RE: [A-List] The end of NATO?

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect writes:

The "progressive" bourgeoisie 
is a treacherous ally. In the name of political democracy, it attacks 
social democracy. 

<snip>

The Tony Blairs and George W. Bushes of 
the world are every bit as dangerous as Hitler or Mussolini. Despite 
the democracy at home, they rule through an iron fist in the colonial 
world. When poor people rebel, they use rockets and bombs against 
them . When that appears to fail, they look to nuclear weapons. We 
are in a state of extreme danger.

=====

I'm in broad agreement with this analysis, barring a few quibbles re
popular fronts and the like. Indeed, I think one of the most promising
(perhaps even essential) developments for left politics is establishing
common ground with those elements of the green movement that can
accommodate this sort of analysis. In other words, not the pitiful
social democratic-green coalitions that we have seen in Germany and
France (where Green presidential candidate Alain Lipietz was ditched for
daring to suggest an amnesty for Corsican separatists). Rather, along
the lines being developed by the likes of John Bellamy Foster, James
O'Connor and Paul Burkett. Sadly there is division among these fine
citizens, as Louis highlighted a few months ago. However, whatever the
limitations of the main protagonists, as a means of political
mobilisation that is truly internationalist, the red-green alliance is a
promising development, in the longer term.

In the short term, no question about the danger we are in, despite the
atmosphere of unreality in which most of us in the prosperous north go
about our daily lives. The green movement in general is unlikely to be a
source of much opposition to current developments, notwithstanding a few
more perceptive radicals within it. The onus is upon the older type of
popular front to stand up against imperialism. And here, of course, it
doesn't look so promising, given the trashing that the labour movement
has received in Britain over the last 20 years and the rather
introverted nature of continental European labour movements, exemplified
by the PCF in France, together with the rightward shift of social
democracy, and its active support for imperialism (barring some
honourable exceptions). Nevertheless, there remains a strong current of
dissent in the public space, at least in Europe, where leaders are able
to tolerate the likes of John Pilger and Paul Foot because of their own
queasiness regarding US unilateralism and its blowback consequences. The
burden of responsibility is upon activists within the EU, given the
space available relative to that in the US, where "patriotism" is
conveniently suffocating most public criticism, in addition to other
forms of state repression.

Michael