From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Hitchens in the ditch
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 20:03:25 -0500


I read the two articles in the Nation by Hitchens.  What crap!  Not that
Hitchens is wrong at every moment, but his starting point is not a
revolutionary or communist one by any stretch.  His starting point is
that the US can somehow make up for what it has done, what it has
fostered and can play a positive role in fighting regimes which are,
regardless of US involvement, reactionary in their own right.  AMAZING!
What national chauvinist drivel.  Should we line up behind the court of
the Hague to prosecute Milsevic, Noriega, Hussein, and bin Laden, only
to pretend that Bush, Blair, et al should not also be hung from a post?
Maybe someone can remind me who runs the Hague and the World Court??
What cupidity to think that we should take a side in this and ever
support anything done by any section of capital.

I am all for saying that the terrorists were reactionaries.  Of course.
They should be destroyed.  But do you send the Klan to kill a mass
murder?  Come on, is Darth Vader better than Jabba the Hut?????  Gain a
sense of perspective.  Our side is against both and can afford no
concessions to EITHER side.  And the dismissive attitude toards
globalization is shameless.  Each and every one of these I hear wants to
treat this brutal attack as separable from capital and global
recomposition and class struggle.  It isn't.  And if we are Marxists
(not all of us here are), then we better make an effort to see this as
connected to other things going on.

Sadly, for all of their limitations, the replies by Chomsky, et al at
www.zmag.com are basically correct in their take on Hitchens' patriotic
turn.

It may not offer immediate prospects for revenge or to make the Minority
World feel safe again, but our only recourse is working class
self-emancipation.



     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---