From: Spencer Leonard <secondasfarce@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] inside the Chapati Mystery
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 4:45 PM

 

As one who knows whereof he speaks, I would not waste your time with
the Chapati Mystery folks. As evident from their nasty and vulgar
commentary on Atiya's piece, they are really not worth engaging,
especially this Conrad character you've gotten yourself into dialogue
with. My council would be to abort.

On 12/14/09, Greg Gabrellas <flwrboi5000@ gmail.com> wrote:
> There is some discussion on Chapati Mystery (
> http://www.chapatim ystery.com/ archives/ noted/more_ failures. html) about Atiya
> Khan's recent article in the Platypus Review (
> http://platypus1917 .org/2009/ 12/06/the- poverty-of- pakistan% E2%80%99s- politics- ppp/
> );
>
> The owner of the blog, Manan Ahmed, recently appeared on Democracy Now to
> discuss the situation in Pakistan: http://www.democrac ynow.org/ 2009/5/7/ pak
>

In Search of Morale

Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?

By Bruce E. Levine

December 05, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- Can people become so broken that
truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but
instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in
the United States? Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how
we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in
the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further? What
forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S.
population? Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed
do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

YES. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses,
bosses, corporations, and governments stay in
control? They shove
lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims'
faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships,
they get weaker; and so the abuser then makes their victims eat even
more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as
they remain in these relationships.

Does the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in
these abuse syndromes? NO. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the
truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more
than embarrassing -- it can feel shameful; and there is nothing more
painful than shame. And when one already feels beaten down and
demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not
constructive action but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself
from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating
oppression is going to energize one to constructive
actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance
and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from
losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their
elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of
millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington D.C. protesting
this betrayal. 

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial
industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested any of
this. 

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which
Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also
the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the
disputed Florida vote was over-ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in
a
politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul
Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty
the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the
identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's
confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."
Yet, even all this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice.
Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how
they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have
allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more psychological way we
become even more broken. 

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same
reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses. They feel
helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get.
And ultimately to deal with the
painful humiliation over inaction in
the face of an oppressor, we move to shutdown and escape strategies
such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which
further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse
syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been
screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of
obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of
Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of
people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves more. Some
people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these
kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens
who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the
face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential
elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was fully
realizing that Americans were so broken that they could get away with
damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot
slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S.
population?

The U.S. government-corporat e partnership has used its share of guns
and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and
other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are
broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak
out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do
not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts
and fear of having no health insurance. 

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation
created by corporate-governmen tal
policies. A 2006 American
Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in
Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that 25 percent
of Americans did not have a single confidant in 2004 (10 percent of
Americans lacked a single confidant in 1985). Sociologist Robert
Putnam in Bowling Alone (2000) describes how social connectedness is
disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example,
there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with
neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic
entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by
governmental- corporate policies. And union activities and other formal
or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to
resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-governmen t partnership that has
rendered most of us out of control
when it comes to the basic
necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many
other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that
alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be
action-oriented- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people
that they can affect their surroundings- or not to bother? Do schools
provide examples of democratic institutions - or examples of
authoritarian ones? 

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey,
John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and
John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than
a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the
chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely
places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to
authorities
for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they
often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.
Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places
where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges
of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to
accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt. 

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted, "And it seems to
me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next
generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their
servitude." Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not
comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and
medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about
their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus
rendering them more compliant and manageable.


Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular
diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD
include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult
requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more
common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of
ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all
children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that
they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when
ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease"
goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest,
they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting
depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything - this is one reason
why the Soviet Empire
crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicaliz ing of
rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this
passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of
Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics
such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich)
compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of
Autocracy."

Television, Mander claimed, helps create all eight conditions for
breaking a population. Television: (1) occupies people so that they
don't know themselves-and what a human being is; (2) separates people
from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the
mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5)
encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself
produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food
and
Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription- drug
advertising) ; (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7)
eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and
(8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and
cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all
of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now,
damn near everything - not just organized religion -- has become
"opiates of the masses." 

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of
"citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and
selling within community strengthens that community and that this
strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While
citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a
kind of slavery, consumers get
excited with credit cards that offer a
temporarily low APR. 

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness,
socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating
people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea
that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are
their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths
about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets
them free is morale. 

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of
courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the
vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over
immobilization, more pain, and more shut down. 

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized
population are mental health
professionals- at least those who have not
rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft
of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health
professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in.
Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image,
spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritariani sm. But these are not
the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or
encourage. 

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often
create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously.
In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist
this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the Question & Answer
session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding
Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in
the audience asked Chomsky if he too
ever went through a phase of
hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . .

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel
hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the
chance that the human species will survive for another century,
probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of
all, those predictions don't mean anything-they' re more just a
reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if
you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen.
If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they
will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to
forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the
advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the
overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military
intervention in
Vietnam, Chomsky was one of the few U.S. citizens actively opposing
it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved
in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we
would ever have any effect. . . . So looking back, I think my
evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a
complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read." 

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are
either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist
"helpers" think they have done something useful by informing
overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their
caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been
broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have
become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather
the immobilized need a shot
of morale.

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is
Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy,
and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007).
His Web site is www.brucelevine. net

From: rer137@... <rer137@...>
Subject: [platypus1917] Fwd: Report on International Panel at U.S. Labor Against War
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, December 7, 2009, 9:52 PM

 

<<University of Chicago student Atiya Khan, moderator of
the international panel, posited that international
labor solidarity as part of a revitalized international
left movement is crucial to preventing future invasions
in the Middle East and saving Afghanistan and Pakistan
from being "failed states." Khan stressed the need for
an overarching leftist political analysis, something
she sees lacking in much of the international labor
movement currently.>>

-----Original Message-----
From: moderator@PORTSIDE. ORG
To: PORTSIDE@LISTS. PORTSIDE. ORG
Sent: Mon, Dec 7, 2009 10:12 pm
Subject: Report on International Panel at U.S. Labor Against War

Report on International Panel at U.S. Labor Against War

Iraq Oil Workers Union leader Hassan Juma'a Awad said
the union will fight to keep foreign companies from
unfairly exploiting his country's resources.

www.inthesetimes. com/working/ entry/5271/ international_ unionists_ and_war

CHICAGO—In Iran, trade unionists face imprisonment, or
even death, for organizing.. . And they are gearing up
for a huge round of lay-offs triggered by President
Ahmadinejad' s slashing of public subdidies.

In Pakistan, labor organizing is a challenge when
public attention is focused mostly on daily suicide
bombings and the struggle for a modicum of peace. It is
even harder for women labor leaders like Rubina Jamil,
who must contend with a patriarchal and feudal society
that expects women to stay in the home.

In Venezuela, trade unionists play a key role in
maintaining and promoting the political shift away from
U.S. hegemony in the region. Meanwhile energy sector
labor leaders like Toni Leon feel their industry makes
the country a target for oil-hungry foreign aggressors.

These were the messages during an international panel
at the U.S. Labor Against War national leadership
meeting in a Chicago suburb Monday.

The event featured top international unionists: All
Pakistan Trade Union Federation chair Rubina Jamil;
Toni Leon, secretary general of the Venezuelan Union of
Oil Industry Workers; Hassan Juma'a Awad, president of
the Iraq Oil Workers Union; and Homayoun Pourzad, a
leader of the Network of Iranian Labor Unions.

They described the complicated ways in which labor is
influenced by war, imperialism, repressive regimes and
internal ideological and political conflicts. They also
said labor must take a leadership role in avoiding or
resolving such situations, and noted disasters like the
Iraq war and the global economic crisis may actually
open new opportunities for labor organizing.

Leon's union is closely aligned with President Hugo
Chavez. He described their role largely as safeguarding
the country and its resources.

"We are in the eye of the storm," meaning a target for
multinational companies and other countries, "and the
people have decided to defend their own solidarity,"
Leon said. "Venezuela's revolutionary process
represents not only hope for the Venezuelan people but
for all Americans and people the world over that
another world is possible, that we can fight against
the multi-nationals, " he said.

In recent times, Chavez's anti-U.S. stance has included
fervently expressed solidarity with Iranian Preisident
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. After the panel, Iranian unionist
Pourzad said his main goal in coming to the Chicago
meeting was to tell Leon how this makes Iranian workers
feel. (Read a Middle East Report on Ahmadinjead' s
suppression of labor organizing here.)

"If it's a question of a common enemy, we understand
that. If it's a question of economic ties, we
understand that. But if Chavez has said Ahmadinejad is
a true revolutionary, this we do not understand."

Rather, Iranian workers see Ahmadinejad as a brutal
"petty dictator" who has ignored constitutional labor
rights and thrown unionists in solitary imprisonment
without charges. Because of this repression, Pourvad is
risking his life by speaking about labor organizing
internationally.

He said that while Ahmadinejad may be an enemy of the
U.S., his policies are fully reflective of neo-liberal
economic strategies of the IMF and World Trade
Organization that have gutted jobs and public benefits
worldwide. He said Ahmadinejad has already privatized
more than a third of public resources, with the bulk of
profit going to the Revolutionary Guards Corp and
corrupt elites rather than private companies but having
the same detrimental effect on the common good.

Pourvad said Iranians are expecting massive lay-offs
following Ahmadinejad' s slashing of public subsidies
for gas, transportation, bakeries and other goods in
January. This is part of a five-year "economic reform"
plan announced last year to basically dismantle a
public subsidy program that Pourvad calls the working
class's only victory from the 1979 Iranian revolution.

"My country will be in the news big time really soon,"
Pourvad said. "Once subsidies are cut the factories
won't be able to afford utility bills. They won't be
able to keep workers on board..." He said the lay-offs
could bolster labor organizing. "I don't know if it's a
blessing or a curse."

Leon promised to take the message about Ahmadinejad
back to Venezuelan leadership.

Meanwhile Jamil said extremists and terrorists in
Pakistan have made it harder for union organizing,
"creating a lot of hindrance among the working class."
She said union membership is declining rapidly, as
Pakistanis live in fear of suicide bombings and U.S.
drone attacks. But she lauded her organization for
moving forward with organizing with a strong underlying
political message and a focus on women's leadership.
She is also president of the affiliated Pakistan
Working Women Organization.

"We are saying that women's problems are workers'
problems, and women's rights are human rights," she
said.

Awad said he is "holding the U.S. government
accountable" for the sectarian strife and violence in
Iraq, saying they never had these problems to such an
extent before. But he said Iraqi workers distinguish
between the U.S. government and the American people.
Aaron Hughes of Iraq Veterans Against the War described
visiting Iraq to apologize for the war, and receiving
an embrace from Awad in front of hundreds of unionists.

Awad blasted policies instituted since the U.S.
invasion that have facilitated foreign investment in
the oil sector, and said the union must protect its
resources from deals that don't serve the Iraqi people.
He called for all foreign investments to be approved by
a democratically elected Iraqi parliament.

"If they don't respect that, we're ready and willing to
kick these companies out of Iraq," he said.

A Chicago-based Iraqi journalist in the audience
countered that "the Iraqi parliament are not
necessarily decent people with the ability to build a
new Iraq"—a point Awad acknowledged.

Awad also decried the fact that even as the Ba'athist
system has been largely dismantled, Ba'athist laws
banning unionism were left intact.

University of Chicago student Atiya Khan, moderator of
the international panel, posited that international
labor solidarity as part of a revitalized international
left movement is crucial to preventing future invasions
in the Middle East and saving Afghanistan and Pakistan
from being "failed states." Khan stressed the need for
an overarching leftist political analysis, something
she sees lacking in much of the international labor
movement currently.

The unionists said the U.S. Labor Against the War
conference gave them hope as they returned to difficult
situations in their own countries. Pourzad called the
international labor solidarity he experienced in
Chicago an example of the "globalization from below
that's really needed in the world right now."

Posted by Kari Lydersen

____________ _________ _________ _________ ______

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to people on the left that will help them to
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From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:52 PM

 

It doesn't change the course of things or present some new political challenge, per se. And it doesn't matter if Obama is more or less sincere, more or less eager to win, blah, blah, blah. But of course! That was my point, as well. Sure. At some point there will be some kind of resolve that will remove the issue from any electoral agenda. Even now, while the latest military campaigns and related debates may be big news buzz and what-not, expressions of support or resistance to the war do little more than indirectly increase cable news advertising revenue and blog postings. A stance toward the war in Afghanistan will not fund any kind of substantial politics. But in some real sense, it is still consequential. That is, it matters and it doesn't. The contradictions need to be acknowledged, not dismissed. --- On Sat, 12/5/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:23 PM   My point is that the issue of "(anti-)imperialism " is fundamentally disorienting for the "Left" and makes it a slave to the (pseudo-)"politics" of bourgeois/capitalis t "policy." I don't think that Obama is going to make a more "determined" effort in Afghanistan than Bush & co. did. The Republicans might be right about Obama ceding Afghanistan to the Taliban. Or Obama might be sincere that he's more "determined" to win that Bush & co. were. Who knows? (Who cares?) I think Obama will define/declare "victory," cut losses, and get out. Afghanistan will then just rot like the rest of the Third World, but it will be off the electoral agenda in the U.S. But so what? Does this make his policy less "imperialist" than Bush's? Even if the U.S. were not invading/occupying anywhere it wouldn't change a thing. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:14 PM   The U.S. doesn't need to take over the world - the world is already taken over by global capital. Such a point seems in accord with what you have just submitted, nonetheless. Indeed I think it is possible to be in agreement with your latest entry, while continuing to object with regard to the notion that something like a more sincere or focused approach (?) on the part of the U.S. to carry out the latest war effort is good for anybody. You have not brought any greater clarity or persuasive content to that particular point. It is also not paranoid for example to find credible the reports on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan as not officially acknowledged, i.e. "secret," not accountable in any way. This is business as usual in some sense, though it doesn't need to be understood as neo-colonial to be soberly and realistically seen as fucked up. Enough with all this tired relativism. --- On Sat, 12/5/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:25 AM   I think that imagining that the U.S. is trying to take over the world is due to a mistaken imagination of social realities. It is not neo-colonialism, or what-have-you. If 9/11 had not happened the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan. If Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would not have subjected Iraq to a sanctions regime and then invaded and occupied it. I don't think there are secret intentions or nefarious plots (other than the usual). I think that for most paranoia substitutes for analysis, and wishful thinking (including nightmarish fantasies) for political perspectives. I think we need to struggle against this and try to adopt a sober view of reality. The U.S. is not like the European powers in the 19th century trying to grab up as much territory (against each other) as possible. But, anyway, my whole point was that this was not what was meant originally by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky about "imperialism. " This keeps getting lost. Perhaps it's because no one but me really cares about the historical issues or about trying to get a better handle on the relationship between capitalism and "foreign policy" today but are happy to just let slipshod metaphors work instead. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:02 AM   Sorry to step into this a bit late, but I'm kind of at a loss here. Maybe I missed part of the conversation, but how exactly would it be "better for all concerned if the US were trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is" - come again Chris? Are we just waiting for Obama to get better military advice, allocations and what-not to really give 'em the 21st century Rambo treatment? Excuse me if it seems I'm being obtuse, but if no previous attempts for a military take-over (the USSR being the most recent and salient example) had not been anything but defeated/exhausted (with a far more straightforward and fully-funded effort), then how will the US come up with some better outcome? How is this any different than Bush in Iraq? How is it not simply a tragic waste? Regardless of that fact that any real deviation from this militaristic mania would not necessarily lead in its place to some substantially better use of the (borrowed) resources, it does not follow that supporting the lesser evil (of sorts?) makes any sense. Did I miss the pep rally? Ra ra ra. Maybe Obama will really get Bin Laden and vanquish the terrorist threat once and for all. (As if...hello?) I'm not saying you're advocating this, but just what is the point? One thing that remains the same: war profiteering proceeds full throttle. Maybe they just need more private militia and other commercial concerns to step up their involvement. Ya think? Sorry. I'm not trying to be cute. I genuinely don't get it. Or maybe the point is to be as outrageous as possible in beating down the "imperialist" question? I understand how charges of imperialism and attendant arguments are being used by the pseudo-left in retrograde and ultimately distorting or obfuscating terms. (I too have seen this stuff play out first-hand.) At the same time, I'm not sure I can follow the point to this kind of "logical" conclusion, which starts to come off as simply and (forgive me) idiotically contrarian. Whether or not there is any real leftist or any other kind of viable force offering a true alternative (as well as helping to define "imperialism" (?) or whatever), where exactly does this leave us? Rooting for Obama? Go ahead on with Clusterfuck Phase III, Mr. President! (Or is it IV?) Please clarify.  - Stephanie --- On Thu, 12/3/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM   No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris

From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:23 PM

 

My point is that the issue of "(anti-)imperialism " is fundamentally disorienting for the "Left" and makes it a slave to the (pseudo-)"politics" of bourgeois/capitalis t "policy." I don't think that Obama is going to make a more "determined" effort in Afghanistan than Bush & co. did. The Republicans might be right about Obama ceding Afghanistan to the Taliban. Or Obama might be sincere that he's more "determined" to win that Bush & co. were. Who knows? (Who cares?) I think Obama will define/declare "victory," cut losses, and get out. Afghanistan will then just rot like the rest of the Third World, but it will be off the electoral agenda in the U.S. But so what? Does this make his policy less "imperialist" than Bush's? Even if the U.S. were not invading/occupying anywhere it wouldn't change a thing. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:14 PM   The U.S. doesn't need to take over the world - the world is already taken over by global capital. Such a point seems in accord with what you have just submitted, nonetheless. Indeed I think it is possible to be in agreement with your latest entry, while continuing to object with regard to the notion that something like a more sincere or focused approach (?) on the part of the U.S. to carry out the latest war effort is good for anybody. You have not brought any greater clarity or persuasive content to that particular point. It is also not paranoid for example to find credible the reports on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan as not officially acknowledged, i.e. "secret," not accountable in any way. This is business as usual in some sense, though it doesn't need to be understood as neo-colonial to be soberly and realistically seen as fucked up. Enough with all this tired relativism. --- On Sat, 12/5/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:25 AM   I think that imagining that the U.S. is trying to take over the world is due to a mistaken imagination of social realities. It is not neo-colonialism, or what-have-you. If 9/11 had not happened the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan. If Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would not have subjected Iraq to a sanctions regime and then invaded and occupied it. I don't think there are secret intentions or nefarious plots (other than the usual). I think that for most paranoia substitutes for analysis, and wishful thinking (including nightmarish fantasies) for political perspectives. I think we need to struggle against this and try to adopt a sober view of reality. The U.S. is not like the European powers in the 19th century trying to grab up as much territory (against each other) as possible. But, anyway, my whole point was that this was not what was meant originally by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky about "imperialism. " This keeps getting lost. Perhaps it's because no one but me really cares about the historical issues or about trying to get a better handle on the relationship between capitalism and "foreign policy" today but are happy to just let slipshod metaphors work instead. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:02 AM   Sorry to step into this a bit late, but I'm kind of at a loss here. Maybe I missed part of the conversation, but how exactly would it be "better for all concerned if the US were trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is" - come again Chris? Are we just waiting for Obama to get better military advice, allocations and what-not to really give 'em the 21st century Rambo treatment? Excuse me if it seems I'm being obtuse, but if no previous attempts for a military take-over (the USSR being the most recent and salient example) had not been anything but defeated/exhausted (with a far more straightforward and fully-funded effort), then how will the US come up with some better outcome? How is this any different than Bush in Iraq? How is it not simply a tragic waste? Regardless of that fact that any real deviation from this militaristic mania would not necessarily lead in its place to some substantially better use of the (borrowed) resources, it does not follow that supporting the lesser evil (of sorts?) makes any sense. Did I miss the pep rally? Ra ra ra. Maybe Obama will really get Bin Laden and vanquish the terrorist threat once and for all. (As if...hello?) I'm not saying you're advocating this, but just what is the point? One thing that remains the same: war profiteering proceeds full throttle. Maybe they just need more private militia and other commercial concerns to step up their involvement. Ya think? Sorry. I'm not trying to be cute. I genuinely don't get it. Or maybe the point is to be as outrageous as possible in beating down the "imperialist" question? I understand how charges of imperialism and attendant arguments are being used by the pseudo-left in retrograde and ultimately distorting or obfuscating terms. (I too have seen this stuff play out first-hand.) At the same time, I'm not sure I can follow the point to this kind of "logical" conclusion, which starts to come off as simply and (forgive me) idiotically contrarian. Whether or not there is any real leftist or any other kind of viable force offering a true alternative (as well as helping to define "imperialism" (?) or whatever), where exactly does this leave us? Rooting for Obama? Go ahead on with Clusterfuck Phase III, Mr. President! (Or is it IV?) Please clarify.  - Stephanie --- On Thu, 12/3/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM   No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris

From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:14 PM

 

The U.S. doesn't need to take over the world - the world is already taken over by global capital. Such a point seems in accord with what you have just submitted, nonetheless. Indeed I think it is possible to be in agreement with your latest entry, while continuing to object with regard to the notion that something like a more sincere or focused approach (?) on the part of the U.S. to carry out the latest war effort is good for anybody. You have not brought any greater clarity or persuasive content to that particular point. It is also not paranoid for example to find credible the reports on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan as not officially acknowledged, i.e. "secret," not accountable in any way. This is business as usual in some sense, though it doesn't need to be understood as neo-colonial to be soberly and realistically seen as fucked up. Enough with all this tired relativism. --- On Sat, 12/5/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:25 AM   I think that imagining that the U.S. is trying to take over the world is due to a mistaken imagination of social realities. It is not neo-colonialism, or what-have-you. If 9/11 had not happened the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan. If Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would not have subjected Iraq to a sanctions regime and then invaded and occupied it. I don't think there are secret intentions or nefarious plots (other than the usual). I think that for most paranoia substitutes for analysis, and wishful thinking (including nightmarish fantasies) for political perspectives. I think we need to struggle against this and try to adopt a sober view of reality. The U.S. is not like the European powers in the 19th century trying to grab up as much territory (against each other) as possible. But, anyway, my whole point was that this was not what was meant originally by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky about "imperialism. " This keeps getting lost. Perhaps it's because no one but me really cares about the historical issues or about trying to get a better handle on the relationship between capitalism and "foreign policy" today but are happy to just let slipshod metaphors work instead. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:02 AM   Sorry to step into this a bit late, but I'm kind of at a loss here. Maybe I missed part of the conversation, but how exactly would it be "better for all concerned if the US were trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is" - come again Chris? Are we just waiting for Obama to get better military advice, allocations and what-not to really give 'em the 21st century Rambo treatment? Excuse me if it seems I'm being obtuse, but if no previous attempts for a military take-over (the USSR being the most recent and salient example) had not been anything but defeated/exhausted (with a far more straightforward and fully-funded effort), then how will the US come up with some better outcome? How is this any different than Bush in Iraq? How is it not simply a tragic waste? Regardless of that fact that any real deviation from this militaristic mania would not necessarily lead in its place to some substantially better use of the (borrowed) resources, it does not follow that supporting the lesser evil (of sorts?) makes any sense. Did I miss the pep rally? Ra ra ra. Maybe Obama will really get Bin Laden and vanquish the terrorist threat once and for all. (As if...hello?) I'm not saying you're advocating this, but just what is the point? One thing that remains the same: war profiteering proceeds full throttle. Maybe they just need more private militia and other commercial concerns to step up their involvement. Ya think? Sorry. I'm not trying to be cute. I genuinely don't get it. Or maybe the point is to be as outrageous as possible in beating down the "imperialist" question? I understand how charges of imperialism and attendant arguments are being used by the pseudo-left in retrograde and ultimately distorting or obfuscating terms. (I too have seen this stuff play out first-hand.) At the same time, I'm not sure I can follow the point to this kind of "logical" conclusion, which starts to come off as simply and (forgive me) idiotically contrarian. Whether or not there is any real leftist or any other kind of viable force offering a true alternative (as well as helping to define "imperialism" (?) or whatever), where exactly does this leave us? Rooting for Obama? Go ahead on with Clusterfuck Phase III, Mr. President! (Or is it IV?) Please clarify.  - Stephanie --- On Thu, 12/3/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM   No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris

From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:25 AM

 

I think that imagining that the U.S. is trying to take over the world is due to a mistaken imagination of social realities. It is not neo-colonialism, or what-have-you. If 9/11 had not happened the U.S. would not be in Afghanistan. If Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, the U.S. would not have subjected Iraq to a sanctions regime and then invaded and occupied it. I don't think there are secret intentions or nefarious plots (other than the usual). I think that for most paranoia substitutes for analysis, and wishful thinking (including nightmarish fantasies) for political perspectives. I think we need to struggle against this and try to adopt a sober view of reality. The U.S. is not like the European powers in the 19th century trying to grab up as much territory (against each other) as possible. But, anyway, my whole point was that this was not what was meant originally by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky about "imperialism. " This keeps getting lost. Perhaps it's because no one but me really cares about the historical issues or about trying to get a better handle on the relationship between capitalism and "foreign policy" today but are happy to just let slipshod metaphors work instead. -- Chris --- On Sat, 12/5/09, S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> wrote: From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@yahoo. com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:02 AM   Sorry to step into this a bit late, but I'm kind of at a loss here. Maybe I missed part of the conversation, but how exactly would it be "better for all concerned if the US were trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is" - come again Chris? Are we just waiting for Obama to get better military advice, allocations and what-not to really give 'em the 21st century Rambo treatment? Excuse me if it seems I'm being obtuse, but if no previous attempts for a military take-over (the USSR being the most recent and salient example) had not been anything but defeated/exhausted (with a far more straightforward and fully-funded effort), then how will the US come up with some better outcome? How is this any different than Bush in Iraq? How is it not simply a tragic waste? Regardless of that fact that any real deviation from this militaristic mania would not necessarily lead in its place to some substantially better use of the (borrowed) resources, it does not follow that supporting the lesser evil (of sorts?) makes any sense. Did I miss the pep rally? Ra ra ra. Maybe Obama will really get Bin Laden and vanquish the terrorist threat once and for all. (As if...hello?) I'm not saying you're advocating this, but just what is the point? One thing that remains the same: war profiteering proceeds full throttle. Maybe they just need more private militia and other commercial concerns to step up their involvement. Ya think? Sorry. I'm not trying to be cute. I genuinely don't get it. Or maybe the point is to be as outrageous as possible in beating down the "imperialist" question? I understand how charges of imperialism and attendant arguments are being used by the pseudo-left in retrograde and ultimately distorting or obfuscating terms. (I too have seen this stuff play out first-hand.) At the same time, I'm not sure I can follow the point to this kind of "logical" conclusion, which starts to come off as simply and (forgive me) idiotically contrarian. Whether or not there is any real leftist or any other kind of viable force offering a true alternative (as well as helping to define "imperialism" (?) or whatever), where exactly does this leave us? Rooting for Obama? Go ahead on with Clusterfuck Phase III, Mr. President! (Or is it IV?) Please clarify.  - Stephanie --- On Thu, 12/3/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM   No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris

From: S.A. Karamitsos <doctor8sak@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 11:02 AM

 

Sorry to step into this a bit late, but I'm kind of at a loss here. Maybe I missed part of the conversation, but how exactly would it be "better for all concerned if the US were trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is" - come again Chris? Are we just waiting for Obama to get better military advice, allocations and what-not to really give 'em the 21st century Rambo treatment? Excuse me if it seems I'm being obtuse, but if no previous attempts for a military take-over (the USSR being the most recent and salient example) had not been anything but defeated/exhausted (with a far more straightforward and fully-funded effort), then how will the US come up with some better outcome? How is this any different than Bush in Iraq? How is it not simply a tragic waste? Regardless of that fact that any real deviation from this militaristic mania would not necessarily lead in its place to some substantially better use of the (borrowed) resources, it does not follow that supporting the lesser evil (of sorts?) makes any sense. Did I miss the pep rally? Ra ra ra. Maybe Obama will really get Bin Laden and vanquish the terrorist threat once and for all. (As if...hello?) I'm not saying you're advocating this, but just what is the point? One thing that remains the same: war profiteering proceeds full throttle. Maybe they just need more private militia and other commercial concerns to step up their involvement. Ya think? Sorry. I'm not trying to be cute. I genuinely don't get it. Or maybe the point is to be as outrageous as possible in beating down the "imperialist" question? I understand how charges of imperialism and attendant arguments are being used by the pseudo-left in retrograde and ultimately distorting or obfuscating terms. (I too have seen this stuff play out first-hand.) At the same time, I'm not sure I can follow the point to this kind of "logical" conclusion, which starts to come off as simply and (forgive me) idiotically contrarian. Whether or not there is any real leftist or any other kind of viable force offering a true alternative (as well as helping to define "imperialism" (?) or whatever), where exactly does this leave us? Rooting for Obama? Go ahead on with Clusterfuck Phase III, Mr. President! (Or is it IV?) Please clarify.  - Stephanie --- On Thu, 12/3/09, Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> wrote: From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM   No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris

From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@...>
Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism?"
To: platypus1917@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:17 PM

 

No! The U.S. is not in fact trying to "take over" Afghanistan the way the U.S.S.R. was trying to do. In fact, not only was the U.S.S.R. trying to take over Afghanistan more than the U.S. ever would, but it would be better for all concerned if the U.S. *were* trying to take over Afghanistan more than it is! The U.S. is not trying to exert any more control over Afghanistan than it tries to do over any other country -- including the other core capitalist countries such as Britain, Japan, Germany, etc., which it also tries very much to "control" -- and thank God for that! -- Chris --- On Thu, 12/3/09, rer137@... <rer137@...> wrote: From: rer137@... <rer137@...> Subject: Re: [platypus1917] "imperialism? " To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 5:00 PM   The concept of "imperialism" here is posed in a liberal/moralistic and to my mind quite un-Marxist way. If "imperialism" simply meant direct control--taking over countries--then as an issue it would long ago have lost its saliency. Of course, the US wants to "control" Afghanistan in the same way that the USSR wanted to "control" it. The difference lies in the sociological character--" class basis"--of the two states which has direct empirical consequences. As such, the Sparts supported one attempt by a large, powerful country to "take over" another and opposed the other attempt. The intelligence of the Sparts came from their refusing to think of imperialism in terms of strong countries dominating weak countries, but rather in "class" terms. As such the popular Islamist resistance to the Soviet takeover was they thought the ACTUAL IMPERIALISM. The logic of opposing the US in Afghanistan even when the US is fighting the same reactionaries it was supporting against the Soviet Union, is that the US is INHERENTLY the greatest enemy of the Left on a world scale. Now a rational response to this is to simply claim that it is untrue. That now perhaps in a politically disintegrated world Al Qaeda say getting nuclear weapons is a greater danger, for example. i.e. that a "class analysis" no longer suffices. But I do not think it helps to simply caricature the position of others who disagree, particularly those whose disagreement is most rooted in principle. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Cutrone <schwartzweiss@ yahoo.com> To: platypus1917@ yahoogroups. com Sent: Thu, Dec 3, 2009 3:28 pm Subject: [platypus1917] "imperialism? "   If residents of a housing project that is crime- and rat-infested and decaying, and who have no ability to repair, let alone expand or rebuild it, are blown up by homeless people, in a sneak-attack, claiming that the existence of the housing project is an affront to their religion, and the housing project residents, some of whom are employed, and some of whom "richer" than others, send out a search-and-destroy mission, comprised of otherwise unemployed people, to root out the culprits among the homeless so that another attack doesn't take place, is this "imperialism? " This is in fact the world we live in today. The U.S. is not trying in any way to "take over" Afghanistan (or even Iraq). It is a lie to say so, and a self-serving delusion at that, which gets in the way of recognizing the true horror. If the U.S. and the British and Europeans, et al. after the 9/11, Madrid, Bali and London 7/7 "Tube" attacks (and Northeast Africa embassy bombings and Mumbai attacks!) occupy Afghanistan to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban, how is this "imperialism? " How are the NATO powers trying to *gain* anything or expand themselves through invading and occupying Afghanistan? Of course Obama et al. want to get out Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We must pay attention to the real world and its real actors, what they are actually trying to do and how they are trying to do it. The concept of "imperialism" as used by Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky meant something very specific, the ripeness of the core capitalist countries for proletarian socialist revolution, or, as Lenin put it the "highest stage of capitalism." The point is that we are no longer in any meaningful -- that is, *pre-revolutionary* -- sense living in the "highest" stage of capitalism. In the coffee break discussion yesterday at UChicago, the question of Afghanistan was raised, and I used the recent civil war(s) in the Congo as a counter-example. Why does no one talk about the Congo in terms of "imperialism? " The European state powers as well as European mercenaries and civilian companies are very much involved and complicit, indeed culpable actors in the Congo. So how come no one talks about "imperialism" there, when the case could be made much more easily in (*pseudo*-)" Marxist" ("economic interest") terms? Because the Congo is not a controversy for the bourgeois politics of the European states, but just "business as usual." In the U.S., by contrast, the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, though not motivated (relative to the Europeans in the Congo, for example) by "economic interests," are quite controversial in bourgeois politics. There is a real discussion of "why we are there," etc. So it is perverse that it is the U.S. and its policies that are vilified as "imperialist, " when the metaphor needs to be stretched beyond recognition to characterize them so, whereas the "business as usual" grind of brutalization in the rest of the Third World goes without much comment. The point is that Iraq and Afghanistan would be just as subject to "imperialism" in the true Marxist sense regardless of whether they were ever invaded and occupied (by the U.S.). The invasions and occupations do not make this truth of global capital more but actually less apparent and clear. To call their invasions and occupations a result of "imperialism" is to deceive people about the world, not enlighten them. The point is that places like Iraq and Afghanistan need "imperialism" (the power of global capital) to be exerted over them *more*, not less so! Those who try to apply LLT's concept of "imperialism" to address problems in the present are engaged in deception, nothing less, and nothing else. We must say so precisely because we think authentic Marxism could be actually meaningful and so cannot afford to be accepted in its forgery -- and travesty! -- Chris