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<< More Newspeak | Main | Why Kerry's Spending Cap Sucks >> April 07, 2004Reflections: War, Globalism & SectarianismOkay, I appreciate the many kind statements in comments and welcome any new readers. You'll quickly notice I'm not a very touchy-feely blogger-- I'm more policy work and political critique-- but the issue of the war post-911 is an emotional one. Since 911, I've been not only in dissent from my government as an opponent of wars, but in dissent from many friends and compatriots on the left in how the antiwar movement has conducted itself. So for those interested in those feelings and a rough broader analysis of how I think we got here and so on, check out the extended entry: Let me start with the basics that started this round with the rightwing. I hate violence but, pragmatically I'm not a pacifist. So I square that emotional conflict by hating euphemisms for violence-- murder is murder, private gun-weilding combatants are mercenaries, killing any civilians to demoralize a popularion is terrorism, and so on. And I have no tolerance for dictatorships and demand that opponents of war be as committed to fighting for democracy and justice, as they are to merely saying "no" to war. Even back in the First Gulf War, I marched against the war in San Francisco but was disgusted that "No Blood for Oil" simplifications generally substituted for broader analysis of why an invasion of Kuwait was unacceptable and how Saddam Hussein and his murder of Kurds and Shiites could be stopped without war. And as soon as the bombing of Baghdad ended, so did the antiwar movement mobilization. Partly in reaction to my irritation at that left demobilization, I dedicated myself to more comprehensive coalition building on the left in the hopes that the result would be less simplistic responses to global events. I actually concentrated on domestic politics, but I have a holistic enough view that I think deeper understanding of core domestic economic and social issues and interests will lead to a more humane foreign viewpoint. And I was actually encouraged that we intervened to support the restoration of Aristide in Haiti back in 1994 and very supportive of US interventions in Bosnia and then Kosovo to stop genocide. To me, these actions seemed to be developing a broader vision of globally-engaged use of US power to promote human rights, not merely to prop up US puppet regimes. Flack from the Left: One reason I can't take the flack from the rightwing too seriously is that I took far harsher flak from leftwing friends for my pro-war position on Kosovo. Coming from political friends, it was tough to be accused of nasty motives and so on. I understood their bias against war, but was frustrated by the refusal of many left allies to recognize that a continual "no" was a complete abdication of the requirement to figure out how to use US power for good, since if we weren't engaged with that, others would harness it for evil (as we've experienced). I understand the left historic distrust of US power; our government repeatedly has supported the overthrow of democratic regimes in places like Chile, Guatamala, Iran, the Congo. And our government has been buddy-buddy with dictators like Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, only to suddenly "discover" they were horrible when it became convenient to use US military intervention. But US actions are complicated, partly because our political system, however corporate-dominated, is responsive to democratic ideals. Just the fact that military intervention has to be clothed so often in the guise of justice or democracy reflects the lack of power by the corporate rightwing to just implement what they want and ignore the counter-demands of the left. So this is all contested territory. I hate the tautology that because the US government does something, it must be for corporate interests-- we know this because the US only does things that serve corporate interests. I think that's pretty accurate a lot of the time, but just often enough it's not true to mean that the Left has to always be struggling to analyze what's going on. In many ways, the Left won the immediate post-Vietnam Era by discrediting the raw brutality of CIA interventions during Vietnam and shining public attention on the evil of the early Cold War coups around the world supported by the US. "The Vietnam Syndrome" was essentially the American people restraining a US military-industrial complex that they no longer trusted. Reagan, despite his militaristic rhetoric, really couldn't fight that anti-intervention consensus too much. He deployed a few troops in the Middle East, only to run when terrorists blew them up in Lebanon. He directly invaded only one country, the postage stamp country of Grenada, and tried to fight wars by proxy in Central America, almost getting impeached because Congressional laws so restricted what he and his lackey Ollie North could do. Military Not the Main Enemy of Peace and Justice: In a sense, the Left was looking in the wrong place for damage to the developing world in most of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Much of the Left marched and chanted against war, even while the real action was not in the military but at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF was choking poor nations through debt restructuring and Structural Adjustment mandates that starved children and undermined sovereignty through corporate economic power far more than anything the military was doing. Which just added to my frustration at "peace activists" who mobilized when bombs were dropping, and then couldn't get the same level of mobilization to fight the corporate power that was killing far more people than the military ever did. The Commerce Department administrating trade agreements enforcing pharmaceutical IP rights on poor third world nations, and denying them needed drugs, was a far bigger killer than the Defense Department in the 1980s and 1990s. The WWP Sectarians: One bizarre wing of the "antiwar movement" that epitomized that fixation on the military and opposing US military action across the board was the Workers World Party/aka the International Action Center/aka (after 911) ANSWER. Their fixation on warfare and nation-to-nation conflict came from their sectarian guru, Sam Marcy, who had led a faction out of the old Trotskyist Social Workers Party (SWP) back in the 1950s, because they felt the SWP was insufficiently supportive of the Soviet Union crushing democracy in Hungary back in 1956. The WWP Marcyites felt that if the Soviet Union opposed the US, then the Soviet Union was objectively good, the Hungarian democrats opposing the Soviet Union were objectively bad, and so on. This tautological view held that anyone-- Milosevic in Serbia, Hussein in Iraq -- opposing the US must therefore be defended against US aggression. With more complicated situations like Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, and then Kosovo in the 1990s leading many left activists to reevaluate where US military force could be used to deter horrific war crimes and genocide, the WWP wing of the peace movement was increasingly marginalized. Enter the Global Justice Movement: And further marginalizing them was the explosion of the "antiglobalization"/global justice movement, headlined by the Battle in Seattle in 1999, when the global trade talks were disrupted by an alliance of global unionists, NGOs, and anarchist street activists. Moving beyond simplistic nation-state analyses of the problem of global poverty, the global justice movement targetted global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and symbolizing the way unrestrained corporate power was allowing millions of children to starve or die of disease each year. Foreign debt was crushing many developing nations. And IMF-ordered structural adjustment programs were forcing many nations to gut social welfare and education systems in favor of paying off bond-holders. Both the style of the protests-- free-form and non-hierarchial-- and the multi-organizational engagement of these protests left the WWP types irrelevant to real debates. I went to protests where WWP leaders would ineffectually try to harangue people with their simplistic dogma and rigid rhetoric, and they'd just be ignored. So I was excited that foreign policy debates were now merging with economic justice debates in a pervasive manner-- and idiots like the WWP were completely marginalized in the movement. The small window-breaking wing of the movement, sometimes labelled the Black Bloc, had its problems -- just before 911 I wrote this piece on them after Genoa -- but they were a tiny problem in a broad global upswelling of challenge to global corporate injustice. Then 911 came. Protests planned in October by the global justice activists were seized on by the WWP to ressurrect both their influence in the Left and promote their rigid ideology. They created the ANSWER "coalition" (a coalition run by a board dominated only by ANSWER sub-groups or puppet allies), but got a bunch of left groups, scared by Bush's militarism, to sign onto to their endorsement list. For me, the months after 911 were politically painful as hell. I opposed the war on Afghanistan, because I was sure that after Bush finished bombing, he wouldn't really fight the subjugation of women or pump in enough money to make up for the bombing damage we would do-- pretty much a correct bet given how we've abandoned the country. (After spending hundreds of billions on military adventures, that the US can now barely muster $1 billion in aid per year for Afghanistan is disgusting, but predictable given the Bush administration). But I also hated the lack of sympathy for the victims of 911 I heard from ANSWER and many left activists failure to confront the real fears and desire for justice by those victims, their families and their sympathizers. Just because militarists were seizing on their pain to promote war-- and as we know the real goal was an irrelevant war in Iraq, with Afghanistan just a sideshow to justify that real goal --- didn't mean the pain was not real and that justice was not called for. My AntiWar: At the time, I was in the national leadership of the National Lawyers Guild, one of the early groups to sign up with ANSWER, much against my opposition. I was pissed that they did so, but most members in New York were opposed to the WWP line. Unfortunately, I watched the WWP and allied groups destroy a democratic anti-war coalition that almost emerged in the fall of that year, which would have been a much healthier antiwar focus. However, because that group, along with opposing the war, also demanded that those behind the bombing of the World Trade Center be brought to justice through international law, the WWP-style sectarians deliberately destroyed thr group. They didn't have a majority in the 800-person meeting I went to, but they were willing to block and disrupt it, until people left in frustration and disgust. Which left ANSWER as the only organized antiwar group. Which was the point. Rule or ruin. Destroy the sane antiwar alternative, so your sectarian group becomes the only option for those opposed to the war. It's a nasty tactic by the sectarian left (and no doubt used by the sectarian right-- think Club for Growth), but effective. In the meantime, ANSWER had shoved the global justice movement aside, and seized control of the megaphone of the antiwar movement. So much to my frustration, I had to sit as ANSWER controlled the podium for antiwar speakers for the next year. It wouldn't be until essentially early 2003 that democratic left alternatives to ANSWER would reemerge and organize themselves- leading the massive New York City marches opposing the Iraq war. Even the better antiwar activists seemed unable to articulate a positive message of how to promote global justice rather than just saying "No" to War, a problem I discussed in this post on Where the Peace Movement Went Wrong, but at least the leadership were good-hearted and not the rigid ideologues at the heart of ANSWER. But it was a little late, and I understood why many confused liberals (yes nice folks like Kevin Drum and Matt Y), seeming to see a choice between ANSWER and Bush's nice promises/lies about WMDs in Iraq and bringing democracy there, could end up initially supporting the war. For me personally, the months leading up to war led me straight into internal battles within my then-organization, the National Lawyers Guild. My criticisms of the WWP led to a WWP-allied member accusing me of "red baiting" (kind of the left equivalent of being called a traitor by the Right) and had a resolution passed denouncing all such red-baiting, citing posts on this blog as examples of such. The New York chapter jumped on the anti-red baiting bandwagon and I was essentially driven out of the organization. Very painful. I should stress that I see a lot of the internal hysteria in the Guild as similar to the hysteria of those who lined up behind Bush on the war-- a lot of them were good people just scared of attack. Given the Patriot Act, a lot of Guild members had good reason to be scared. But it was personally very nasty to experience, and even the rightwing picked up on it, making me an unwilling witness for their real red-baiting attack on the Guild. (The quotes in the article by me are accurate, but the overall history of the Guild is a bit skewed-- the lines emphasizing the ideological diversity in the group is more accurate than any idea of a consistent ideology over time). Why the Right is Wrong: So given my own ideological critique of the left on war, and my personal experience, I might be a good candidate for a "second thoughts" conversion to the right, or at least a nice neoliberal support for the war. But if I know the leftwing sectarians well, I also know the rightwing. Maybe it's because I know the left crazies, it's easier to see the Bush folks in motion, since they have many of the same sectarian characteristics-- unwillingness to work in real coalitions, a binary view of the world into enemies and friends, and a will to fight war endlessly and globally. Which isn't surprising since at least part of the New Right, the neoconservatives, have a lineage partly as ex-Trotskyists, just like the Workers World Party. It's as if these two parts broke off, one siding with any enemy of the US elite however noxious, the other choosing to bolster any friend of the US elite however evil. Both believe in endless global war and military conflict, just as either side of the divide. I don't buy either group's manichean vision, where I have to choose up sides in some global conflict between nations or global religions. The world is not that simple. So-called "enemies" aren't monoliths. The US isn't a monolith. Our nation is divided by economic divisions and shifting political coalitions, so we don't even share a single "interest" in foreign policy. A foreign policy good for corporate America, or even a faction of corporate America such as the oil industry, is not good for other groups in the country. My Side is Working Families, Here and Abroad: I don't side with some imaginary monolithic "United States"-- I side with regular working Americans, which differs from the foreign policy interests of most of corporate America. The latter spends a lot of time trying to convince regular folks that their interests are the same, and they occasionally succeed (the money does help), but the corporate types also fail as well. Combining the neoconservative vision with rightwing corporate power and the old toxic McCarthyite Right, the combination has been a nasty stew, but they aren't unbeatable politically. Given the hostility of the Bush Administration to working class interests here in the US, it's easy for me to see where their foreign policy serves corporate purposes rather than a real commitment to fighting terrorism. If they cared about the victims of 911, they wouldn't starve New York City of funds for economic recovery. If they cared about the victims of 911, we would be spending hundreds of billions on police and public health facilities here at home to ward off violent or biological attacks, while spending similar amounts on global justice around the world to drain support from the terrorists. The irony is that the Islamicists spent lots of money on schools and other services for years to build loyalty-- Hamas for examples started as a social service agency long before they launched attacks on Israel-- yet conservatives scoff at the idea that investments in social services matter in combatting terrorism. But then, defense contractors would make less money from schools than from weapons, so we spend anti-terror money on weapons, not schools. Real Security is Global Justice: There are lots of common sense security measures to take-- inspect incoming ships, share criminal information better globally, and such-- but the reality is, and conservatives sputter in rage when you say it, that the only security we in America-- and the "we" here is regular folks in the US -- will ever have is through ending the global violence and poverty and inequality that feeds despair. Violent forms of Islam didn't use to have large swaths of adherents in these countries. It's grown as global inequality has grown -- anyone who sees no relation between the horrors of the Sudan, the festering camps of the Palestinians, the war-torn poverty of Afghanistan and the violent Islamic movements that grew there are just plain blind. There is NO wealthy or even half-way developed country with mass-based involvement or support for such terrorist movements (save maybe our allies in Saudi Arabia). Yet conservatives seem completely stubborn in their resistance to that fact. So they promote more war and more poverty around the world-- so either they are stupid, or someone backing them is benefitting from that global inequality they promote. Some are no doubt stupid, but the real answer is that a bunch of folks do fine in a world of despair, where US violence can be called in to knock out any regime that gets hostile to corporate interests. As we watch corporate interests writing the corporate and labor codes of Iraq, you get a window into the world Bush's corporate backers would like to impose on the whole world-- all nicely without a vote of the Iraqi people, just written by US corporate consultants and shoved down the throats of the country through a puppet regime. But there's plenty of resistance-- voters here in the US, unions and organizations in Iraq demanding real elections, and around the world activists and countries demanding that the Iraqi people, like all peoples, should have the freedom to control their own destiny, control their own oil and resources, and have a chance to participate in the emerging global democracy that we need. Okay-- that's longer than I planned but gives some sense of where I fit in the spectrum-- basically far to the left but also on the hard end of demanding democracy as the first, last and core demand for all social justice. Because at the end of the day, when people can stand up for their own rights, the rest will follow. Posted by Nathan at April 7, 2004 08:30 AM Related posts:
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsWow. Thanks for the explanation of your position, and your views on the parties. I have done some work in conjunction with or in competition with ANSWER and the NLG here in Philadelphia. The ANSWER people are as rigid and domineering as you describe. The NLG people are very good and very nice, in contrast; probably due to relative autonomy of NLG chapters. Posted by: Mithras at April 6, 2004 11:10 PM Yep. Posted by: Russell L. Carter at April 6, 2004 11:17 PM Mithras- I knew a number of the Philly NLG folks and they were all very nice as you say-- most Guild folks are great. It's a tiny group that can whip up hysteria and get passed stupid statements and alliances, partly because the nice folks don't want to be accused of being rightwing or something. Posted by: Nathan at April 6, 2004 11:36 PM "If they cared about the victims of 911, they would starve New York Posted by: Andrew Plotkin at April 7, 2004 12:41 AM Thanks Andrew. Posted by: Nathan at April 7, 2004 01:00 AM Wow. What an incredible silk purse you've made from this batch of sow's ears. Thanks. Posted by: Kip Manley at April 7, 2004 01:15 AM Actually, I was passive in regard to the first Gulf War, as I figured, under the circumstances, it was pretty much inevitable. I was just shocked at how they stopped it after 100 hours and then sat back and watched the ensuing massacres, having rushed to war at the earliest possible date, apparently without having planned any endgame. I first heard the news on 9/11/01 about 5:30 p.m., as I was outside housepainting all day. About 15 minutes later, I said, "Looks like we'll be going to war." "Against whom? There's no one to attack!" "Afghanistan." I'm no military expert, but the way they went about it and their utter lack of humanitarian/political follow through there was another, lesser shock. There is no underestimating the synergy between malice and incompetence among the Bushies and their ilk and the evidence is that the American establishment as a whole has learnt nothing since our "victory" in the Cold War. As for the invasion of Iraq, I recognized the propaganda drum-beat for what it was from the get-go. The Clintonoids themselves were massively incompetent in their handling of the whole Yugoslavia mess, which was readily foreseeable- (not to mention their gross mishandling of the post-communist dispensation in the former U.S.S.R. and their going AWOL in Rwanda). So in the light of the record of how American global power is handled, it is very hard to reasonably support its agressive actions, no matter how justified: the weight of the underlying interests that organize them must render them suspect. Most problems do not really admit of a military "solution" and any application of military force must be carefully calibrated with diplomatic and political measures. Of course, the threat of force must remain an option and a background factor,- (as with completing the diarmament of Saddam in Iraq, for which Bush could not take "yes" for an answer)-, but the danger always is that the wrong sort of "credibility" will be deemed to be at stake, i.e. that attaching to the application of massive military violence and its persistence and efficacy. On the one hand, there is a massive accumulation of military means, at the behest of the industrial policy of the industrial/military complex, and, on the other, there is a persistent deficit in political will formation, in the American establishment. But the wars are hardly an exemplary case of the formation of democratic consensus. In the light of the record and in the light of the apparent inability and lack of interest of Americans to know or understand much about the outside world and the different cultures and conditions that obtain there, perhaps due to the emphasis in American culture on commodified standardization and the imperative to assimilation, one should be wary of legitimating proposed military adventures, even if one is powerless to stop them- (and I don't think over-moralizing this last qualification is helpful). The Europeans are basically right. If there is to be any "humanitarian" application of force, it requires the development of an international, multilateral framework that puts limits on American hegemonic ambitions. And the programmatic deployment of robust diplomatic, political and economic means leverages the use of force far more than the use of force could ever be effective on its own account. From the current news in Iraq, it looks as if things are headed badly wrong, with grievous consequences all around. From something that was begun with so little reason, one wouldn't expect a politically rational outcome. To expect a quick political recovery from such a debacle would be excessively antinomian. The irony is that from Richard Clarke and so many other sources that have seeped out from the muffled press, it is clear that the U.S. government does have the resources to organize rational policy formation. Posted by: John c. halasz at April 7, 2004 02:08 AM a really interesting post, especially the stuff on ANSWER and leftist sectarianism. thanks for taking the time to write it. Posted by: Magpie at April 7, 2004 04:10 AM Nathan, Thanks for this post. I'm a budding economist (second year in undergrad) and I've been scorned from both left and right. It's good to find someone else who has experienced that, and better yet, someone who can connect the dots of national and international politics in ways I can't. I look forward to reading more. Posted by: Kat at April 7, 2004 05:28 AM You say No Blood For Oil is a simplification. Why aren't we punding the government of Sudan right now? Maybe they don't have any oil reserves. Blood for oil is not a simplification. The invasion of Iraq vs Iran or versus Syria is because of Black Gold ...Texas Tea, as they say Posted by: Maccabee at April 7, 2004 09:01 AM Thanks again to LGF for informing me of this fascinating blog! Posted by: Shane at April 7, 2004 09:21 AM How did "The Clintonoids themselves were massively incompetent in their handling of the whole Yugoslavia mess"? Posted by: surfmonkey at April 7, 2004 02:26 PM Nathan: I think it's important to note that just as ANSWER and its ilk don't accurately represent the views of the majority on the left, neither the Bush folk nor the neocons accurately represent the views of the majority on the right. The majority of people who support conservative ideals do so not out of a desire to rule the world and conquer their enemies, but out of a desire to be left alone to live their lives and tend to their own affairs. Many of us would love to see more development of civil society and infrastructure abroad, and I know many on the right who contribute to such efforts. We may disagree on the best means to achieving it, but I think you'd be surprised at how many conservatives support helping to end poverty in the developing world. Don't paint us all with the same brush. Posted by: Amy Phillips at April 7, 2004 03:04 PM Maybe it itsn't important to anyone else, but I think you left the impression that the 1956 Socialist Workers Party supported the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution. It didn't. It supported (no doubt ineffectually) the Hungarian people, which is why Sam Marcy broke with it. Anyway, all the best in the current storm from the right. Posted by: Gareth at April 7, 2004 03:16 PM Amy- A lot of libertarians were taken then, since CATO and Reason have given strong support to the GOP over the years, and Dubya is the endproduct. "Conservative ideals" at this point are not libertarian, so you probably should either abandon the word conservative or fix your movement. It put Dubya in office, so you get some accountability if you identify with it. Posted by: Nathan Newman at April 7, 2004 03:19 PM The only two cities that have had problems with ANSWER are New York and San Francisco - many other cities have had independent organizations sponsor anti-war rallies, such as PPRC in Portland. I'm an NLG lawyer in Portland, and I'm as digusted with ANSWER's hijacking of the peace movement as you - I don't know why there was such support for ANSWER in New York. Ultimately, though, the success of the NLG will depend on drowning out of those people with the voices of new lawyers - one of the primary drives is to retain the law students once they graduate. Portland's NLG chapter is pretty hardcore into First Amendment offense (civil suits against abusive police) and mass defense, and present at the main rallies primarily as legal observers, not organizers. Posted by: Aaron V. at April 7, 2004 08:40 PM The only two cities that have had problems with ANSWER are New York and San Francisco - many other cities have had independent organizations sponsor anti-war rallies, such as PPRC in Portland. I'm an NLG lawyer in Portland, and I'm as digusted with ANSWER's hijacking of the peace movement as you - I don't know why there was such support for ANSWER in New York. Ultimately, though, the success of the NLG will depend on drowning out of those people with the voices of new lawyers - one of the primary drives is to retain the law students once they graduate. Portland's NLG chapter is pretty hardcore into First Amendment offense (civil suits against abusive police) and mass defense, and present at the main rallies primarily as legal observers, not organizers. Posted by: Aaron V. at April 7, 2004 08:40 PM "Have you not have cause to revise your opinion of our war in Afghanistan?" Isn't it pretty clear that the place is just as much of a hellhole now as it was when we went in? The only reasonably sane part of the country is Kabul, and even that, not so much. Elsewhere, the same warlords that gave rise to the Taliban by terrorizing the general public for years are still in power. The camps may be blown up and the attendees dispersed, but we aren't talking about high-end high overhead facilities. Until it becomes something other than a miserably failed state, all we bought is a reprieve. IMO, there was definitely a case to be made for attacking Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The country was the knowing home of a group of people who actually attacked us, which is a better reason for a war than most. But the problem is that the screwups in the Bush administration are the only people around to do the job, and predictably, they're all hat and no cattle. "I don't agree that Islamic violence is rooted in inequality. If so, why aren't the fundamentalists terrorizing Dubai and Bahrain?" a) The fundamentalists have denounced what they see as overly secular or insufficiently Islamist governments. Al-Qaida even hates the theocratic Iranian government for being the wrong sect of fundamentalist. They have colluded with the Taliban to kill Iranian police, diplomatic staff, and civilians in the course of smuggling opium through that country to reach the European market. b) They go after us, and other western nations, because their miserable, selfish governments are generally supported by us. Not just with cash from our oil habit, but with military backing, arms dealing, and diplomatic bum-covering. It doesn't take a world class brain trust to figure out who's pulling the puppet strings with many regimes that are heinously unpopular in their own countries. Also, if we blunder in and attack innocent Muslims without provocation and occupy their countries, they get big public relations points and win new converts. Therefore, even if the amount of control we wield there is debatable, they still stand to gain tremendously by provoking us into lashing out. "The direction of progress is othogonal to the political spectrum." Wow, that sounds really cool. Does it mean anything? Posted by: natasha at April 7, 2004 10:31 PM Natasha, I take the view of dialectical idealism, that conflict between competing ideas leads to new syntheses that contains elements of both. So if the left and right are in conflict, if we could find Yes-Yes resolutions which appeal to both, we would have moved forward without moving to the left or right. The competing model is that progress always moves to the left, and that the right at best exerts a braking effect on too rapid leftward change. Posted by: Rick (Centrist Coalition) at April 7, 2004 10:55 PM Rick- As my post indicated, I opposed the war in Afghanistan because I knew Bush didn't give a shit about that country and would quickly move on to real objectives, like Iraq. And leave a hellhole behind that would probably just breed worse problems in the long run-- see my post today. As for inequality, I didn't say the terrorists themselves are motivated by hatred of inequality. They opportunistically take advantage of it to gain sympathy, hideouts, and the grassroots support needed to sustain any underground movement. If the terrorists did not have a broad band of global sympathizers, they'd be captured in weeks as anyone they'd meet would turn them in for the reward money. Posted by: Nathan Newman at April 8, 2004 09:48 AM The line above by Nathan has been heard again and again by liberals, if only there weren't Stalinists and Fascists out there a democratic social movement would have emerged... The problem with this reasoning is that it is sour grapes. The reason ANSWER or Stalinists during the Spanish Civil War or Progressive Labor during the anti-Vietnam War movement are able to manuever to the top of social movements is because they are well organized and the democratic left for the most part aren't. These people are committed (and many of them should have been) to a goal. Take over the organization, for a larger goal, authoritarian social revolution. Posted by: anton at April 8, 2004 10:36 AM Anton- I don't disagree that the real responsibility is for the democratic left to outorganize the WWP/ANSWER or other marginal types. See this article I wrote making this point within the global justice movement. But the first step is for more liberal groups to understand why they shouldn't just blindly endorse ANSWER events, but instead demand that only coalitions with internal democratic structures be allowed to run left events. If a group is a sectarian front, they are free to march in their own contingent, but they shouldn't be allowed to run the show. Posted by: Nathan Newman at April 8, 2004 11:28 AM It sounds like you quit the organization? Does this mean then that the demonstrations should not be attended? Not be endorsed? The mass see US Out Now! or they see 1 million march in Rome or New York they don't see Free Tibetan Athiest Vegetarians unless they are presented this image by a biased press which is probably going to look for an angle to discredit an anti-war movement anyway. I say let ANSWER put out the flyers and make the phone calls unless there is an alternative group willing to do the leg work. Posted by: anton at April 8, 2004 12:08 PM Anton- (1) No organization should endorse ANSWER or its rallies; (2) Broad democratic coalitions can always call THEIR OWN rallies at the same time, and encourage folks to listen to a podium not controlled by ANSWER; (3) And if no one endorses ANSWER, they will quickly disappear. Remember, the largest rallies against the war, which were in New York last Spring, were not organized by ANSWER. There are plenty of groups who can do the legwork if ANSWER gets out of the way. And many more people will attend if idiots are not embarrassing the movement with their association with dictators. Posted by: Nathan Newman at April 8, 2004 12:38 PM Nathan, Besides the reasons you stated, I was also on the fence about Afghanistan because I want the US to follow the same extradiction procedures as other countries. Maybe submit the evidence to the Taliban and the UN Security Council in an emergency session. and if that's not successful then war would be the last option. Can you comment on this - especially with regard to say Orlando Bosch of Cuba and Emmanuel Constant of Haiti? Posted by: Jeff Boghosian at April 8, 2004 01:51 PM Thanks for your excellent post and your lucid analyst of Internation ANSWER. WB. Posted by: Wilson Barbar at April 8, 2004 06:17 PM Thanks for your excellent post and your lucid analysis of Internation ANSWER. WB. Posted by: Wilson Barbar at April 8, 2004 06:18 PM I'm sorry, Mr. Newman, but what you're doing here IS red-baiting. To me, socialism WAS a revolutionary, liberating ideology---my only quibbles with Marxists are the following: one, they wrongly presumed the state would slowly fade away after the revolution---not realizing that a revolutionary struggle was needed against the power of the government ruling class, too---the result being the USSR's oppressive, imperialist regime, as well as that in China. Two, their dismissal of the rights of the individual----the idea that that notion reinforced the capitalist system. Three, their absolutist rejection of all forms of pleasure ("If I can't dance, then it's not my revolution"---Emma Goldman). Apart from that, I agree with what's been called the "loony left." IMHO, all capitalism is evil, and must be overthrown. And a "America-postive" left is an oxymoron---IMHO, a REAL left fights for a world not divided by nation-states and their petty ruling-class fifedoms. I mean, capitalists transcend national borders with ridiculous ease----why can't workers (and other groups oppressed by Western so-called "civilization") do the same? As far as I'm concerned , it was reformist Americo-centric "progressives" like YOU that defused what could've been a wonderful, revolutionary movement to finish off the current system once and for all. Like they said---either lead, follow, or get out of our way.... PS: Explain just one thing to me---why the hell do you require my E-mail address? Posted by: radical dude at April 8, 2004 07:44 PM Radical Dude, You really lost me when you said that progressives "defused what could've been a wonderful, revolutionary movement to finish off the current system once and for all." Do you seriously think that the US is, or at any point in the Bush Admin has been, on the verge of total revolution to exterminate the world Capitalist order? What in the world is your evidence for this? If total revolution is your goal, well okay, but I think that seeing any progress short of that revolution as cooptation by capitalism plays right into the hands of the ruling class who are delighted if we tilt after windmills rather than fighting in practical ways to take power back from the economic elite. Posted by: Nick at April 9, 2004 11:16 AM I'm not even sure what Radical Dude means by "American-centric" progressives, since most global justice folks are very global, even if many like myself see fighting for concrete gains as useful and needed for real and actual human beings who don't want to wait for "total revolution" for any betterment in their lives-- and most of us think concrete advances now are the best way to get to greater advances down the line. Posted by: Nathan Newman at April 9, 2004 11:24 AM Nathan, this was a powerful piece of writing. I'm going to make more of an effort at stopping by to see what you have to say. Plus, you and I share having been roasted on LGF in common :) Regards Posted by: Aziz at April 9, 2004 01:47 PM To: Radical Dude Please accept that the questions below are raised in good faith, and with all due respect, which in my view all humans owe to each other; and the communication as a whole is made in the fraternal spirit that should underlie political argument, particulay amoung socialist.
In solidarity, Posted by: TMDoyle at April 9, 2004 05:40 PM Posted by: world map at June 10, 2004 11:04 AM Post a comment
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