Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 07:57:32 +0000
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: Re: M-I: Imperialist war preparations


Thanks to Carrol and to Gary for their frank comments. And also to the
subscriber who wrote to me privately as below, which is I think an
important point of view.

It highlights the difficulty for these lists in linking theory with practice. 

The structure is essentially a network, certainly not democratic
centralist. That is terrible for taking any decisions. On the other hand
representatives of democratic centralist organisations in the long haul do
rather badly on these lists, because they get bogged down in detailed
reasoned argument, orforced to defend everything about their organisation.

I think we have to face up to the plurality of our present political
situation. It is too complex to have just one correct centralised
organisation in any one country, let alone the world. A network can
facilitate communication however. But we need to think consciously how to
promote this.

What I had hoped from my post was some information fed in, not from the
busiest writers necessarily, about coalitions of activity that are taking
up opposition to present events.
There is no reason why the subscribers from New York themselves should be
spending much time discussing with leaders of the reformed Jewish
community, but I wondered if there were some straws in the wind, because
anything that weakens the power of the zionist lobby on US imperialist
policy, may be valuable.

Since I wrote my post, typically the situation has got more complex. War is
not so imminent. The players know that Hussein is making this move to
expose the current limitations on US power, especially because of its
backing of garrison Israel. The sort of compromise being touted, about
making the inspection team more international is a move towards more of a
global civil society, and in the short term, people may not pour onto the
streets against imperialist policies, but there should still be more than
enough room for various progressive coalitions.

BTW I agree with Gary about his instinctive reservations about the Labour
Government's declarations in favour of peace backed by war. One of the
responsible and sober achievements of the very first Labour government in
Britain, was sending in the RAF to bomb Iraqi villages. I do not remember
the details, but no doubt it was in the name of peace.


Chris Burford

London.

>On Sun, 16 Nov 1997, Chris Burford wrote:
>
>> Clinton, Blair and Saddam Hussein all have an interest in promoting the
>> possibility of war in Iraq, for domestic reasons. Have I missed discussion
>> of this on m-international?
>> 
>> Is the silence because we think that Hussein's human rights record is so
>> bad that we do not know which side to be on? Is it another re-rerun of the
>> common pattern now that a US led coalition appears to be supporting the
>> imposition of liberal democratic standards on other countries, and the left
>> does not know how to respond.
>
>     There is silence because the list is filled with cowardly academic 
>types who just like to talk about Marxism and fill cyberspace with their 
>pointless chatter.
>     I and seven other people held signs for rush hour traffic at 
>the Federal building in downtown Honolulu, with slogans such as "U.S. 
>Hands off Iraq", "No more bombings", "Lift the Sanctions", "Sanctions 
>have caused the deaths of a million Iraqis", and so forth.  Tomorrow 
>(Monday), there will be demonstrations in NY, LA, and later on in the 
>week in SF and other cities around the U.S.  So we here in little 
>Honolulu got a jump on everybody else.   We'll be having a "day after" 
>demonstration if the U.S. bombs.  I held a sign which read "When does 
>Iraq get to inspect U.S. chemical weapons?"
>     Sorry to distract you from your oh-so-important Marxist 
>discussions.  Have a nice day.




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