Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 22:46:17 +0200 (MET DST)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: Re: M-G: Marxism, Internationalism, Nationalism, and Social Ecology


Hello Reynaldo,

Some brief comments:


>Surely, there is room for Marxists to support green politics. 

No, not at all. "Green" politics, if taken to mean in the
sense of those parties which call themselves "green" - the
big bourgeois parties are only using them as an advance guard
- is completely reactionary. It uses *phoney* "environmental"
arguments to hit at industry and at the workers.

Naturally, the majority of people have an interest in a good
and not bad environment. However, one characteristic of
"green" politics, a main one even, is that it *violently
attacks* the extremely clean nuclear energy! This shows the
hypocracy of those who're behind it - and in part the ignorance
of the "footsoldiers" who are running their errands too.

 Read 
>Engels' *Dialectics of Nature*, not to mention passages about the 
>environment in Marx's *Das Capital*.
>
>Marxists fall into the metaphysical trap of having to side with the 
>capitalists-imperialists and therefore with environmentalism on one hand, 
>and to side with the workers in, say, Nigeria, and therefore with 
>nationalism and even anti-environmentalism.  This is an error.
>
>One, environmentalism is not the exclusive domain of imperialism.  Nor 
>should the working people be trapped into the imperialist hogwash of 
>environmentalism.  
>
>Two, there is nothing in common between the imperialists and their local 
>lackeys in Nigeria on one hand and the working people on the other hand.  
>The freon-filled aircon units made in Nigeria are for the surplus profits 
>of the imperialists and the bourgeoisie of Nigeria. 

So is every factory in every third-world country. And even the
very bread I eat, for instance, is produced for profit. This
doesn't mean that it has no negative consequences for ordinary
people when good and cheap methods of producing things are
being prohibited and impossibly expensive and complicated ones
substituted!

 Nigerian workers 
>should not be fooled into the "nationalist" arguments of making any 
>airconditionner as "they" wish, as Nigerian society is split into the 
>working class and the exploiting classes.  

Of course, in this you are right. I on my part did write:
"Let's support the *Nigerians* etc". But because Nigeria is
a third-world-country, it was not so inexact.Practically all
Nigerians have the same interests. The reactionary bourgeoisie
there is quite small.

>Three, this is not a case of Nigerians versus Western Europeans/North 
>Americans.  National societies are divided into antagonistic social 
>classes -- be they in Lagos, Stockholm, or Copenhagen.  
>
  How can we 
>reduce the size of the Ozone Hole by not producing products with freon in 
>the North but dump freons in the South?  

Because THERE IS NO OZONE HOLE it's NOT necesary to "reduce it" at all.
This "hole" is an imperialist hoax.


>3)  Workers of the world unite!  Have we forgotten Marx and Engels??????

I say: Proletarians of all countries and oppressed peoples,
unite! (the call put forward by Lenin in the imperialist period).

>Avoid metaphysical arguments.  

Yes! Let's check out whether there is an ozone hole or not!
The scientific arguments need to be looked at.

Uphold the dialectical materialist 
>understanding of history.  Workers' internationalism, national 
>liberation, and social ecology.

NOT that last thing, "social ecology". It's an imperialist hoax!

But I would need to explain this whole subject more in detail,
and show the motives of the reactionaries behind the hoaxes.

My above brief comments should not be taken as sufficient.
Let's discuss the matters further.

>Reynaldo Ty
>University of the Philippines
>(currently at Northern Illinois University)

Rolf M.



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