From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <mstainsby-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: AUT: From Stan Goff (fmr officer US Army) regarding "response". 
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 06:56:21 -0700


(Non-list addresses are BCC'd )

In reply to another Rad-Green listmember who believes we need to scale back our
demands/actions in face of what is coming- stating that we have no real power
based on the situation (as it currently is) here and in America. Retired US Army
Veteran-come radical Stan Goff speaks on what we must do. I ask people to
forward this far and wide- it is important right now, and Stan is (as usual)
helping find clarity during a blackout.

I urge you all to get people reading this.

Macdonald Stainsby

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I couldn't possibly disagree more.

Since the savage attacks of September 11th, we have seen the unfolding of a
national ritual denunciation of this crime that is much more than an expression
of outrage and sadness.

If the ritual is performed incompletely or incorrectly, one risks the charge of
heresy.

It's the new McCarthyism, and this is the new loyalty oath.

A disciplined military-financial-industrial press is harmonizing us, and the
orchestra director is our de facto executive branch.

Heresies include:

(1) the failure to call for war or support out "leaders" when they call for war,
(2) the denial that this can be reduced to a test between good and evil,
(3) the refusal to accept official explanations,
(4) the temerity to suggest that our own rulers have committed equally offensive
actions,
(5) and finally, that our own financial, political, military, and intelligence
establishments bear a portion of the blame.

I retired from the Army in February, 1996, after some 24 years of service.

"Special operations" was my field.

That gives me a perspective on this military-macho posturing that seems to have
seized the whole country.

The military, industrial, and political establishment are cashing in on this
tragedy, and it shouldn't serve as an excuse to be stupid.

This can not be allowed to provoke a retreat by progressives.

The admirable and poignant solidarity of New Yorkers, and many across the
nation, is being contaminated by a military fetish, a mindless phallic
nationalism, and instead of seeking solutions, we are seeking enemies.

And we'll find them.

History sent us a warning, but we're not listening.

Herr Hitler announced with a familiar combination of grief-stricken solemnity
and manly outrage, on February 27, 1933, "Gentlemen, the Reichstag is on fire."

We ought to pay attention to this.

We've got to interrupt this war talk, and we've got to do it aggressively and on
a mass scale, because MUCH is at stake.

And we've got to interrupt it with more than an appeal against xenophobia and
the abrogation of civil liberties.

We are responsible to shift attention from the motives of "Usama bin Laden and
his legions of demonic followers" to the motives of the Bush Administration and
the capitalist governments of Europe.

I've come to assume, from my own experience, that anything I hear from the State
Department or the FBI is apt to be... less than truthful.

Officialdom doesn't make statements to represent reality.

It constructs stories to pursue interests.

Whether those stories conform to reality is incidental.

This attack will benefit the militarists in this country far more than it will
benefit anyone else, and I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Progressives in the US have reason to be afraid.

This unforgivable act of inhumanity will be used as an excuse to crack down on
dissent here, to engage in military aggression against other peoples, and to
whip up an already more-than-latent anti-Muslim xenophobia.

But the key thing to understand here is that this is pulling a lot of political
and economic cookies out of the fire, or so dangerous buffoons like Bush
believe, and is leading us to disaster.

There is quite simply no security system in the world that can not be bypassed,
and there is no way to protect absolutely against these kinds of attacks.

When we accept this premise, we have to conclude that overwhelming violence in
retaliation for these kinds of acts will not bring such acts to an end, but
escalate the levels of overall violence.

An Israeli-like response will bring with it an Israeli-like situation, on a
global level.  In a very short step, we can tumble from chauvinism into the
abyss of repression and tribalism.

U. S. military might and the willingness to use it is not only not the solution,
it's a powerful contributing factor to terrorism, when it is combined with the
arrogance and impunity of our foreign policies.

We have the capability to overwhelm any conventional military force in the
world, so no one in the world has the option to oppose those forces in a
conventional way.

When those forces or allied forces are the ultimate guarantors of intolerable
situations, or when the sovereignty of nations is swept aside, unconventional
means will inevitably be employed.

If I would rather die fighting than go on living as I am, and I can't build a
Tomahawk Cruise missile, then I can learn to fly a Boeing 767.

Progressives can't withdraw from the scene.

I urge people to revisit the post by Mark Jones on the world energy system.


QUOTE  "The extremely finite nature of petroleum reserves was always the
Achilles heel of industrial capitalism, and even now it is the great blind spot,
the great point of denial at the heart of the priesthood's theology of growth
and accumulation.

"World oil is already in sharp and irreversible decline. We remain more than
ever dependent on Saudi and Iraqi oil reserves. Everything else is being or has
already been, used up. Yet it is precisely here in this volatile geopolitical
tinderbox that America and its allies are now planning to wage new, intensified
war. It is hard to imagine a more suicidal course of action. As often before in
history, the hubris of ruling classes conceals some real stupidity.

"War in the Middle East and South Asia and Afghanistan is ultimately going to be
a war for control over oil. WHAT SEEMS TO BE IN PROSPECT IS A MILITARY
OCCUPATION OF THE OIL FIELDS BY THE MAJOR CAPITALIST STATES [Stan's caps],
against the will of the masses there and in the teeth of furious resistance.
This does not look like a promising way to guarantee long-term and vital energy
supplies. Without Persian Gulf oil, world capitalism will be snuffed out quicker
than the Mayan empire was. Waging war against the local population seems to be
the one surefire way to lose Arab oil forever." CLOSE QUOTE

That's why action, even action with risks, is so critical.

Mark further pointed out that events are out of the control of the global
bosses, who are now blundering from one reaction to the next in a system that
was already incredibly unstable.

We were already, before this catalytic event, somnambulating into the hell-hole
of this global ecological, economic, and political crisis.

I think it's absolutely certain, with the course we're now on, that there WILL
be massive dislocation, suffering, and degradation-and we shall not be spared
this time.

This attack on September 11th did not happen in a social or historical vacuum.

If the conceit of our rulers is contributing directly to the bewilderment of the
people, this implies to me that for clarity among the masses, the solution is
not support for this priesthood of the market, and not acquiescence to this de
facto political leadership, but on the contrary, its replacement.

The struggle is not for justice, but for survival.

These loons are talking about WWIII, because in their undying hubris they really
believe they can win it, because they think it will bolster the economy, and
because they see what looks like an opportunity.

If we are to fight for sanity and survival, it's our duty now to be stubborn and
have the courage of our convictions.

Now is not the time to go silent and wait this out.

It's not going to blow over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>From a purely tactical standpoint, NOW is the best opportunity we will have to
fight back, NOT after this madness has had more time to develop.

And given the climate that will develop if this madness progresses, there will
be risks.

There will be witch-hunts.

Ironically, we are now in the same position, I think, as the pilots of those
planes that were hijacked, forced to choose between bad and worse.

Denial of this dilemma only contributes to the problem.

Right now is the time for progressives to show up and grow up.

Audre Lorde summed up our situation about as nicely as anyone I can imagine, so
I'll close with her statement:

"Your silence will not protect you."
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Macdonald Stainsby
Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
----
Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin.
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
----
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht




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