialism, I'm more of a devotee of instrumentalism and the metaphysics of quality or The Tao, than the more 19th century notions of dialectical materialism.

Specialist? Goodness, I don't have blind faith in them, I AM one. That's how I make my living, troubleshooting networks and fixing computers. Faith has nothing to do with it. You have to suffer and sweat through mistakes, plenty of trial and error, and a little studying to get to be any good at it.

But back to the main topic, 'anti-imperialism.' I have my own issues with the term, in the sense of how it's used in the mass movement. It's at once both too 'left' and too 'right' -- too 'left' in its use as a way to narrow the antiwar movement into a left bloc, but too 'right' as a negative substitute or diversion from ones own's strategic goal, as in socialism or whatever post-revolutionary alternative you want to pose.

But have you guys seriously gone over the classical literature on the topic, rather than just listen to someone give a dogmatic speech or argue with you? It's hardly one-dimensional and has plenty to do with the state, from Marx and Lenin on the emergence of the labor aristocracy and the 'thousand threads' tying it to the state, to Seymour Melman on the Garrison state.

But if you want to add something new, go for it. Negri and Hardt certainly tried a neo-anarcho-syndicalist perspective, although you practically need an MA in philosophy to wade through their stuff. Don't go that route.

The orthodox, little-has-changed-since-Lenin Monthly Review crowd certainly needs a little shaking up. Some of us have been doing just that at the www.cyrev.net site for 10 years now. Our focus is on globalization, InfoTech, and the emergence of a truly global or transnational capitalist class, as opposed to an American multinational with lots of overseas branches. It has plenty of implications for the state, especially if the components of a truly globalized state are emerging. It adds a whole new level to the hierarchies, and weakness some of those underneath.

*****

By Vigilante

It's late but why not.

CD: 'I don't think so, Vigilante. Blind faith is the POMO's cup of tea, as in their effort to get rid of the rigors of science for the 'narrative' where everyone gets to be an expert, whether they know anything or not. They just have to be glib and against modernity.'

Rigors of science! lol. Perhaps monsieur Davidson can try and conceive of these rigors for 30 seconds without using language or discourse.

CD: 'And as for materialism, I'm more of a devotee of instrumentalism and the metaphysics of quality or The Tao, than the more 19th century notions of dialectical materialism.'

Instrumentalism is certainly another cup of piss that needs to be thrown.

CD: 'Specialist? Goodness, I don't have blind faith in them, I AM one. That's how I make my living, troubleshooting networks and fixing computers. Faith has nothing to do with it. You have to suffer and sweat through mistakes, plenty of trial and error, and a little studying to get to be any good at it.'

Well if you like doing things with those hands of yours fine, just don't construct an economic system where people are forced to service others.

CD: 'But back to the main topic, 'anti-imperialism.' I have my own issues with the term, in the sense of how it's used in the mass movement. It's at once both too 'left' and too 'right' -- too 'left' in its use as a way to narrow the antiwar movement into a left bloc, but too 'right' as a negative substitute or diversion from ones own's strategic goal, as in socialism or whatever post-revolutionary alternative you want to pose.'

First of all the fact that mass movement figures in anything is problematic. 2nd, it should not be enslaved to leftist or rightist ideological discourse, and 3rd, the goals should be in the means.

CD: 'But have you guys seriously gone over the classical literature on the topic, rather than just listen to someone give a dogmatic speech or argue with you? It's hardly one-dimensional and has plenty to do with the state, from Marx and Lenin on the emergence of the labor aristocracy and the 'thousand threads' tying it to the state, to Seymour Melman on the Garrison state.'

The problem is the state is subordinate to you overly narrow view of capitalism, and as a result many orthodox Marxists end up backing countries like Cuba and Venezuela. This shows a fundamental denial of the anarchist critique of the state as such. And what makes it one dimensional as I said is you will support the new rulers of Vietnam while ignoring what they do to the indigenous people in that region. As Nietzsche put it 'Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.'

*****
By Carl Davidson

Vigilante says:

'Rigors of science! lol. Perhaps monsieur Davidson can try and conceive of these rigors for 30 seconds without using language or discourse.'

You miss a subtle point here, V. Science is something you have to DO first, (as in examine, investigate, experiment, test, etc.) then 'discourse about' what the doing has revealed. It's not the same as criticizing literature, where all you have to 'do' is read a text and deconstruct it in any way you please.

You think the 'rigor' of science is funny?

Fine, you can choose your doctors on whether they're into POMO discourse or not. That's make the ones' who sweated a little rigorously in the lab more available for the rest of us still stuck in the Enlightenment.

You want to throw out instrumentalism?

Fine, but then just how do you determine whether any given anarchist theory or the state is 'true' or workable or even desirable? Taking a vote would be a tyranny of the majority.

No, once you get rid of these things, then, like Makhno, your politics is collapsed into a spiritual quest at best or nihilism at worst.

Also, most, if not all, of us would-be Marxists know the state, like the market, have been around a long while before capitalism and will undoubtedly be around for a while afterwards. So it's intertwined with capitalism today, but hardly a subset of it. Among other things, the state's a function of scarcity and class divisions, and will leave the stage of history when they do.

As for the Vietnamese and their minorities, I know a bit about it, and had a long discussion with a Vietnamese general and some other cadres about 'Kinh chauvinism' toward the Mountain tribes back in 1969. They were quite self-critical, explaining how Uncle Ho used the negative example of the KKK to help them get their heads straight. And I and others didn't ignore it, but wrote and spoke about it over the years.

But my support for the Vietnamese people and the groups leading them was based on the justice of their cause and my internationalist duty, not on whether they had a 'state' or not, or on whether they were free from sin. You can distance yourself from that stand if you want, but you won't be in very good company. You find yourself lined up with a bunch infested with superpower arrogance.

It gets back to the original topic of this thread. The end game in Vietnam, according to Nixon at the time, was 'to change the skin color of the corpses,' sort of like what Bush wants to do in Iraq. It was a white supremacist war, and in that conflict, I'll side with the people of color with a just cause in defeating my 'own' bourgeoisie, whether the oppressed have a state or a party or not.

*****

By Vigilante

CD: 'You miss a subtle point here, V. Science is something you have to DO first, (as in examine, investigate, experiment, test, etc.) then 'discourse about' what the doing has revealed. It's not the same as criticizing literature, where all you have to 'do' is read a text and deconstruct it in any way you please.'

I know it's hard for Carl to admit this, but everything down to the concept of science as we know it is shrouded and social constructs. The examination, experimentation, and testing is based on these social realities and can never be separated.

CD: 'You think the 'rigor' of science is funny?

'Fine, you can chose your doctors on whether they're into POMO discourse or not. That's make the ones who sweated a little rigorously in the lab more available for the rest of us still stuck in the Enlightenment.'

First of all to begin with doctors are based on specialization to begin with. In a free society a combination of old and new forms of more natural health care should be administered in a more reciprocal way in relation to social and individual. The arrival of the doctor is part of the alienation of are own health and direct sustenance.

CD: 'You want to throw out instrumentalism?

'Fine, but then just how do you determine whether any given anarchist theory or the state is 'true' or workable or even desirable? Taking a vote would be a tyranny of the majority.

'No, once you get rid of these things, then, like Makhno, your politics is collapsed into a spiritual quest at best or nihilism at worst.'

Your first point is like instrumentalism itself is based on a more centralized view of society. I want a world where many worlds fit, and it need not have a blue print of any kind. Primitive society lasted over a 100 000 years without this.

And a bit of spiritualism and nihilism are not bad things to incorporate into ones subjectivity at all.

CD: 'Also, most, if not all, of us would-be Marxists know the state, like the market, have been around a long while before capitalism and will undoubtedly be around for a while afterwards. So it's intertwined with capitalism today, but hardly a subset of it. Among other things, the state's a function of scarcity and class divisions, and will leave the stage of history when they do.'

And equally speaking class divisions and scarcity are predicated on the state. The development of these things was reciprocal in nature. Thus the need for a revolution that destroys capital, state, along with work, industrialism and other oppressive things equally (some easier then others but non the less important)

CD: 'As for the Vietnamese and their minorities, I know a bit about it, and had a long discussion with a Vietnamese general and some other cadres about 'Kinh chauvinism' toward the Mountain tribes back in 1969. They were quite self-critical, explaining how Uncle Ho used the negative example of the KKK to help them get their heads straight. And I and others didn't ignore it, but wrote and spoke about it over the years.'

The 'meowist' self criticism I take with a grain of salt. This has not stopped the continued suffering of those peoples.

CD: 'But my support for the Vietnamese people and the groups leading them was based on the justice of their cause and my internationalist duty, not on whether they had a 'state' or not, or on whether they were free from sin. You can distance yourself from that stand if you want, but you won't be in very good company. You find yourself lined up with a bunch infested with superpower arrogance.'

LOL, Internationalist duty! What Leninist trash. The only duty one should have is too ones self or affinity. This is a perfect example of separating means and ends and the fucked up results that come of it.

CD: 'It gets back to the original topic of this thread. The end game in Vietnam, according to Nixon at the time, was 'to change the skin color of the corpses,' sort of like what Bush wants to do in Iraq. It was a white supremacist war, and in that conflict, I'll side with the people of color with a just cause in defeating my 'own' bourgeoisie, whether the oppressed have a state or a party or not.'

While fighting white supremacy is important, one must remember that a given race depending on the material situation could easily have made it Asian supremacy. Manichean binaries need not apply. And why side with the people of color who did the same thing to the mention indigenous peoples.

*****

By Carl Davidson

Ah, Vigilante, what are we going to do about you...

Science and instrumentalism, like any other human endeavor, is connected to social constructs, but hardly reducible to them. Of course you can separate the accomplishments of science out. Otherwise, how would you ever make something like, say, a windmill, that works?

But with your romanticization of primitive society, maybe that's not your concern. But we needed a little instrumentalism, even at the dawn of our species, to avoid being eaten by the other carnivores, if nothing else.

Some doctors are specialists, but some are generalists, and study the earlier healing arts too. But if you have a youngster that gets appendicitis, I hope you bracket these notions and get him or her to a hospital licketey split, and find a resident who did well in the lab over literary criticism.

Internationalism is Leninist trash? Thanks for the backhanded compliment -- I'll plead guilty to such trash any day. But I thought you guys were into mutual aid and solidarity. But I guess it's only for your friends and your local affinity group, not of the 'an injury to one is an injury to all' variety.

Besides, my politics are value-centered, especially the core values of liberation and compassion. I try to start and end with the 'ends', with 'means' making the bridge, as in the impermanence and interconnectedness of all things.

And of course, in theory, any nation or people might think itself the dominant one, but that's beside the point. Which one has plundered most of the world's resources and practiced lording it over all the rest for the past several centuries? Or is it too 'practical' to deal with the matter at hand?

*****

By Vigilante

Well Carl, first of all the so called accomplishments that you speak of has always been part of abstract ends for civilization. The one thing that the early 20th century scientists such as Einstein and Heisenberg did was to demystify science from what it was, and what many people fell for (including Marx)

And I am hardly one to call primitive society perfect; however it has been the most egalitarian model that humans have operated on thus far. And hunter-gathering is hardly instrumental; it is more a spontaneous thing much like other forms of life.

On the point of doctors, in a future egalitarian society, I am hopeful that there can be more individual and reciprocally way of healing ourselves.

And as far as international solidarity goes, there is certainly nothing wrong with it. But an international system is what is hegemonic. The best thing we can do for each other internationally is to let communities exist locally with at the same time acknowledging a sense of oneness. Immanent multiplicity Agamben calls it I believe.

And just because the US is the baddest monster in the world at the moment is no excuse to support other states. All you do with that compromising attitude is give others room to rise.

*****

By Carl Davidson

Well, vigilante, I suggest you take a look at 'Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War' by Barbara Ehrenreich, in order to get a better take on the situation of our species in the hunter-gatherer days. If their mode of staying alive in the face of their predators of other species was largely spontaneous rather than creatively instrumental, I doubt we would be here now. You might consider why old sabre-tooth is extinct, and not us.

As for Einstein and Heisenberg, I don't think they 'demystified' 19th century science, as much as they pushed the envelop to explain phenomena far from equilibrium and resistant to the Newtonian paradigm.

But if you're maneuvering curves on the freeway, Newtonian physics works just fine. Ignore it at your peril. Besides what would either of our quantum heroes done without Newton's calculus? I don't think science has to be demystified; rather, it's the universe that's the locus of mystery, and science helps push back the Veil of Maya, so to speak.

Your global localism, with all localities doing their own thing, wouldn't help much, say, in dealing with new emergent strains of influenza, would it? Or in the anarchist future, do even viruses and bacteria limit themselves to mutual aid?

We all support states these days, vigilante, if not directly then indirectly. You might gripe about it, but you go along with the program in the daily practical sphere with the rest of us nonetheless. Unless you're writing from prison for non-payment of taxes? So I certainly wouldn't make the fact that a liberation movement established governance in their liberated areas into a black flag that would signal me and others to withhold our support. Their values and practice within that governance, and where they aim their fire, is far more important, at least to me. Read more!

United Front, War, Left and Ultraleft

This exchange, from NYC Indymedia, starts with comments on a post by Workers World Party calling for a united front against the war. Following are selected comments:

Why Should I Join You?

'Answer Me That' says:

I have been hearing this 'United Front' crap from your group for some time now. Well this is not the 1930's. Also you offer nothing more than supporting 'democrats' instead of a truly independent socialist alternative.

So how are you any different than the other social democrats (and closet social democrats) at the CP/COC, SP, DSA, ISO, SWP, and other small liberal or social libertarian sectarian groupings that still have stationary? ...WWPs staging events and inviting 'democrats' are well known, despite protestations to the contrary.

*****
WWP a Shill for the Dems? Hardly.

Carl Davidson says:

Is our ultraleft really this bizarre? I'm hardly a WWP supporter, but backing Democrats is hardly one of their sins.

But their critic here seems to think that just inviting an elected Democrat who's broken with the war to speak at an antiwar rally is the equivalent of totally joining the campaign staff of Hillary or Kerry. Good grief, have we become a left made up of checker players rather than chess players? We suffer not from having too many elected officials on our antiwar platforms, but too few of them.

But I suppose I'm destined for an even lower circle in the inferno. Last week I worked with a coalition here in Chicago that got 29 aldermen -- all Democrats -- on the city council to vote for pulling out of Iraq, with 9 opposing -- 8 Dems and one GOPer -- and 10 abstaining.

But our ultraleftists, for some strange reason, seem to want Bush to have more allies rather the less.

*****

Whose Contradiction Is It?

'Leon Trotsky' says:

When a Democrat speaks at an anti-war event, that's his contradiction against his pro-war party, not an inconsistency on the part of the event organizers.

WWP always tells the truth about where the Democrats stand and what they do. Which doesn't contradict the fact that some people, due to their anti-war politics, don't belong in the Democratic Party.

*****

The contradiction also lies with WWP

'Oh no you don't' says:


One of the preconditions of speaking at a WWP event should be that the speaker gives up membership in any organization which promotes or supports imperialism and capitalism. That is called following ethical prescript.

Would WWP have a speaker who was a member of a club or organization that excluded women, Blacks or Jews? Of course not. So why would it have speakers who are not only members, but office holders in an organization or group which promotes imperialism and capitalism?

Perhaps to the Carl Davidson's and Leslie Cagan's of the world, who are just peachy keen apologizing for ethnic cleansers, there are no ethical contradictions having such speakers, but for those of us who have integrity that is not acceptable.

*****

Exclude Capitalists or Promoters of Capitalism?

Carl Davidson says:

If you're going to exclude people who 'promote capitalism,' 'Oh no...', you're going to have a small circle indeed.

Take, for instance, all the people who are trying to get the Katrina exiles hired at rebuilding New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. The expansion of jobs for them is also going to mean the expansion of businesses, ie, growing some capitalists by growing the number of wage slaves-- union or not, prevailing wage or not. Or anyone who works on job training and workforce development programs anywhere.

Or take the small business owners and shopkeepers we have in our antiwar group. I'm sure they want to grow their little piece of capitalism. Would you kick them out of the group? But perhaps you like being small, pure and irrelevant. To each his or her own...

*****

Not Tired

[A post by RN was deleted here, which contained a sexist jibe at Leslie Cagan]

Carl Davidson says:

I'm not the least bit tired, RN, I'm rather energized these days, especially after a big success on the 24th. But your ad hominem is certainly tired -- and sexist to boot. I feel like Diogenes with his lamp, searching for one ultraleftist with enough working synapses to carry on a reasonable debate, but to no avail. But I guess that's why it's called an infantile disorder...

*****

CarlSpeak

'Definitions' says:


'Ultra-Leftist' = people who see me for the fake that I am.

Carl, you are an example of what is left of formerly decent political organizations when they have for all practical reasons died. It is over. The CP/COC and its wanker allies should now agree to have the corpse buried.

*****

Professional Anti-Ultras

the burningman says:

redflags.us@gmail.com http://burning.typepad.com

Carl, I think you've got the problem backwards. It's actually that your Irving Howe routine is totally uninteresting to young radicals. Most folks don't know who you are -- though the weariness and vacilation you represent are plain enough.

You confuse 'ultra-left' with 'left.'

That's cool, but your habit of misreprenting what people think... like myself... means that folks with a few 'working synapses' might not think it worth the time to engage an old fart trying to atone for his own past of making one wrong political decision after another.

The world has seen plenty of your type: those who were once revolutionary and were defeated, but now spend their energy limiting the range of the possible for those who aren't listening.

Here's a question: if having political principles consigns radicals to being 'small, pure and irrelevant' -- then what's your excuse for being TOTALLY marginal? I mean, loving Bukarin, Teng and Jesse should have gotten the masses all creamy about your cyberGoulash. So what gives?

For my own self, I don't think 'purity' has anything to do with it. That's your own dogmatic baggage. From what I've heard, you are anything BUT pure, so maybe you want to throw a little mud so you don't feel quite so dirty.

Know what I'm saying?

*****

Nothing to say on the substance of matters


Carl Davidson says:

Sorry, Burningman, but I don't know what you're saying.

Nor, by the way, do I consider myself defeated or in need of atonement. Perhaps on personal matters, but I have no political regrets, even if I took too many unnecessary detours over the past 40 years. And I'm really not that concerned whether anyone recalls my glory days or not. It's the present and future that concern me.

But, apart from yourself, at least to a degree, it puzzles me why so many of our 'left' critics -- in this case UFPJ's and WWP's critics -- really have nothing to say when challenged, other than invective or ad hominems of one sort or another. Is it the medium, ie, posting in cyberspace with no eye contact? Or is it that they really don't analyze or think politically beyond the level of a few slogans?

I would agree with you that the entire socialist-minded left, including my sector of it, is marginal. The question is what's the best approach to getting out of the marginality cul-de-sac.

*****

carping to the left


'the burningman' says:

Well, I can't speak for everyone you argue with. Undoubtedly you gravitate to corners where people say all kinds of loopy shit.

But I engaged you in depth on the question of Palestine and principled anti-imperialism and you chose to willfully, and intentionally, distort what I was saying when you re-posted the exchange on your weblog.

You say no one has anything to say but ad hominems? I pointed out that your political exemplars have been Bukarin (the architect of socialist-style state capitalism), the pro-capitalist/fascisto leadership of China and Jesse Jackson. It's noting what your positions are and what they yield.

You have indeed made one wrong decision after another, and as a leading member of the CoC, you haven't gotten better with time.

Permanently attaching the activist left to the Democratic Party domestically, and some of the grizzlier regimes internationally is an easy choice that many see no alternative to. Your self-selected responsibility is 'minding the margins.' It's a thankless task, no doubt -- and one that will get you verbally smacked up from time to time.

What do we need to be doing: raising the stakes.

This march in DC was the last 'easy' march. The majority of the population is now against the war, with some regions such as NYC developing an increasingly radical understanding of WHAT the problem is exactly. You may have decided that 'naming the system' is 'ultra-left.' But you are wrong.

Mass work shouldn't be 'lower level.' The truth of what we are facing is EXACTLY what we need to be bringing out. The masses are just about always radical, even if they aren't de facto on the left. People smell the bullshit of a soft-sell a thousand yards off.

My point about 'marginality' is that all the folks like you who think we need to soft-sell a critique of capitalism and empire in order to 'reach' some mythical mainstream are actually fighting against developing a radical movement out of antiwar activism. That's the dispute.

In my experience, fighting the full-spectrum battle against the Bush agenda (and the Democratic Party's TOTAL and ACTIVE complicity) is exactly what unleashes people not currently in the left.

Guys like you will chug along no matter what happens -- but your mockery of 'purity' doesn't explain why you are no more 'mainstream' than your supposedly ultra-left opponents. You position yourself (and your semi-party) within the acceptable range of bourgeois thinking on any question that arises -- and you still sit in a small circle. And the truth of it is this: despite all of UFPJ's attempts to limit the antiwar movement to narrow demands, and not address the systematic nature of the problem, it still requires all those 'ultras' out there to pull off a mass march in DC. I'm not the only one noticing this.

*****

Getting beyond the margins


Carl Davidson says;

Well, Burningman, we may have some common ground, a little anyways.

As for our exchanges on Palestine, I mostly quoted you directly, and added my comments. Plus on the latest I pointed people to your own site. Interested people can make up their own minds as to whether you've been distorted.

Yes, Bukharin is someone I admire. He understood that the market doesn't go away because a party or government declares it out of existence -- and if you do so, it will come back to haunt you. He also argued for making use of it to develop a working class, a culture and productive forces appropriate to building a socialism worthy of the name. I think history has absolved him, especially contra Stalin and Trotsky. China is more of an open question, although my main hero there over the years was Chou Enlai. Jesse? He's one of the best of the left-liberal preachers, a great orator, agitator and civil rights leader. That's enough to say for him, I don't expect him to be a revolutionary.

The left, broadly speaking, is already hooked, to a certain degree, to the Dems, quite independently of me. I've rarely voted for them. I can count the Dem candidates at all levels that I voted for over 40 years on my fingers. But I have also voted communist, socialist, Citizens party and New Party. But I also believe in working with people who are Dem voters or activists, and winning them to more independent stands and activities. The problem is to develop a viable, independent alternative that people will break away to, not just to denounce people for voting for Dems when there's no alternative to speak of.

But just what is 'raising the stakes?'

More militant actions, getting arresting and fighting cops? Maybe, but politically, that's still liberal oppositionism, no matter how many heads are busted.

Naming the system? Fine, we did that years ago. But you can yell out its name with as many shrill adjectives as you want, but unless you present a viable alternative, viable in the sense of moving forward on workers empowerment in nonrevolutionary conditions, its still just oppositionism.

To get beyond oppositionism, I suggest getting deeply into Gorz, Gramsci and David Schweickart's new book, 'After Capitalism.' then we might get beyond the margins.

In the meantime, I think you're right about one thing. This may be the last 'easy' antiwar demonstration. I would stress organizing with the military and their families in the next phase.

*****

On Reading These Posts

'Requiem for a 60's Maoist' says:

I see now Carl's problem. He substitutes popularity for principle-- and in doing so he will get neither. And if thinks that compartmentalizing (before dismissing them) those who see his mental mastabutory exercises in propaganda for what they are, as 'ultras' or 'purists', he has another coming.

Carl, life is too short for the likes of you. Now begone, toady.

*****

Principle and Popularity


Carl Davidson says:

Life's too short for everyone, 'Requiem' -- I plead guilty to that...

But why is seeking mass support for one's political goals -- what you call popularity -- put in opposition to what you call 'principle?' Of course, one often has to go against the tide to win mass support, but mass support and mass participation is still the goal, isn't it? After all, it's the masses who make history, not just you and me.

I've long been an advocate of value-centered politics, especially a perspective centered in the values of compassion and liberation, and do my best to make them explicit in my life.

But I'm curious about how YOU decide what's a 'principle' and what's not. Are they listed in a book or chiseled in stone somewhere? Is there a common list for all true revolutionaries? If so, who decides which ones get listed and which do not? Read more!

We Win Another Round -- Chicago City Council Votes 29-to-9 for Iraq Pullout

Chicago City Council Passes Resolution
Demanding Removal of US Troops from Iraq

Earlier March, Rally & Presence at Hearing
Show Support for Resolution, Welfare of Troops

CHICAGO (September 15, 2005) -The Chicago City Council Wednesday passed a resolution demanding the removal of US troops from Iraq. Passing by a Council vote of 29 to 9, with 12 abstaining or not voting, the resolution urges 'the United States government to immediately commence an orderly and rapid withdrawal' from Iraq. In addition to the death and suffering of the war, the resolution stressed that 'Chicago residents' share of monies appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceeds $2.1 billion.'

Chicago is now the largest U.S city to take this stand. The only other major US city to pass a similar resolution is San Francisco. The Evanston, IL City Council voted against the war yesterday, and Gary, IN did so last month.

'It's time to call a halt to the bloodshed. It's time to load up the ships, load up the planes and welcome home the troops to a ticker-tape parade in New York and a ticker-tape parade in Chicago,' declared Alderman Burton Natarus on the 42nd Ward. Immediately following his impassioned plea to vote 'yes' on the resolution, Natarus fell ill, collapsed and was taken out of the chambers by medics, interrupting the debate for nearly 20 minutes. The debate resumed once it was learned that the 72-year-old alderman was OK.

Most of those opposing the resolution did not make a strong case for the war, but argued that since troops were there, it would undermine them to call for their return. Most, however, argued the best thing to do for the troops was to bring them home.

The landmark decision shows the Federal Government that this war is not supported by a majority of Chicagoans, and the removal of US troops is the only course of logical action available. Supporters of the resolution are sending a strong message to the Federal Government that the sacrifices made by troops and their families for this ill-conceived conflict must be brought to an end.

Crowding the Committee on Human Relations hearing Monday afternoon in the hearing before today's vote, members of Chicagoan Against War and Injustice (CAWI), Peace Pledge Chicago, Chicago Code Pink, Women for Democracy and Fair Elections, and other neighborhood peace groups spoke and showed support for the resolution. Over 6500 signatures from Chicagoans in every Ward were presented to committee members and over a dozen speakers shared their thoughts and concerns.

'The City Council voted to oppose Bush's 'war of choice' at its onset,' said Carl Davidson, co-chair of Chicagoans Against War and Injustice, 'we have had a good debate, and now they are setting an example for major cities throughout the nation on how to follow suit and help end it. Now it's very important to follow up in the streets with a huge turnout at the march on Washington, DC, Sept 24.'

A City Hall peace rally and march, was also held on Tuesday, Sept 13, on the eve of the vote, featuring the dramatic 'die-in' demonstration. The hundreds gathered at the door of City Hall provided the final push for supporters of the resolution. Meant to serve as more than a typical antiwar protest, the rally featured military families and others with strong ties to the Iraq War. Alderman Joe Moore (49th) delivered a powerful denunciation of the cost of war at home.

'CAWI, Peace Pledge Chicago and literally hundreds of other peace groups should be proud of their efforts in organizing this positive vote,' Davidson continued. 'But we still have a long way to go.'

The City Hall rally and march was sponsored by the following: Peace Pledge Chicago, Chicagoans Against War and Injustice, Women for Democracy and Fair Elections, Code Pink Chicago, Gay Liberation Network, 8th Day Center for Justice, Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, American Friends Service Committee, International Solidarity Movement, Tikkun, and others.

**** Read more!

Antiwar Unity and The Debate over Palestine

Can There Be a Unified Mass
Demonstration on Sept. 24, 2005?

Regarding the Palestianian 'Right to Return'
as a 'non-negotiable' demand for the antiwar movement:



By Carl Davidson

[In response to a query on the noraqwar list.]

Craig asks, a bit disingenuously I think, who would be alienated by the Palestinian demand for `the right to return?' He asks:

'I asked once before, and never got a satisfying answer, but can someone tell me who is going to be alienated by a demand for Palestinian right of return, and why?'


I don't know how satisfying this will be, but, in principle, Craig, the demand is not hard at all to understand and even support. I do.

But think about it a bit.

It's not so hard, that is, unless you're living on land once lived on by someone else's parents or grandparents who were compelled to leave before you came to live there, if not before your family came. Now to implement the demand, you have to compel them to leave in return, don't you?

We've plenty of examples of this right here in the U.S. The Cherokee, for example, were driven out of the Smokies via the 'Trail of Tears,' and now other folks live there. I'd say Cherokee have a 'right of return' too, wouldn't you? Now take yourself down to the Gatlinburg, TN or Waynesville, NC areas and start going door-to-door and see if you can find any folks who might be `alienated' when they're told to leave so the Cherokee can exercise the `right to return.'

Again, I think justice is on the side of the Cherokee, but now how do you go about doing it in a way that enhances a longer-term peace, equity, and stability among peoples? And what does it mean for American radicals to advocate this for the Middle East, to the point of making it a splitting issue, when they don't bother to deal with it in their own back yard?

But then, maybe that's not your concern. I'm not accusing you or ANSWER of this, but some folks I've debated on this matter would just tell the Jews in Israel to get out of the Middle East and go back to Germany, Russia, Poland, Brooklyn or wherever else they or their parents came from, at the point of a gun, I suppose.

But practically, that requires a MILITARY victory over Israel, doesn't it? And that's not in the cards, or do you think it is?

But the prospect for a military victory by either side over the other there is a delusion, in my opinion. The two sides have to make a deal, a political settlement, whether it's one-state or two-state. The occupation of the Palestinians on the West Back and Gaza has to end.
Some Palestinians still alive from 1947 may be allowed to return; others or their families will be given a financial settlement. And other things will be traded off. Mind you, this is not what I'm advocating; it's what I'm predicting, for whatever it's worth.

But every Palestinian and their descendants anywhere returning to wherever they have claims? Again, my estimate is that would require crushing the Israelis militarily and scattering them far and wide. Do you think it's possible? How much blood are you willing to see spilled for it, and what will that mean in the longer run?

It's easy to support 'the right' to return. As I said, I do. But the devil is in the details, isn't it? And the Palestinians themselves have different notions about the details--some practical, some not so practical, some in between.

Do you want us to get behind one plan or another? Which one? Do we all have to get behind your choice? Do you want to counter-balance supporting the 'right of return' with supporting Israel's 'right to exist as a Jewish state.' Some folks want that. Or do we say 'to hell with the Jewish state, let's have every nationality and religion there have equal rights and no special privileges under a secular state?' I advocated that line, the position of the DPFLP, for a long time.

Unfortunately, it has very few supporters on the ground there on either side.

But wait, doesn't the slogan, 'Self-Determination for Palestine' also mean they have 'the right' to an Islamic state, like, say, the Saudi state, where Judaism and Christianity are only, at best, allowed to be practiced behind closed doors and punished if practiced in public? In principle it does, but would it solve the problems of the Palestinians? Or we could even do like the Sparts, and declare, 'Jewish and Arab workers, unite against your Jewish and Arab bosses, rise up and create a socialist state,' couldn't we? I wouldn't hold my breath too long on that one.

Here's my point. All these discussions and positions are very important, front and center, for the Jewish peace activists, Zionist or anti-Zionist, and the Palestine solidarity activists, American or otherwise, directly engaged in trying to find a solution. The debate has been going on for years, and will continue for a good while longer, I imagine.

But we have the task of mobilizing a majority of progressive and moderate Americans who oppose the Iraq war, but many Americans critical of the war, as I mentioned in the earlier post, have very conflicting ideas, or very different levels of understanding, about what to do in Israel and Palestine, don't you think?

That doesn't mean we liquidate or ignore the Palestinian question. But it also doesn't mean the anti-Iraq war movement is identical with the Palestine solidarity movement, and has all the same perspectives, positions and demands of that movement, does it?

History and imperialism has linked the Palestinian question to every other matter in the Middle East, including Iraq. But 'linked' does not mean 'merged into one and the same.' As we mobilize against the war, we have a responsibility to educate and raise everyone's understanding, in a step-by-step fashion, about all the connections there, especially Israel and Palestine. Goodness knows, the US has poured enough trillions into Israel, Egypt and elsewhere to link the issues with dollars, if nothing else.

That's why we oppose wider war and seek peaceful settlements of issues throughout the Middle East, that's why we try to have Palestinian speakers, as well as the pro-peace wing of the Jewish community, at our antiwar rallies in Chicago and publicize their causes in other ways as well. But it's also, unfortunately, easy to raise this issue in a divisive way that doesn't do anyone any good, isn't it? A few folks I know, usually not Palestinians or groups like ANSWER, but a number of people seem to get a charge out of finding ways of keeping liberal-minded but 'politically incorrect' Jews away from our actions and think that this is somehow a big victory.

Just because things are clear-cut and simple, it still doesn't make them easy. Sometimes the simple things are the hardest of all to achieve.

All out for DC Sept 24! Bring the Troops Home Now!


On anti-imperialism and Israel

In a debate over opportunism in
the antiwar movement at nyc.indymedia.org


By Burningman:
11 Jul 2005

Israel is "singled out" because Israel is singular. They are a nuclear-armed settler state engaging in systematic ethnic cleansing. They are paid thugs, not a nation. They are an enemy state that must be dealt with, if we are to give our allegiance to the world as a whole and not Euro-American power plays in the third world....that's the basic issue. And it has nothing to do with the intra-movement opportunism of WWP/ANSWER. I am not a member or supporter of either of these groups, nor are many of the people doing the most consistent work against empire in this country.

*****

By Carl Davidson
11 Jul 2005
Burningman says, regarding Israel:

'They are paid thugs, not a nation.'

Really? I could agree with the 'thug' part, in the sense that Israel is an oppressor nation vis-a-vis the Palestinians and other nations in the vicinity. But not a nation? Where does this go?

True, it's a relatively young nation as nations go -- only about 60 years old -- but so are many others.

Now the Israelis, or a least a strong minority of them, want to argue that the Palestinians aren't a nation for a critical reason, i.e., they want to deny them any national rights whatsoever, except the right to choose between being slaughtered or being 'transferred' somewhere else, like we, particularly my Scots-Irish ancestors, did with the Cherokee via the 'Trail of Tears.'

So it's a bit odd that you would use the same initial claim regarding the other side, i.e., a kind of 'no state' solution, where Israelis in Israel are not a nation and thus have no national rights, i.e., except, perhaps, the same draconian 'right' to choose between being slaughtered or being scattered back to whatever lands their great grandparents came from. Something like running the historical impact of the Holocaust in reverse, I guess.

Now don't get bent out of shape here. The holocaust doesn't JUSTIFY what Israel has done or is doing to the Palestinians or any other Arabs for that matter. But it does help EXPLAIN, at least in part, one of the key reasons Israelis became historically constituted as a nation.

I've sided with the Palestinians vs. the Israelis over the years for the same reasons I sided with the Bosnians and Albanians against the Serbs, the Kurds against the Turks, Iraqis and Russians, with the Tibetans against the Han Chinese, with the Black Africans against their tormentors in the Sudan and elsewhere. And that reason is a clear one: no nation can be free as long as it oppresses another.

It's also really the only basis for a 'win-win' position as far as the majority of the ordinary people of the oppressor nations are concerned. If the Israelis want to be free and thrive as a nation, they have to get their boots off the necks of the Palestinians and make a just and equitable peace. Otherwise they will face only more hardship and bloodletting, and never truly be free even in their own homes.

Some Israelis understand this and some don't. That's why the struggle goes on until a new majority finds both a way and the strength to act in their own best interests.

But not a nation? No, that's a non-starter, just as it is for the other side. Neither people can 'liquidate' the other, despite the blood-curdling rhetoric of some zealots. The sooner it's set aside, the better.

*****

Israel is not a nation

By the burningman
11 Jul 2005

It's not. Without a foreign sponsor, it wouldn't exist. First the Brits, then the Americans... with little helping hands from other European powers. They are no more a nation than Algeria was a department of France.

We do NOT need a majority of Israelis to be won over because that won't happen. Settlers don't get a veto on democracy. Tel Aviv is a city of settlers, so I'm not just talking about the '67 occupations that expanded on the '48 Nakba.

I thought you were a socialist, Carl. But it's funny, you seem to argue here for whatever the liberal position is on everything: Israel, patriotism, tactics, elections, etc... What is it about folks who were radical in their youth that makes it so hard for them to notice their own fundamental abdication of basic political principle?

Nations form on two models: citizenship in the democratic vision, and "blood and soil" for the fascistic vision. Guess which one Israel is?

About half of Israelis hold dual citizenship, largely with the USA and EU nations. The historic demand of the PLO has been the right of return for people who are from the land, and for a secular democratic state. You can pretend that's far-fetched because the Israelis have responded to that with ethnic cleansing and assassinations, but again -- "Israel" is the fascist state occupying Palestine.

If Palestinian Jews want to be a part of a new country without apartheid rights, then I wish them the best.

But that's not what they want. Like virtually all racists, they view they own loss of domination over another as equal to their physical destruction. That's their problem and I can promise you that virtually no one in the world outside of the USA media-bubble gives a fuck.

This is what the right of return is all about, aside from it's basis in the "rule of law" that liberals tend to be so impressed with. I guess the "rule" remains the same: Whites only, or in this case "Jews only."

Israel is propped up and armed to the teeth in order to provide a beachhead for imperialism in the Middle East. That's why it is a pressing issue for the antiwar movement: clarity on the nature of the "war" we are opposing.

If you (and by extension the CP-types at UFPJ) want to distort what's going on to echo liberal talking points, obviously no one can stop you. But it's not going to hold anyone else back, and it will unfortunately drive MANY well-meaning people into the arms of profound opportunists like WWP. That may not be an issue in (white) Chicago, but I promise you it is here.

Which is all why Palestine is fundamental to building an anti-imperialist movement. You may think that isn't "broad," but I think you are wrong. If the problem isn't "this war," but the system that makes war a constant, how on earth can you continue demanding a head in the sand approach to it?

*****

Amazing
by another socialist
11 Jul 2005

Carl writes: “It’s also really the only basis for a 'win-win' position as far as the majority of the ordinary people of the oppressor nations are concerned. If the Israelis want to be free and thrive as a nation, they have to get their boots off the necks of the Palestinians and make a just and equitable peace. Otherwise they will face only more hardship and bloodletting, and never truly be free even in their own homes."

Whose homes, Carl?

Last I checked any Russian can claim to be a Jew and get citizenship while the people who hold title to the land are forbidden from even visiting because a bunch of American-sponsored scumbags use state terror and demonization to keep them out.

Israel won't exist in 100 years, and the pussy-headed left can look in shame at their inexplicable justifications for a racist settler state.

Israelis are "liquidating" Palestine, one olive grove at a time. One slab of concrete at a time. One assassination at a time. One media lie at a time. And you treat it like they're equal parties who can't get along?

The Palestinians have consistently demanded the right to return to their land and an end to US meddling. But if you adopt a position of basic human decency and democratic principles, all your liberal fuck friends will run for cover.

It's shameful that you have the temerity to claim solidarity while actively working to obscure the basic facts of not just Israel's nature, but the role it plays in the world.

*****

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine

by Carl Davidson
11 Jul 2005

So 'burningman' and 'another socialist,' your critics are right. You DO want to make the destruction of Israel as a state, and the liquidation of whatever national qualities its people has acquired, a basis of unity for the peace movement. To you, the quest for peace between settlers and their victims in that part of the world, is so much liberal pabulum, and a big waste of time.

But why stop there? The U.S. is a settler state and thus, by your lights, a sham nation too. If you can advocate the destruction of Israel as a basis of unity, why not be a 'real' radical and make the liquidation of the American nation a basis of unity too. In fact, you should even make it higher on the list of priorities, don't you think?

*****

you got it

by the burningman
11 Jul 2005


Of course I'm for the destruction of Israel as a state. Aren't you?

And if the "qualities" that make it a state are ongoing ethnic cleansing and volkstadt nationalism, then you better believe it's going down.

The word for your politics at this point isn't even "liberal." At least liberals, on paper, believe in nationality based on citizenship, not who your grandmother was...

If you think a state of "the Jewish people" should exist on land ringed with refugee camps (themselves under occupation), then that's obviously your right. And all your Zionist "comrades" can throw up your hands, a la Sharon, that "you gave the best you could, if only those intransigent refugees would shut up."

There is exactly one other nation on earth that supports Bush's war. Guess which one and then tell me why we should respect anything about them.

And regarding the USA: I don't support the sanctity of this country's borders and reject any notion of a "homeland" here. Maybe you're going to start explaining how the Minutemen are "defending our borders," but somehow I think you'll take a pass on that one. At least you recognize the historical parallels... and I have to wonder what you think the Indians should have done while they were getting machine-gunned? Look to Oslo?

I don’t' think revolution is the basis of unity for the antiwar movement, but it is the strategic objective on radicals in this movement. Though undoubtedly, you will bitch and moan should it ever come around because Jesse Jackson cum Howard Dean isn't on board...

By the way, Carl: can you send me a link to some discussion where you aren't chastising anti-racists, but argue with Zionists? I'd be curious to see how (if?) you hit to the other side of the field.


Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine
by local

11 Jul 2005

Sorry to butt in but Burningman... what would be your vision of a one-state solution?

*****

Basic democratic principles

by the burningman
11 Jul 2005


1) The right of return of all refugees driven from their land.

2) The dismantlement of the IDF.

3) The elimination of all ethno-religious bans on land ownership.

4) The return of all lands stolen from Palestinians.

5) The rightful naming of all towns and villages in Palestine, which would include the territories currently called "Gaza, Israel and the West Bank."

6) Reparations from the UK, USA, Germany, Israel and other sponsors of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to pay for the handover of all lands to its rightful owners. In cases where rightful ownership cannot be established, the land should be turned over to a national trust to be held in common.

7) The elimination of all laws obstructing political democracy among Arabs.

8) The abdication of any "exclusive" claim to the land (or political rights) by any group, as is the historic demand of the PLO.

9) The punishment of known war criminals such as Arial Sharon.

10) The immediate and total handover of every Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Gaza -- starting with the military bases, watchtowers, walls and prisons.

11) The release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners of conscience, and prisoners of war.

12) One person, one vote.

13) Immediate and unconditional nuclear disarmament.

-------

Ultimately, all the borders in the Middle East are vestigial control mechanisms imposed by the French and English.

There should be a referendum of the region's peoples to determine their wishes viz a larger geographically-based state.

Lebanon and Israel are very similar to Ulster in the north of Ireland. All were carved out in order to include a manageable terrain for foreign conquest and/or settlement.

That's the short answer.

Laugh if you want, but do the math. Israel will fall. The French lasted 150 some years in Algeria. The first Crusaders lasted a couple centuries: but just like in the War of the Worlds, occupation is fatal to the occupier.

*****

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine

by Carl Davidson
11 Jul 2005

Goodness, 'burningman,' why didn't you throw in the abolition of classes worldwide, abolish all states, and set up fully automated full communism to boot?

It's hardly less practical than your list.

Just take one of your points, doing away with the IDF and its nuclear teeth.

Your suggestions of how it might be done, practically speaking, involves spilling an awful lot of blood for quite a while. But then it's not YOUR blood, so it's not so much to worry about, I suppose.

I would suggest that the only way to reduce or get rid of the IDF and its nuclear teeth is from within, i.e., that a new majority of Israelis themselves come to see that a common cause of a just and equitable peace with the Palestinians is in their own best interests for survival as a nation, whether it's a two-state or one secular state with two nationalities solution.

The same goes here. If you want to get rid of the U.S. Army, you better start working on a plan to organize American soldiers. They're the ones in the best position to do it.

No nation can be free so long as it oppresses another. That's the principal I put on the table for all concerned. But even from afar, I'm sick of the bloodshed there, and all the calls for more of it.

Yea, I'd like the Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel to sit down and make a deal, which a majority on both sides would probably like to do, if they weren't the prisoners of their own old ideas and the present-day fanatics on both sides.

I've learned enough over the decades to know that no pat list of formulas I could come up with is going to help much.

I do know that as long as the Israeli occupation goes on, the worse it will get, and so I make it my main business to argue for the end of their occupation, and the end of their delusion that there's a military solution against the Palestinians, among American Jews and other defenders of Israel here.

Not being a Jew myself, I'm not listened to as well in these circles as my American Jewish comrades that I work with, but we all are going against the tide on the matter and keep plugging away at it nonetheless.

Call it liberalism or whatever you like, but until someone shows me a more promising path, I'll stick to this one. I'll leave the 'more radical than thou' posturing to others.

*****

Short answer

By the burningman
12 Jul 2005

Carl writes: "Your suggestions of how it might be done, practically speaking, involves spilling an awful lot of blood for quite a while. But then it's not YOUR blood, so it's not so much to worry about, I suppose."

Well, it seems like the blood has been spilling for quite a while. And it's not yours either.

It took a lot of blood to bring down the Third Reich. There were even some wrong things that happened along the way. Children fought. Women were raped. The armies of liberation that fought into Berlin were commanded by Joseph Stalin. He wouldn't have been my first pick, but nobody asked my opinion.

The person who asked me the question I answered didn't ask how it would happen, he just asked what my vision is.

But if we take a poll of the 300 million Arabs, and throw in the 5 million Israelis (including the 2 million or so with dual citizenships in the countries they actually come from), I suspect the results wouldn't be all that out of whack with my suggestions. They might even be a bit more "unreasonable."

Speaking about "my blood," the only family members I've lost in war were in that liberation of Europe from fascism. They were fighting on the wrong side. They aren't respected for their deaths. It was worth the price. Europe and the world are a better place for it.

My blood. My roommate was working in the Towers for the African Burial ground archives the day they got brought down. The archives of New York's Black ancestors were all destroyed.

Can you say why they were destroyed, Carl? What the basic history was that has brought us to this point? Are we not supposed to talk about why many good people around the world cheered those attacks? Is that "pre-mature anti-imperialism?"

My neighborhood was destroyed. I lived right there and can say I've seen war and smelled it. I ran for my life. It hits very close to home. I've watched thousands of people die with my naked eye and breathed the dust.

If Bush can use the attack his people brought on us, I can have the dignity of not just my experience, but the truth about why. If Abe Foxman, Dershowitz and Elie Wiesel can pimp the Nazi holocaust to shill for Israel. I can tell the truth about what will bring real peace to not just that region, but me.

Your alienation from the very tangible and immediate effect of imperialism and its blowback is caustically dull.

My blood runs red. How about yours?

-------

Your vision for a change of heart among the Israelis is fascinating. Live in a city where Israelis are everywhere, like New York, and try to have that optimism. The best ones leave. The good ones are impotent -- because the best of a settler state is still just that. Israel is Sharon as it was Rabin as it was Begin as it was Golda fucking Meir.

Israeli opinion matters EXACTLY as much as that of the French settlers in Algeria: none. Except, that is, to the extent that they can be demoralized and rendered ineffective.

The real change has to come here: the home of those F16s and Apaches that murder the best of Palestine. Your saccharine moral fencing about "ending the occupation" is a joke. It has no effect on policy and is half-hearted and fatalistic. I've browsed Chicago and New York Indymedia enough to note that you argue for electoralism, a cynical patriotic rhetoric and reasonableness in the face of war. You argue against your left, not that fat-assed right smothering the country.

"More radical than thou posturing..."

You are one limp motherfucker. How's that for posturing? I thought they taught you how to argue back in SDS. If you could get that sigh out of your mouth, you might get something to say.

Sadly enough, what you learned over the decades was to lower your sights, flicker at the margins and "plug away."

Carl says: "Goodness, 'burningman,' why didn't you throw in the abolition of classes worldwide, abolish all states, and set up fully automated full communism to boot?"

This "automation" thing is so silly. It's like a vision of communism where everyone is fat and watches TV all day while Rosie the Robot brings another mimosa...

I imagine a far simpler set of solutions aimed a richness of experience and creation, rather than an abdication of social life via automation. That is, I hope and pray, the last I speak about cyberCommunism. God forbid we'll be debating "Parecon" next...

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine
by ANGEL
12 Jul 2005

We do all want Peace...Don't We?

The West Bank and Gaza was not part of Israel pre 1967.
Israel would not lose anything it had in 1948.
Until we face the fact that "there are" 4,000,000 Palestinians in the Area, Peace will not be achieved.

People with Common Sense do not want to get rid of Israel.
The People of Israel are just like any other People, most are good and but some are not.

People with Common Sense only want to free the Palestinians from Israeli Occupation and Oppression.

It is very difficult for People who are under Occupation and Oppression to sit back and just take it and do nothing....

Look at the U.S. It is not afraid to fight for Freedom, is it?

So to have Peace the Palestinian People need to be free right where they are (The place they now live).

Once the Palestinian People are Free the U.S. and the U.N. have the power to prevent further conflict, because you no longer have the excuse that the Palestinian People are under Israeli Occupation and Oppression. (Both sides are then winners)

1967 is 38 years ago.
There have been wars and things have changed throughout history.

To solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict you need to look at things the way they are TODAY....not in 1948...not in 1967.

There are "around" 5,000,00 Jews in Israel Proper.

There are "around" 1,200,00 Arabs in Israel Proper.

There are "around" 4,000,000 Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza.

There are "around" 400,000 Jews in West Bank and Gaza.

To have Peace the Road Map to Peace calls for a "Viable" Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza.

So to end the tit for tat problem that we all know about, Let us make that Viable Palestinian State now.

The Arabs who do not like living in Israel Proper can then be free to move to Palestine.

The Jews who do not like living in Palestine can then be free to move to Israel.

Forcing People to move is not the answer.
Making the settlements the problem is not the answer.
Hating the Israelis is not the answer.
Hating the Palestinians is not the answer.

*****

by Worldwide Revolution is the solution
12 Jul 2005

Carl, if the Burningman's suggestions of how it might be done to end the occupation, practically speaking, involves spilling an awful lot of blood for quite a while, why don't you formulate an anemic and feasible ones?

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine

by Carl Davidson

Well, 'WorldwideR,' for many years I advocated the program of the DPFLP --one democratic secular state with equal rights for all religions and nationalities, and special privileges for none, led by the working classes, with socialism as the goal, etc.

The problem is, hardly anyone on either side on the ground over there acts or even thinks in these terms, and the few that do are shrinking in numbers.

So what's the point of advocating something that's ignored while the occupation intensifies and the slaughter on innocents continues?

Wiser folks on the politics of the Mideast than me have failed to find a better path; unlike 'burningman,' I don't pretend to have a list that constitutes a realistic solution.

So, as I said, I just keep hammering away at the injustice of the occupation, and how it offers no hope for the future of the Israelis themselves, to all the supporters of Israel in this country that care to engage in discussions about the matter.

*****

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine
by the burningman

13 Jul 2005
"Wiser folks on the politics of the Mideast than me have failed to find a better path; unlike 'burningman,' I don't pretend to have a list that constitutes a realistic solution."

Your solution is to let Israel go because they have military power right now. To accept their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and to lament their expansion. Following the logic, as laid out by the US State Department, it involves "tempering" the "militants on both sides" so that the Zionist status quo is unchallenged.

That is, right? The Israelis get to annex Jerusalem, menace the region with nukes, assassinate Palestinian artists and leaders (like the "wiser" ones you mention) and you can keep "arguing" with your Zionist friends about basic human decency.

Just because American imperial policy says Israel is non-negotiable doesn't make it true. That's why your lost and spend your time mocking democratic principles.

*****

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine

by Carl Davidson
13 Jul 2005

Put your specs on and read again, burningman.

I'm opposing the Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing of any sort.

But I'm suggesting that the goal best worth seeking is one where Jews and Arabs in Israeli/Palestine make a deal, an just and equitable solution that allows them all to live there.

I think the view that either side can militarily vanquish the other is a bloody delusion in the interest of no one. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what the last 60 years have shown.

*****

20/20
by the burningman
13 Jul 2005

I read fine.

You are not arguing against the occupation. Your argument is that the antiwar movement should NOT deal with the obvious, unarguable reasons that we are in a permanent war with the world. You lament the manifestations of the problem, but argue that saying what that problem is should not be done.. Because Zionists (CP/CoC/Tikkun goofs/Liberal Dems) don't agree.

You are accepting Israel as an expression of Jewish nationhood on someone else's land and de facto arguing that Arabs should put up with it until a "change of heart" on the part of the ethnic cleansers and fascists who comprise the Israeli population. Great plan, your lip service aside.

Are there other places in the world you accept racial politics and "volkstadt" nationalism as legitimate? Is America a "Christian" country? Is Germany for Germans? Should Jews and Muslims have democratic rights in Europe, or is that too "controversial" and "more radical than thou?"

Can you write a poem for the poor French settlers who were driven out? For the Sudetan Germans? For the misunderstood Boers who just want their white African homeland? No, just for the Zionists who, unfortunately, have weight inside very particular (and influential) sections of the left.

It's kind of disgusting. If you think I'm being harsh, you should imagine what those who won't even engage your equivocations think.

Following your logic, thousands of years of private property and the defeat of most liberation movements mean we should just give up, make our piece and scramble for the crumbs. But I guess you are following your cyberLogic.

Carl, your suggestion to end occupation is anemic but not feasible

*****

Re: Opportunism, ANSWER and Palestine
by Carl Davidson


BM: 'You are not arguing against the occupation.'

Yes I am. I'm arguing that the Israelis get out of the West Bank and Gaza. But you're arguing that they get out of the Middle East and cease to exist. That's the difference between us.

BM: 'Your argument is that the antiwar movement should NOT deal with the obvious, unarguable reasons that we are in a permanent war with the world.'

Not so. We deal with them all the time, just not with your rhetoric.. 'No more wars and No wider war. End all colonial occupations' are fine slogans by me.

BM: 'You lament the manifestations of the problem..."

Yes, don't you?

BM: 'But argue that saying what that problem is should not be done...'

No, just that we should not make those who don't agree with it says it. Those who agreed with it can speak as loud and often as they want.

BM: '...because Zionists (CP/CoC/Tikkun goofs/Liberal Dems) don't agree.'

If you think these all folks are all Zionists, you're goofier than I thought.

BM: 'You are accepting Israel as an expression of Jewish nationhood on someone else's land.'

It's not a matter of me, or you, 'accepting' it. Israel is a fact. You can work to change it or evolve it into something else over time, but it's not going to go away, whether you 'accept' it or not.

BM: 'and de facto arguing that Arabs should put up with it'

Almost every Arab government, including the PA, now accepts Israel's ongoing existence, even as they oppose what its doing. I'm not arguing for them to put up with it, you're arguing that they shouldn't.

BM: 'until a "change of heart" on the part of the ethnic cleansers and fascists who comprise the Israeli population.'

If you want to claim every Israeli is a fascist and ethnic cleanser, as you do here, then I suppose it wouldn't make much sense. But we didn't even claim that about our own 'white' folks in the South, did we? Or about everyone who lives anywhere in the US today, do we? You think this makes you sound radical for some reason, rather than just phrase mongering. Of course we want to change the views, even the hearts, of Jews in the Middle East caught up in anti-Arab chauvinism, don't you? Or would you just 'accept' it as the reason they should be purged from the earth? I call that capitulation to chauvinism, albeit with a 'left' cover.

BM: 'Great plan, your lip service aside. Are there other places in the world you accept racial politics and "volkstadt" nationalism as legitimate?'

Most nations in the world do define themselves this way, as a part of the nation because of your ancestry. I didn't set it up that way. It's the U.S. that's different, where you become an American by passing a test and agreeing to a Constitution regardless of ancestry. But then, the U.S. is on you hit list of settler state to be destroyed, right?

BM: 'Is America a "Christian" country?'

Of course not. Just go to any swearing in of new citizens.

BM: 'Is Germany for Germans?'

They defined Germans as someone whose grandfather was a German for a long time, and only recently made a few changes, but not enough.

BM: 'Should Jews and Muslims have democratic rights in Europe, or is that too "controversial" and "more radical than thou?"'

Of course they should. Everyone in the world should have democratic rights. Do you think Israelis in the Mideast should?

BM: 'Can you write a poem for the poor French settlers who were driven out? For the Sudetan Germans? For the misunderstood Boers who just want their white African homeland?'

I'll leave poetry to others, BM, but even Mandela and the ANC came to terms with the Boers without liquidating them as a people.

BM: 'No, just for the Zionists who, unfortunately, have weight inside very particular (and influential) sections of the left.'

Most Jews on the left I know can't stand Sharon or the occupation, and work to get the Israeli boot off the neck of the Palestinians. Perhaps it's your notion that all Israelis, and a good chunk of Jews generally, are all fascist ethnic cleansers that gives you this weird picture of the world as well as a weird view of the left.

BM: 'It's kind of disgusting. If you think I'm being harsh...'

Yes, you are.

BM: 'you should imagine what those who won't even engage your equivocations think.'

You know, it's interesting. I find Palestinians I talk to are much more reasonable about these matters than their non-Arab American cheerleaders, who are ready to spout of all sorts of blood-curdling rhetoric that doesn't cost them a dime. Same goes with talking with Jews in the U.S. The divisions are more hardened than in Israel itself. I've found that if you want to get a wide range of views of the crisis there, some even pro-Palestinian, you do much better reading al-Jazeera and the Israeli papers than the American press, even that of the American left.

This is getting tiresome, BM. Let's just say our differences are that you want to liquidate Israel militarily, and I don't think that's in the cards, and I think a political solution is required.

Unless you think that grossly unfair, let's leave it at that and let other folks get involved in this thread if they want.

*****

opportunism
by the burningman
13 Jul 2005

You don't think anything is "in the cards." That's your problem.

Arguing against Zionism is essentially no different than arguing against Apartheid. Whites have the "right" to be Africans, and to live amongst southern Africans as much as anyone has a right to live anywhere. Boers don't have the right to a white republic anymore than Jews have the right to a Jewish state.

I do not claim that every Israeli is a fascist. I contend that Zionism is the particularly Jewish form of fascism, and that the state of Israel is an intrinsic part of imperialist designs on the region as a whole.

Zionism holds that an exclusive Jewish state OUGHT to be established on the land of Palestinians. There are brave individual exceptions, but again -- most of them leave.

Israel is a military garrison, perhaps the most militarized society on earth. All adult men, save a few religious fanatics, are serving members of the military. They all do occupation duty. They join political parties that ALL have the tenet that the state is EXCLUSIVELY JEWISH -- including Meretz. This is an abdication of fundamental democratic principles, to say nothing of deeper socialist commitments.

All the American groups I listed uphold the right of Israelis to an exclusive Jewish claim to Palestine, with a rump-state for the Arab refugees in Gaza and about half of the West Bank. They all hold that the original inhabitants can rot in Bantustan-like concentration camps ringed with Israeli towers and snipers. They all forgo the right of return, supposedly guaranteed by international law.

Or did I miss something? Isn't this what the "two-state 'solution'" is?

The Oslo accords hold that Israel gets to keep what it stole, and that a compliant American-oriented regime can establish a tin-pot patronage dictatorship over the common people in Gaza and half of the West Bank.

It's disgusting. Its Palestinian opponents were systematically murdered.

What right do European Jews have to settle and steal the land of another people? What right do you have repeating the US State Department plan as legitimate? What right does America have to subsidize this state for it And then to tell me I'm willing to sacrifice the blood of others for my own ideological edification?

And when it comes to goofy, dude. I don't know what to say. How long has it been since you've traveled in the Middle East, or much beyond the borders of the USA?

We are hated because of this by hundreds of millions of people. Demanding that we accept what is essentially the imperial position on the problem imperialism created isn't "goofy." But it's something.

I just re-read your piece again: I said nothing about "liquidating" anyone. Fuck you and your apologetics. Israelis have assassinated the entire political leadership of the Palestinians over the last four years and you have the fucking nerve to talk about their "democratic rights."

They came, stole, murdered. They've been funded to do it by imperialism. That state must fall. South Africa no longer has a "white" government. Palestine will cast off its "Jewish" occupiers... and if Jews want to live like brothers to the people whose land they settled, then I wish them luck. Unfortunately, there century of murder won't lightly be forgotten.

*****

The Last Word

By Carl Davidson

True, you didn't use the exact phrase 'liquidate the Israelis.' You just said they're not a nation, have no national or democratic rights worth respecting, won't exist in 100 years -- and sooner would be preferable -- and used the killing and driving out of the Crusaders as an example of what should be done to them if they don't scatter back to where they came from. Plus any solution that involved any people or place in the area called Israel or any town there with a Hebrew name was an anti-democratic sellout.

I rest my case. Read more!