From: Tahir Wood 
To: rad-green@lists.econ.utah.edu 
Subject: Re: [R-G] anti-war agitation and (1) the labor aristocracy,(2) socialism
Date: Monday, October 08, 2001 3:32 AM

Wonderful post comrade, a few comments below.

>>> left-transparency@Leninism.org 10/08/01 10:12AM >>>
  US imperialism will be overthrown by the  _i_n_t_e_r_n_a_l_
_f_a_c_t_o_r_  --by the actions of its working class--in alliance
with the struggles of the working class and peoples of the rest
of the world.  The labor aristocracy will move to the left at
precisely that moment when large sections of serious activists
conclude that the labor aristocracy is part of the enemy camp.

Tahir: Unfortunately the left, such as it is in the country you 
are referring to seems to be riddled with a disease known as 
"third-worldism". It is a kind of weird offshoot of Leninist 
thinking. It says something like this: "Oh well we despair 
about ever making a revolution against Uncle Sam ourselves, 
so let's support all the othe nations in the world that are 
oppressed and at least then we'll feel better about ourselves. 
They might even make our revolution for us through something 
called 'anti-imperialism'." The fact is that while the 
energies of these leftists there go into a futile struggle 
against American foreign policy the clock is ticking. We 
need a worldwide antti-capitalist movement now.

Barry's comment reveals an ideological similarity between a
section of the progressive movement in a country like the US--and
the fanatical Arab nationalist reactionaries who murdered
thousands of people last month in New York.  Barry himself is a
sincere activist and I respect him.  But the _ideology_ here is
poison.  If we cannot see that the overthrow of US imperialism is
a task for the working class in the US--we will never be able to
tell the workers in the US the bitter truth that they need to
hear.

Tahir: Loud and clear comrade.

And that brings the focus to the last topic: the need to talk
about the alternative to bourgeois rule.

Tahir: Beware this is regarded as the "infantile disorder" 
that you are broaching now!

snip.....
 The current war is confusing to many activists because it is a
war of US imperialism against a radical Islamic
fundamentalism--which is a variety of reactionary Arab
nationalism.  Reactionary Arab nationalism is a form of
anti-imperialism.  But it is the anti-imperialism of fools in a
similar way as the nazi movement was the socialism of fools.

Tahir: I sincerely hope you will contribute more to this debate. 
I believe that the turn towards supporting reactionary movements 
in the third world, AS WELL AS your point about engagement with 
the labour aristocracy in a kind of Social democratic alliance, 
is a sign of defeatism on the part of the Western and American 
left in particular. I think the people that we are engaging with 
here don't really believe in anti-capitalist revolution anymore. 
But if it doesn't happen in the US it's not going to happen 
anywhere successfully. Your points about what the alternative 
to bourgeois society will be is obviously a huge topic, but one 
finds very few who are willing to discuss it. The idea that 
propping up reactionary third world regimes is some kind of 
waystation on the road to a communist future has many adherents 
on this list, even though there is nothing of any evidential 
nature to support such a view. 

Tahir


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