Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 16:35:27 +0200 (CEST)
From: Birgit Bock <birgit.bock-AT-student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Subject: Re: AUT: Taliban apologetics


Hey I am into this post. I think this sums up my position. Strang how
the old rhetoric of communism is still current. After all this post modern
stuff going around, I guess there is still one thing which needs to be
taken in account and that is " bad consciousness". If I am not mistaken it
is the the notion that the values of culture that we internalize in our
habits and psychology, never allow us to get "out-side" of the the
capitalist value structures in order to be revolutionary. But I
think the workers and the peasants as it is put here are the Afghan
people.
This text reminds me of Orwell during the Spanish civil war, where is
constantly hanging with the trotskyist, and hating the dogmatic terms
which appear to be missing the point, while at the same time putting his
life on the line with those very "party people" . Its that communism
like Christianity seems to have such a bad track record that it is hard
to still evoke its power and authority without embracing totalitarianism
at some level, but thats what history has given us. I think some of the
best socialist I have run into in a long time are the Jesuit at GTU here
in Berkeley it seems like the daily mass is the best place to get your
dose of communism. Not to say that Jesuit don't have questionable past
as well, but the whole liberation theology thing is pretty right on in my
opinion. But I read something on www.commondreams.org that the last plane
on 9-11
which went down in the field was headed for a nuclear power plant. 3 mile
island or something like that. And I think we need to look at that as
a near miss. . for a massive nuclear melt down, which is something we
need to stop. We need a new radicalization of activists. a new Ghandi or
Martin Luther King. We need a movement which is mobilized to address our
current crisis in response to the new necessities and dangers of modern
living.

cheers

Jeremiah

On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Scott Hamilton wrote:

> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 11:35:49 +0100 (BST)
> From: Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton-AT-yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: AUT: Taliban apologetics
>
>
> Here's an alternative take on the same subject, from a
> NZ group...
>
> In any imperialist war revolutionaries have to side
> with the country oppressed by imperialism, regardless
> of how bad its internal regime. This was Trotskys
> position in the war between Italy and Ethiopia in the
> 1930s. Why? Because the defeat of an oppressed
> country is a victory for imperialism and a defeat for
> workers everywhere. Those who cannot see this and
> refuse to defend Afghanistan because of the Taliban
> are covering for imperialism. This does not mean that
> we are supporters of the Taliban regime. On the
> contrary dictatorships in oppressed countries are
> usually installed by imperialism. While they may fall
> out periodically, such regimes owe their existence to
> imperialism. This is the case for theTaliban who are
> currently opposed to the US, but will probably do a
> deal at some point for a share in the oil weath in the
> region. We are against all US stooge regimes. We are
> for the victory of the Afghan people and the formation
> of a Workers and Peasants State.
>
> Many Western lefties are saying the Taliban is so bad
> we cannot defend Afghanistan against imperialism. This
> is a petty bourgeois moral position that ranks regimes
> against some abstract ideal of bourgeois democracy.
> The Talibans much-publicised treatment of opposition
> and women makes it very reactionary indeed. And once
> the regime is ranked as evil then it becomes
> indefensible even against imperialism.
>
> There is a fundamental confusion here. The ruling
> class or caste regimes are not the same as the country
> itself. When we say defend Afghanistan this does not
> mean defend the Taliban. We are for a defence based
> on the independent army of the masses i.e. workers and
> poor peasants and their intellectual allies.
>
> In the short term if theTaliban fights imperialism we
> may find ourselves in a military bloc with them. This
> is in principle possible and cannot be ruled out for
> any joint defence weakens imperialism. It also
> strengthens the popular forces and prepares the ground
> for the overthrow of the Taliban. However, such a bloc
> is unlikely because the Taliban will not tolerate any
> armed force that is not under its control.
>
> In practice then, the defence of Afghanistan will have
> to be based upon an independent popular army that
> finds itself opposed to both imperialism and the
> Taliban (probably the Northern Alliance as well). The
> difficulties faced by such a movement after decades of
> defeats at the hands of invasions and wars forces us
> to recognise that even with strong material aid from
> workers internationally the decisive opposition to
> imperialism has to come from the working classes of
> the imperialist countries themselves.
>
> Thus when we call for the defence of Afghanistan we
> also call for the defeat of imperialism. What does
> this mean? It does not mean we force a back down from
> Bushes war and run the war under the legal authority
> of the UN!
>
> This is the humanist imperialist line of people like
> Noam Chomsky. Imperiaism is not bad politics that can
> be cleaned up by a radical mobilising of peaceloving
> people. Imperialism is a system of capitalist
> super-exploitation and oppression of poor countries in
> order to extract super-profits for the ruling class.
> It can no more be reformed by democrats than
> capitalists can be made to give away their profits to
> the poor.
>
> Imperialism is capitalism in its final stage of
> development when it destroys more and more of the
> potential to creat wealth than it actually creates. It
> is the epoch of wars and depressions because that is
> the only way the capitalism can survive  fighting to
> divide, conquer and exploit the remaining resources
> available. Not to be imperialist is to die.
>
> That is why Capitalism has exhausted its ability to
> mask its ruthless anarchy by means of democratic
> fictions and illusions. Today it is not possible to
> have peace with justice without a revolution. Peace
> can only come with the ending of capitalism. Just as
> imperialism has thrown down the gauntlett in its drive
> to a war on terrorism, the working class to survive
> must mobilise its own war, a class war to defeat
> imperialism.
>
> A class war against imperialism means breaking workers
> from patriotism and pacifism. Patriotism leads them to
> go and fight for the imperialists to conquer and
> exploit other nations. Pacifism leads workers to
> refuse to answer the violence of their own ruling
> class with their own class violence.
>
> To refuse to oppose imperialist violence with working
> class violence is to allow imperialism to win by
> default. Petty bourgeois pacifism has an interest in
> ensuring this imperialist victory because out of
> gratitude imperialism allows petty bourgeois
> bureaucrats, intellectuals and politicians a share of
> the colonial booty.
>
> But imperialism cannot fight a war if its working
> class strikes against production for war. It cannot
> fight a war if the ranks of the military mutiny
> against war. That is why we say that the tasks of
> revolutionaries is to turn imperialist war into civil
> war!
>
> For a Workers and Peasants State.
> http://www.geocities.com/communistworker/cs41.html
>
> ====> For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea":
> THR-AT-LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/
> THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/
> and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> Nokia Game is on again.
> Go to http://uk.yahoo.com/nokiagame/ and join the new
> all media adventure before November 3rd.
>
>
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