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New PSL book on war & imperialism
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PSL Publications announces release of new book:
Socialists and war: two opposing trends
(http://www.pslweb.org/publication/socialists-and-war/)
Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, why did the United States target the governments in Libya and Syria for destruction? Why did some “socialists” support these so-called revolutions that were backed by the Pentagon and NATO? Can the Pentagon ever play a progressive role? Brian Becker and Mazda Majidi make a unique contribution to the debate. This timely piece answers important questions from a truly socialist perspective.
Socialists and war: two opposing trends tackles the issues through current events and historical analysis. Given that wars waged by the United States and NATO are a dominant feature of the contemporary era, this book could not be more important for those who seek to replace the current capitalist and imperialist world order with a new social system, one that is free from the scourge of militarism and endless war.
From Socialists and war: two opposing trends
“Every war waged today by the United States and the NATO powers is a class war. The foreign policy of NATO governments is based on the needs and global interests of their own bankers and corporate elites. Imperialism is a global system, and the United States government is the anchor and leading force.
“Every military intervention, covert intelligence operation, foreign military base and military assistance project by the Pentagon and the CIA is designed to strengthen the control and domination of the U.S. capitalist class over the globe. U.S. foreign policy is based on the calculations of empire. The Athenian and Roman empires of antiquity were based on the interests of the old ruling classes. The American Empire is based on the interests of the modern ruling class—Wall Street bankers, mega-corporations and billionaires.”
Get the book here (also available for Nook & Kindle): http://www.pslweb.org/publication/socialists-and-war/
People in this conversation
Doug Enaa
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I think that the ISO and PSL had the same position regarding NATO's military action in Libya because I read their publications:
"That's why, however unpopular a position it appears to be today, the left is right to oppose the UN no-fly zone over Libya and the Western military intervention."
http://socialistworker.org/2011/03/29/is-intervention-justified-in-libya
"Stop U.S./U.N. military intervention against Libya!"
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/stop-us-un-intervention-against-libya-2.html0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet JulietThe ISO started out repeating al-Jazeera propaganda with very little thought, and it took until it was definitively unpopular to support the rebels for the ISO to even report facts that ran counter to their original analysis. They then did this again for Syria.
Their support for the Libyan rebels went so far as organizing protests around the US in support of them.
With regard to the PSL, their WWP parent had egg on their face from supporting Gaddafi as "anti-imperialist" before conceding that he in fact, was not. The ISO and other Trotskyist organizations then pounced on this blunder to swing in the opposite direction and support the racist rebels crying out for imperialist bombs:
http://www.internationalist.org/libyaopportunistleft1104.html0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
Libya:
http://www.cairchicago.org/2011/02/25/hundreds-of-chicagoans-to-rally-in-support-of-libyan-protesters/
http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/28/rallying-for-the-libyan-people
They also include support for Syria's rebels in other protests:
http://isoaustin.blogspot.com/2011/11/solidarity-rally-with-egyptian-people.html
WSWS is also a Trotskyist org but they have an amusing laundry list of other ISO blunders (at least, the ones that aren't slap fights between them and the ISO, like the embarrassing Strauss-Khan stuff):
http://www.wsws.org/topics/internationalPoliticsCategory/ISO/
Taking a neutral approach to any rebellion or revolution until it is clear what they actually are is preferable to the possibility of accidentally boosting reactionaries. Some people even intentionally do this.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet0 Like
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Pham, it is a wrong method to assume people have the same position because they both disagree with your defense of US intervention. ISO and PSL had very different views throughout the whole course of thing. PSL's view is tied to a Dengist third-worldism that sees an emancipatory potential in third-world states that come into contradiction with US imperialism, calling them "objectively anti-imperialist." The ISO had no such view, but rather changed its view after the US bombing began.
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1. There is a difference between supporting NATO intervention and refusing to oppose certain aspects of imperialist policy that revolutionaries and peoples in other countries stand to gain from. I'm guilty of the latter but not the former.
2. I never claimed PSL and the ISO had the same view on the Ghadafi regime or the Libyan revolution. On the question of NATO intervention, they had the exact same position: hands off Ghadafi.0 Like -
But revolutionaries didn't "stand to gain" from the US intervention. That is the whole point: if you "dance with the devil" it changes the whole range of what is possible, and in this instance it ensured that those forces that would rise to power were reactionary oppressors of the people.
You wrote:"2. I never claimed PSL and the ISO had the same view on the Ghadafi regime or the Libyan revolution."
I was responding to this:
"Why would PSL "crush" ISO on Libya? They had the same position."
Even on those terms, it is not true that the ISO's position has EVER been "hands off Ghaddafi." When did they ever defend the person of Ghaddafi? The ISO opposed the US attack on Libya, which is a whole different question from supporting Ghaddafi.1 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Trevor K (exval) Trevor K (exval)I'm wondering if you can expand more on what you mean by the difference between "supporting NATO intervention and refusing to oppose certain aspects of imperialist policy that revolutionaries and peoples in other countries stand to gain from". We've sparred before about Syria on my blog, but I'm more interested in what the theoretical justification of your stance is. Doesn't "not opposing certain aspects of imperialist policy" necessarily imply tacit approval of those policies? This seems like an impossible stance to take, that you are attempting to isolate aspects of imperialism you think are beneficial from those that are not which is, in my analysis, impossible to do.
The two points that Kali Akuno makes in his piece on Libya illustrate the problems with this stance: 1. That imperialist "favors" are not done for free and 2. That a revolutionary movement that is not self-reliant does not determine its own destiny.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
As an aside, it's also absolutely appalling that the ISO depicted the dissolution of the USSR and the backpedal into capitalism as a positive and progressive turn for Eastern Europe:
http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/12/revolutions-of-1989
That's right: the collapse of Eastern European economies, all public institutions and enterprises being ripped to shreds by vulture capitalists, the despair, the prostitution, and the addiction. These are all signs of a progressive step forward for the former USSR, where the people still do not have meaningful political rights, within a worse economic system.
"The expectations that the capitalist free market would bring prosperity and freedom were dashed. Already meager living standards in countries like Poland and elsewhere took a further dive.
But the suffering endured under the free market in the following years shouldn't overshadow what the Eastern European revolutions accomplished. A dictatorial system that had seemed immune to any form of protest [(despite the fact that there actually did exist rudimentary forms of protest within the USSR, particularly in the press during the 1970's on)] was brought down across half a continent in a matter of months."
As though what was really needed to pave the way for future socialist revolution was a liberal facade of democracy, economically ruining Eastern Europe and killing millions of people. The proletariat truly have a new-found power.
ISO seems to have a trend of supporting anything that sounds like a progressive revolution despite all evidence. They're so thoroughly rotten that one would almost think that they were actually a front group for Democratic Party interests.2 Like -
it's also absolutely appalling that the ISO depicted the dissolution of the USSR and the backpedal into capitalism as a positive and progressive turn for Eastern Europe
In a way, IMHO, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the downfall of the Eastern European bloc could be seen as the ultimate counterrevolution. Hardly a news story about the incident(s) goes by without mentioning the "fall of communism" or the "end of socialism" in looking back at the events.0 Like -
Guest (Whoa)
PermalinkHere is another ISO report of pro-rebel actions they joined in Feb. 2011, which openly called for US/NATO intervention. At the Portland action, the march ended with the delivery of a unified statement to the Obama Admin calling for US military intervention. The San Fran was admitted in this report to be a united front with pro-intervention forces. The D.C. action included chants to Obama for intervention. The others were the same type of coalition with pro-intervention forces.
http://socialistworker.org/2011/02/28/rallying-for-the-libyan-people0 Like -
Guest (Whoa)
PermalinkHere is a "reader's views" published on SocialistWorker.org 3 weeks after the bombing started that asserts "I'll come out and say that I think the air strikes were worth doing, and that they are giving the Libyan revolution the only chance they have."
The "reader," idenfitied as "from the internet", is an ISO member who writes for SocialistWorker.org0 Like -
Oops, forgot the link, here it is: http://socialistworker.org/2011/04/05/is-intervention-a-necessary-evil?quicktabs_sw-recent-articles=3-4
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Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Pham Binh Pham Binh
Eric, the problem with the "dance with the devil" thing in Libya is that there were at least 2 devils. Is it impermissible to dance with one temporarily to eliminate the other? I say it is permissible, but the situation has to be analyzed concretely. The article you linked with that catchphrase (it has moral-religious overtones) says, "Imperialism will make sure that any new Libyan regime (which despite many confused claims about the opposition, particularly by a number of left forces, is being lead by key elements drawn from the Gaddafi regime, who have opportunistically jettisoned it in the hopes of administering their own imperialist sponsored fiefdom) is a neo-liberal state that will keep the oil spigot flowing, enable aspects of oil production to be further privatized, and fully serve the economic and political needs of transnational capital." All this may be true but a bourgeois democracy where workers can strike and have the freedom to fight privatization is surely a step forward from a tyrannical police state where they were unable to resist Ghadafi's embrace of Western imperialism and neoliberalism, is it not? Doesn't (bourgeois) freedom for the masses to organize and fight for their interests matter if we are trying to determine whether revolutionaries in Libya stood to gain by accepting aid from one enemy to fight another?
As for "hands off Ghadafi" -- if Ghadafi is running Libya, heads the nation-state that is Libya, is crushing a revolt that threatens his rule of that nation-state and imperialists, for their own selfish and parasitic reasons, interfere with and undermine that repression, then "hands off Libya," which is an objection to what the action the imperialists were taking, in practice means "hands off Ghadafi," does it not? "Hands off Ghadafi's Libya" might be a better way to put it since NATO was not attacking Benghazi and other areas free of regime control.
Trevor/Exval: "Doesn't 'not opposing certain aspects of imperialist policy' necessarily imply tacit approval of those policies? This seems like an impossible stance to take, that you are attempting to isolate aspects of imperialism you think are beneficial from those that are not which is, in my analysis, impossible to do." It does not. I'll reproduce the comment from The North Star where I took that line from and expand a bit:
"Supporting NATO intervention and refusing to oppose their attacks on counter-revolutionary forces that revolutionaries in Libya explicitly asked for are not one and the same thing! NATO tried to force the Libyans to accept a negotiated settlement that would preserve the old regime’s army and police; that too was NATO intervention, and it was rejected by the revolution and by its supporters in the West. Refusing to oppose one aspect of imperialist policy does not mean giving them blank check of support for all of their policies."
The Libyan NTC happily accepted NATO's military aid (or "aid") and even airstrikes from NATO on Ghadafi's forces while fighting NATO over the shape of post-Ghadafi Libya. The imperialists tried to get them to accept a negotiated settlement that would retain Ghadafi's state machine and possibly even a role for his son, Seif, and this was rejected over and over again by the NTC. In other words, they fought to cut the strings that NATO attached to their "help." I don't see why picking and choosing in this manner is impossible either theoretically or practically. Lenin boarded a train through Germany in 1917 but did not allow himself to become a mere tool of the German High Command. Exploiting one element of imperialist policy does not mean wholesale endorsement of their aims. I used the example of the U.S. lifting sanctions on Viet Nam in my response to Mike Ely as another example of this.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
I don't understand why you think we absolutely have to support one or the other, or why you think it's better to have your life become objectively worse under the rule of neoliberals and (likely) Islamists with a slim chance of attaining political rights (that will be rendered useless anyway by bourgeois democracy), than to foment a real revolution against both autocratic and imperialist interests. Are we reduced to simply cheer-leading for one of two lesser evils? If this were the 16th century would you be cheering on the Spanish against the Inca just because oppressed tribes opportunistically allied with them with no real understanding of the consequences?
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Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
It's also bizarre that you would compare a treaty to get Russia out of an imperialist world war while backed into a corner by imperialists, to a deal by the militant opposition in Libya - by their own volition - to open up the country to imperialist interests.
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Hmm, yes, clearly accepting (minor) help from the other side during an interimperialist war in 1917, in order to bring about a socialist revolution, is exactly the same as publicly asking NATO, the incarnation of imperialist capitalism, to bomb the fuck out of the opposing side in your civil war, in order to establish a conservative bourgeois democracy which had already sold out its economic independence to absolute monarchies before the war was won. Of course.
Please, I'm curious: do you also support to the invasion of Iraq, and if not, could you explain your reasoning as to why your idiotic argument doesn't apply?0 Like -
Bourgeois democracy is a step forward from fascist tyranny. Yes? Workers having the ability to go on strike and fight for better conditions is a good thing. Right?
Iraq: there was no revolution or uprising in 2003. Could you explain to me why you supported the Bush Sr. administration's decision not to shoot down Saddam's helicopters in the no-fly zone in '91 when there was a huge uprising in the south and the north of the country? Was Iraq 1991-2003 better off as a result of Bush's non-intervention during the uprising?0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by ISH ISHBinh writes:
<blockquote>Could you explain to me why you supported the Bush Sr. administration's decision not to shoot down Saddam's helicopters in the no-fly zone in '91 when there was a huge uprising in the south and the north of the country? Was Iraq 1991-2003 better off as a result of Bush's non-intervention during the uprising?</blockquote>
Seriously Binh, you're criticizing George Bush <i>from the right?</i>0 Like -
lol Pham, you aren't even consistent in your own horrible opinions. it was clear that Saddam was a dictator and a lot of Iraqis wanted him gone, so what's the problem with pre-emptively invading and establishing bourgeois "democracy"? what if people had been demonstrating? clearly that would've justified the invasion for you. if bush had been smarter and given a bunch of help to opposition figures in 2003 you would've been attacking anti-war leftists for not writing their names on US missiles.
maybe you'd be crying bitter liberal tears over how "the revolution lost its way" or "the intervention was handled too violently" or bla bla bla. or you'd be doing what you do now w/r/t libya, which is to systematically ignore the real effects of the "revolution" on libya and the entire region. you fail at the single most obvious task for anyone remotely progressive, ie. taking a stance against aggressive wars. even liberals are better than you, at least they have the common decency to pretend to be anti-war.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by eric ribellarsi eric ribellarsi
hahaha i can't believe you're seriously arguing that iraq would've been better off with more and earlier U.S. interventions. [moderator note: removed personal snark]
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Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by chegitz guevara chegitz guevaraEric, the problem with the "dance with the devil" thing in Libya is that there were at least 2 devils. Is it impermissible to dance with one temporarily to eliminate the other?
Sometimes there are no valid options for us to win. Sometimes we have to suffer defeat. Sometimes we have to admit we are helpless before more powerful forces, and can only watch from afar as people are slaughtered. This is the American left. You'd think by now we'd have understood that we are impotent.
The problem of the North Star position is that it focuses too narrowly on the target of imperialist agression, as if the only thing we need to know is that Qaddafi is that he is a monster. Clearly, he is. Imperialism is a bigger monster. As you know, a victory for imperialism only means it gets to throw its weight around even more. When the Vietnamese defeated the U.S. invasion, the world was spared a major U.S. war for nearly twenty years. As gruesome as the low intensity, proxy wars the Empire fought around the world since, how many more Iraqs would have occurred without that defeat.
The problem with the Marxist-Leninist position, on the other side, however, is that they never support the people against their own reactionary regimes. Any partial success by the people only strengthens imperialism, and, let's be honest, history has proven this verdict correct. But the struggle for liberation is not unidirectional. Usually we lose, and we're worse off for the attempt. But, if we win, that seriously changes the "game."
There was nothing U.S. anti-capitalists could have done to make a difference in Libya, or now with regard to Syria. We can only explain reality. The reality is, both sides are bad. Imperialism is the worst.0 Like -
No such thing as a "North Star position." Read the site's About section, please.
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Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
"Marxists ought to seriously study these revolutions and the peoples making them as they actually are and look unflinchingly at all of their ugly and unpalatable dimensions instead of bemoaning their “failure” to conform to previous models or our own romanticized notions."
Surely, but we don't necessarily have to hastily support everything that claims to be a forward-spinning revolution.
"[...] weak-kneed elements on the left will inevitably hanker for the old discredited dictators like Assad and Ghadafi or otherwise conclude that the Arab Spring was for naught because pro-neoliberal (or pro-U.S.) forces came to power instead of fighting and defeating the Islamists and the liberals on the battleground of bourgeois democracy."
Surely this isn't a dilemma? Is it impossible for us to support neither side? I agree that we should not ". . .[champion] hated police states because of their social welfare policies or [champion] free markets in the name of political freedom. . .", but is there no third way? Are these imperialist-backed rebel factions really the best way of achieving the basis for socialist revolution? Could the USSR not have developed an actually democratic revolution that did not also ruin their entire livelihoods?0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 2 months ago by Juliet Juliet
Pham Binh I don't think I want to comment on North Star if you and Proyect are just going to answer every political criticism with an immature quip.
"Bihn should invite him to write his own god-damned analysis for North Star, which is much more of an open forum than my blog ever pretended to be. Then we can ask him if he has stopped beating his wife." -Proyect
Seriously? You two don't even know the proper way to ridicule someone's political opinions.0 Like -
Guest (Louis Proyect)
PermalinkI maintain a low profile on the North Start website and can assure you that everybody who posts or comments there is treated with kid gloves. My own blog is a different story. I will rip your throat out for backing thugs like Qaddafi. In fact I regard all these Global Research type apologetics for him and for Assad to be embarrassingly stupid and hardly worth a retort.
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Really? When are you going to rip my throat out for calling you out on your anti-communism?
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You tell me. You're the one advancing the slogan.
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Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by Mike Ely Mike ElyPham writes:
"Bourgeois democracy is a step forward from fascist tyranny. Yes? Workers having the ability to go on strike and fight for better conditions is a good thing. Right?"
This is a false argument with a terrible history. And it relies on a seemingly simple "common sense" argument -- i.e. that we always support the "lesser evil" pending (in some never-never land) the possible abolition of evil itself. So politics becomes an endless game of choosing sides (among reactionaries and colliding oppressors).
First point, bourgeois democracy is different from fascist tyranny. Different in form. different in norms. and so on. But it is its own form of tyranny, and is a major historic form that great structures of oppression assume.
The U.S. was a "bourgeois democracy" during decades of chattel slavery and then a whole century of Jim Crow and lynching period.
In other words, the underbelly of EVERY bourgeois democracy is violent and systemic mistreatment of rebels and the lower tiers of working people. Without exception.
Again: Bourgeois democracy is its own form of tyranny.
We socialists and revolutionaries generally oppose the replacement of bourgeois democractic norms with openly-terroristic fascist coups (Pinochet over Allende, Hitler over Weimar, Shah over Mosadegh, etc). But (to be precise) not mainly because bourgeois democracy is (somehow) "better" for the people -- but because it is generally a better framework for preparing revolution (which is the road to something better for the people).
Pham's argument implies something different: It implies a false claim that we should (automatically, normally, repeatedly) support bourgeois democratic states and powers OVER those states that are not bourgeois democratic.
But if you don't look at this historically (or look at this argument historically) suddenly you will find yourself advocating a cheerleading of U.S. imperialism.
The U.S. was always a bourgeois democracy (as we all know) and over and over fought TO CONQUER (dominate, exploit, bully) countries that were NOT bourgeois democracies. Look at the war with Mexico in 1846. Or the U.S. fought Spain in the war of 1898 (proclaiming itself as, as usual, an anticolonial democratic power). then, after defeating Spain, the U.S. brutally conquered the Philippines, Puerto rico and Cuba -- in the aftershocks.
The U.S. fought against the Kaiser and the Austrohungarian monarchy in WW1 (while claiming itself the crusader for democracy, even though it was allied to autocratic Tsarism.)
Then the U.S. "fought fascism" in WW2 (Mussolini, Hitler, and Tojo) -- proclaiming itself the great liberator and crusader for democracy (and then, in the aftershocks, nuked two civilian cities and installed a string of fascist puppet states all over the world -- Chiang Kaishek in Taiwan, Diem in Vietnam, Marcos in Philippines, Shah in Iran, in addition to Somoza in Nicaragua, Baby Doc in Haiti, and on and on....)
In other words, the main result of WW2 was the U.S. takeover of the British empire and its own emergence as the world's great anti-communist, anti-liberation superpower.
How is that a "step forward" (to use Pham's phrase)?
In other words, the answer to Pham is NO.
We do not (should not, will not) automatically or naively support THIS bourgeois democratic power over fascist states -- this bourgeois democratic power is the bloodsoaked and brutal U.S. imperialism.
Pham's logic has historically been the argument of all those who rallied to the Stars and STripes in every major war -- saying that despite the "flaws" of U.S. imperialism, it was (somehow!) always the "lesser evil." I even remember a wing of the Social Democrats in the U.S. claiming that the U.S. was the "better" side in Vietnam, since at least the U.S. was likely to install (!) a democratic regime, and (after all) the Vietnamese were led by "Stalinists" and "totalitarians" (like Ho Chi Minh).
Pham is raising a very old and very false argument -- as if it were fresh, and obvious, and nuanced.1 Like -
You're mixing up the class character of states at war with the class content of what a struggle objectively is.
It's not about choosing a "lesser evil," it's about advancing the interests of the masses, preparing the groundwork for an anti-capitalist revolution by getting rid of fascist tyranny, which is what occurred in Libya. The class character of the U.S. government had nothing to do with anything.0 Like -
Guest (Lando)
PermalinkFound this recent speech by book co-author Brian Becker where he does a good job of explaining the argument... and why Pham is so horribly counterrevolutionary. http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/video/socialists-and-war-two-opposing-trends.html
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preparing the groundwork for an anti-capitalist revolution by getting rid of fascist tyranny, which is what occurred in Libya.
I don't think, IMHO, that is what happened in Libya's case. I'll be honest and upfront-I was strongly against Gaddafi when the whole Libyan Revolution and Civil War started. What started as a genuine attempt at revolution however soon turned into a bloody quagmire backed (on the side of the rebels) by foreign imperialism in the form of NATO bombs which were said to be justified in order to "save lives," "protect civilians," etc. but in reality the NATO bombings quickly took on the character of directly aiding the rebels through a prolonged and constant harassment of Gaddafi's military on the ground. And to top it off, those same bombs were ending the lives of numerous civilians caught in the crossfire between the regime and the advancing rebels.
The rebels themselves, upon becoming victorious during their symbolic capture of the capital, soon gave way to lawlessness and chaos in the ensuing power struggle following Gaddafi's downfall.
That's not to mention the fact that the CIA was allegedly involved in torture in Libya. Our intervention in Libya had less to do with protecting human rights and democracy then it had to do with ousting an unruly leader whom the west had begun to tire of, choosing the side of the opposition/rebels as we are now doing in Syria too.
Gadaffi wasn't "fascist", as classic, text-book fascism wasn't really practiced as an ideology in Libya. To allege that the Libyan regime was "fascist" is pure rhetoric and doesn't contain a grain of truth.
Bourgeois democracy is its own form of tyranny.
I was at the Occupy Protests, and I can tell you that the crackdown on those protests woke people up to the fact that we don't truly live in a "democracy." A peaceful protest exercising the first amendment was brutally crushed, the protesters themselves only seeking to reform society as to help alleviate the problems currently facing global capitalism.
What's clear is that as communists and as revolutionaries we should be seeking to turn away from, and not support Bourgeois democracy.
The Bolsheviks advocated soviet power as a suitable replacement for the Provisional Governmental structure then in place following the February Revolution.
Mao advocated rural power in the villages at the local level as a replacement to traditional village power structures which were traditionally dominated by the gentry. In both cases, Lenin and Mao were seeking to break free from Bourgeois democracy and/or traditional forms of government.
Rather then support the "lesser-evil" (IMHO, the republicans and democrats are similar and voting for the democrats really won't change much as Obama's performance proves since 2008), communists should actually try to empower the people. The Greek movement of the squares comes to mind as an example of popular organization/power which radicals did and should base themselves around. Communists should seek to get their ideas across through an actual interaction with the people, to build links with the popular masses as the Bolsheviks tried to do during their time.
As a favorite paraphrased slogan of mine goes, "learn from the people."0 Like -
Guest (Louis Proyect)
PermalinkMike Ely says that Marxists do not support revolutionary struggles that only result in bourgeois democracies. Then why in the world did he write so many articles hailing Abraham Lincoln?
And this does not even address the national liberation struggles of the 20th century that the Comintern was committed to supporting. Lenin did not dismiss the Easter Uprising in Ireland because it was likely not to result in a socialist transformation. In fact he wrote:
" To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semiproletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc. - to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution."
The problem with PSL, Kasama, Moon over Alabama, Global Research, Voltairenet et al is that they cannot accept the fact that democratic struggles in countries that are part of "the axis of good" have their hands tied in terms of where they can get material aid, weapons, etc. With Syria, Libya et al being linked to Cold War power alignments defined long in the past, there is simply no alternative to making alliances that amount to a "lesser evil" arrangement.
Of course, an honest reckoning of the PSL's politics would admit that they are still living in the past when there was a USSR and when Syria could be mistaken for some kind of "progressive" state. They posted an article by the ineffable Stephen Gowans on their website that spoke in terms of Baathist socialism. What an absurd and obscene lie.0 Like -
Central to Proyect's and Binh's argument is a slander that all those who oppose US imperialism in Libya and Syria support dictators like Gaddafi and Assad. It's convenient for them, but an absolute lie, to lump together the positions of PSL, ISO, Kasama supporters, and the conspiracist crazies of Voltairenet, because it distracts from the actual fact that Proyect and Binh are engaged in <i>supporting</i> imperialism and its interventions. Revolutionaries should indeed support the peoples of North Africa and the Middle East rising up against dictators, but we must unequivocably warn of the dangers of allying with imperialism or accepting its sugar-coated poisonous assistance. Binh and Proyect like to pretend that what happened in Libya is somehow isolated and unconnected to the world context of what US imperialism (and its junior partners in France and the UK) is trying to achieve. Have they failed to notice how the murderous US/NATO bombing/special forces intervention in Libya is now followed by the appearance of neocolonialist armies and US drone bases across West and Central Africa; how the flood of instruments of repression supplied by the US to regional militaries (pre-and post-Arab spring alike), "rebel" forces, and reactionary sheikdoms is all part of one huge, interlocking web? Revolutionaries should have no part of this cynical and sickening campaign of hypocrisy and mass murder. Yet Binh and Proyect's Northstar project has gone so far as to host an article lamenting the destruction of the CIA's station (the so-called "US Embassy") in Benghazi.
The main enemy of revolutionaries in the US, indeed revolutionaries worldwide, remains US imperialism. There are revolutionaries across the Middle East (many of them anarchists) who are actually opposing both agents of imperialism and local repressive regimes. To my mind, it's Binh and Proyect who have more in common with the pro-Assad/pro-Gaddafi forces like WWP, PSL and Voltairenet, because these forces together have abandoned the idea of the masses of people fighting together for their own emancipation; of people fighting not for mere democracy but for socialism and real freedom. Qaddafi and Assad have already contributed to the poisoning of the word socialism by using it to describe their own repressive (capitalist) societies; now Proyect and Binh want to make the poison worse by associating socialists with Imperialist intervention. We already have a lot of work to do to rehabilitate the idea of socialism or communism in a part of the world where radical religious parties have picked up because of the failings of radical political ones. Let bourgeois forces rally behind the fraud of so-called bourgeois democracy. Let revolutionaries tell the truth. And that truth is that US assistance to Arab revolutions means the ultimate death of those revolutions.
Finally, the fact that Proyect cannot distinguish the difference between the United States of 1865 and 2013 perhaps explains quite a bit.2 Like -
Sorry Binh, but the fantasyland is the one you live in.
Here is the North Star article in question: Stage Two of the Libyan Revolution.
<blockquote>The attack on the U.S. consulate and the passing of the late Chris Stevens was the straw that broke the camel’s back....The act of attacking guests of Libya and the resulting death of a good friend of the Libyan people highlighted the fragility of the state and the danger these militias posed.</blockquote>0 Like -
Which is why my comment said,
<blockquote>Yet Binh and Proyect's Northstar project has gone so far as to host an article lamenting the destruction of the CIA's station (the so-called "US Embassy") in Benghazi.</blockquote>
But really, I'm glad you're renouncing this piece even if you haven't done so on your own web site.0 Like -
Well I'd rather discuss the issues than North Star's content policy, but it was clear North Star published Dana Barahona (whose positions I do not share) by way of caricaturing those who oppose all US intervention. I would also note that Dana Barahona, and others who disagreed with Binh, were subsequently banned from commenting at North Star. I read North Star content and comments: it's clear where there is general consensus on this issue, and regardless, if Binh disagreed with the pov of "Libyan Rebel" about the "good friend of the Libyan people" there's zero evidence of that anywhere in his commentary over there. By my reading none of the North Star moderators are on record opposing US arming of the Syrian rebels, and at least one supported French intervention in Mali.
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Gowans writes clearly and convincingly on many things, like them or not, whereas Proyect just hurls around hyperbole and insults. Why even bother debating with manifest apologists for imperialism? It's about as constructive as debating Darwin with Sarah Palin. Give it up, these people are not on the same side as Communists, they're just tiny cliques of bourgeois students and middle class professionals, locked in their self-involved Trot organizations in rich/western countries; no international presence, no record of achieving anything whatsoever in any context... just dead-end social imperialists on whom Communists are merely wasting their time.
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We should debate every position that has appeal.
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Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
ChevyPhillips:
" Why even bother debating with manifest apologists for imperialism? "
Louis writes:
"Unfortunately the Kasama Project has tainted itself by circulating the PSL's garbage. "
It must be in the water.
I am truly and repeatedly amazed how often people argue that there should be no argument -- i.e. that their own views are so obviously true and their critics are so obviously venal, that there is nothing to debate, and that their critics don't deserve to be published, examined or debated.
The unjustified arrogance of that is stunning to me. And the unrestrained hostility to investigation and exchange is amazing.
Rarely do we (here on Kasama) post any complex heated controversy, without someone showing up (usually rushing to be first in the speaking order) to demand (angrily) that we shut someone up, and insisting that we are complicit in crimes merely by allowing opposing views to contend.
Are you guys serious? Aren't you ashamed of this nonsense?
To be clear: No one here is agnostic. I am, as you may know, very partisan and very explicit in my views on these matters. I believe we should oppose U.S. imperialism -- militantly, consistently. And I believe all arguments against that approach are wrong.
But, setting that aside for a second, I think we should explore and dissect the colliding arguments, and that requires that we do it respectfully (even if occasionally the individuals involved have no special claim to respect). The respect here is to our discussion, and to the methodology that serious investigation demands.
I have never (ever) seen a climate that empowers everyone to so militantly demand that everyone else shut off.
Let's just stop that. Let's just reject this argument of "shut up."
We should get to the point where when this argument arises, we all respond to it the way families of Chinese peasants did when a rat dared started to scurry across their floor, with everyone instantly shouting "Get it, get it!"
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Guest (Louis N. Proyect)
PermalinkComment last edited on about 1 month ago by eric ribellarsi eric ribellarsiTo my mind, it's Binh and Proyect who have more in common with the pro-Assad/pro-Gaddafi forces like WWP, PSL and Voltairenet, because these forces together have abandoned the idea of the masses of people fighting together for their own emancipation; of people fighting not for mere democracy but for socialism and real freedom.
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Unfortunately the Kasama Project has tainted itself by circulating the PSL's garbage. This is a group that offers free public relations for all the bloody, anti-working class dictatorships that pretend they have something to do with socialism, from Mugabe to Qaddafi. I would prefer that there was a socialist government on Mars that could supply MANPAD's to the FSA using phaser technology like Captain Kirk. But lacking such a provider, they have to get it where they can, from Saudi Arabia or on the black market. The PSL wants to organize a movement to cut off such supplies, something that the CIA has tried to do as well. The slogans for "Hands Off Syria" are of use only to al-Assad, a murderer responsible for 80,000 people. This is proportional to millions in the USA. Such support will live in infamy when the history of the Marxist left is written.
moderator note: added quotation around opening section to clarify the conversation.0 Like -
Proyect writes,
<blockquote>Unfortunately the Kasama Project has tainted itself by circulating the PSL's garbage.</blockquote>
This post is in the open threads section. I'm glad it was posted, it's engendered a useful discussion, but I can't imagine where you'd get the idea this was some kind of official Kasama endorsement of the PSL position. I'm glad you've commented here, in this same spot, even as absolutely horrified as I am now by your endorsement of Saudi meddling in Syria. Which I can't imagine how you think is better than CIA meddling in Syria, which, surprise, is also happening.1 Like -
As Ish write, Louis Proyect, the open threads section of this site is an open platform for people to post articles outside of the main column of the Kasama site. The article was originally posted with a particularly obnoxious title about the book "destroying Pham Binh." I removed that title, but allowed the PSL book to be posted. I don't think that allowing open discussion somehow "taints" our project.
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Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by Juliet Juliet
If imperialist assistance is the only reasonable option for deposing Assad, then perhaps that is a reasonable avenue, but I'm not quite convinced that it is.
Edit: Hit reply on the wrong post. Oops.0 Like -
Wow. I thought it couldn't get any worse. Apparently Assad is personally responsible for the deaths of 80,000 people. No explanation, evidence or context needed. No discussion of imperialism or the opposition forces that have brought such devastation to that country.
Someone give this man a job with the State Department.0 Like -
Yeah, and Hitler was totally innocent too eh?
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Are you defending Assad here or are you struggling with words?
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Guest (Louis Proyect)
PermalinkComment last edited on about 1 month ago by eric ribellarsi eric ribellarsiNo discussion of imperialism or the opposition forces that have brought such devastation to that country.
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This is the standard defense of Baathist slaughter. You heard the same justification for gulags, the removal of Crimean Tartars from their homeland, and all the rest of Stalin's crimes. He was "defending" the USSR. At least the CPUSA had the excuse of defending what it perceived as socialism in Russia. What this has to do with crony capitalism in Syria is a profound mystery.
NY Times April 30, 2011
Syrian Businessman Becomes Magnet for Anger and Dissent
By ANTHONY SHADID
BEIRUT, Lebanon — When protests erupted in March in the forlorn Syrian border town of Dara’a, demonstrators burned the president’s portraits, then set ablaze an unlikely target: the local office of the country’s largest mobile phone company, Syriatel, whose owner sits at the nexus of anger and power in a restive country.
Syriatel is owned by Rami Makhlouf, first cousin and childhood friend of President Bashar al-Assad and the country’s most powerful businessman. In the past decade, he has emerged as a strength and a liability of a government that finds its bastions of support shrinking and a figure to watch as Mr. Assad’s inner circle tries to deal with protests shaking his family’s four decades of rule.
Leery of the limelight, he is alternatively described as the Assad family’s banker or Mr. Five Percent (or 10, or whatever share gets the deal done). His supporters praise him for his investment in Syria, but they are far outnumbered by detractors, who have derided him in protests as a thief or worse. Sometimes more than Mr. Assad himself, he has become the lightning rod of dissent.
“We’ll say it clearly,” went a chant in Dara’a. “Rami Makhlouf is robbing us.”
Egypt had Ahmed Ezz, the steel magnate who favored tight Italian suits (and now faces trial in white prison garb). In Tunisia, it was Leila Traboulsi, the hairdresser who became the president’s wife, then a symbol of the extravagance of the ruling family. Mr. Makhlouf, 41, is Syria’s version, a man at the intersection of family privilege, clan loyalty, growing avarice and, perhaps most dangerously, the yawning disconnect between ruler and ruled that already reshaped authoritarian Syria even before the protests.
(clip)
moderator note: added quotation around opening section to clarify the conversation.0 Like -
Guest (Louis Proyect)
PermalinkComment last edited on about 1 month ago by eric ribellarsi eric ribellarsiI can't imagine where you'd get the idea this was some kind of official Kasama endorsement of the PSL position.
--
Because it is identical to everything I have ever heard from Mike Ely. All these websites and groups (Socialist Equality Party, PSL, Voltairenet, Moon Over Alabama, Global Research, MRZine) make pro forma statements about how Bashar al-Assad is undemocratic, neoliberal, etc. but they oppose the resistance to him because it is being aided by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and whoever else. It is much harder to make the case that the USA is solidly behind the rebels since there is simply too much coverage in the media about it trying to keep effective arms out of their hands, especially surface-to-air missiles. The politics that unites all of these groups and publications is cut from the same cloth that led the left rightfully to oppose the Nicaraguan contras, UNITA in Angola, the KLA in Kosovo, et al. This analysis is bankrupt and reactionary. It denies to the Syrian people their right to overthrow a foul dictatorship by making them beholden to a set of demands that effectively would require them to give up the fight. How in the world are people supposed to fight against attack helicopters? By throwing copies of the Zimmerwald Manifesto against them?
moderator note: added quotation around opening section to clarify the conversation.0 Like -
<i>Really?</i>
http://kasamaarchive.org/2012/07/20/an-answer-to-pham-binh-our-responsibility-to-oppose-new-u-s-crimes/
And did you just endorse the Contras and UNITA?0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by ISH ISH
I did absolutely no such thing.
Please explain:
<blockquote>The politics that unites all of these groups [that you oppose] and publications is cut from the same cloth that led the left rightfully to oppose the Nicaraguan contras, UNITA in Angola, the KLA in Kosovo, et al. This analysis is bankrupt and reactionary.</blockquote>0 Like -
This argument remind me of the people of East Germany who wanted their rights and what did they get? Their industry was handed over to the corporations in the traditional west. People who had never been in West Germany were being tried for crimes against the Western government. Their own political parties lost any influence as they got mixed in with western party politics. The West took all party assets of the Eastern ruling party. And years after the fall of the wall the eastern workers were left with lower wages, less benifits.
The obvious solution that getting rid of the wall and giving Bourgiouse freedom to the East seemed like the obvious solution--but that solution was wrong. The west simply annexed the east and those living in the east gained nothing.
The obvious solution is not always the right one.1 Like -
Comment last edited on about 1 month ago by eric ribellarsi eric ribellarsi
They aren't just flawed and unpopular, they are in line with the views of the most hawkish Right-wingers. Binh consistently, constantly and directly attacks the need for anti-war action by the Left, substituting not just passive acceptance but active support for NATO interventions. To call his views "flawed" and "unpopular" views is the understatement of the year. ISH is entirely correct in his assessment of Binh's position being an other side of the same coin of Voltairenet; Binh's views (ironically) come down to taking the same position the communist party of Syria takes towards the Baathist regime, but towards the greatest dictatorship on the planet: the dictatorship of the West.
Binh isn't bothered by reality proving him wrong in his hawkish support for the NATO interventions. Look at this shit:
"The more victories the Arab Spring wins, the more difficult it will become for U.S. government to dominate, bully, control, and exploit at home and abroad even in cases where the resultant regime is not opposed to U.S. imperialism.
For example, the pro-U.S. military junta ruling post-Mubarak Egypt has terminated a lucrative gas contract with Israel and ended the blockade of the Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians living there to travel more freely, creating major problems for Israeli and American efforts to trap, starve, and defeat the Palestinian people."
source: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=1705
Similar to his disgusting and incorrect opinions on the U.S. interventions in the Egyptian revolution, Binh continues to defend his position on the Libyan "revolution" whilst consistently declining to answer questions about its interrelationship to the opening of a new wave of neocolonialism and its consequences for the whole of Africa; he has never seriously responded to people interrogating him about the current state of Libya or Africa, preferring to dodge the question with idiotic one-liners. That's his style: attack minor errors, don't respond to the actual argument made, stick to short answers without substance when in trouble.
Binh's position, if you're a consistent, leads directly to supporting NATO's invasion of Iraq. He doesn't dare to go this far yet, since it'd destroy what little legitimacy he has left, but clearly if you take the absurd, ahistorical and stagist argument that bourgeois democracy is necessary for the advance to socialism then we should applaud the overthrow of Iraq, or North Korea, or Iran, or the USSR, and only denounce instances of excessive violence used. This position is exactly the same as that of hawkish liberals. We shouldn't hesitate to attack him like we attack them.
[moderator note: this comment was causing formatting issues with the page. fixed. this post also flirts with breaking our moderation policy with heavy references to "disgusting" etc. Please focus on the line struggle at hand without resorting to moralism.]1 Like -
Anti what war? I'm all for the side of the people in the war between the Syrian people and the regime.
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Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. We will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains.
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