Re: AUT: report from Argentina

[Scott Hamilton <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just to clarify, when I referred to 'support for the
FBI' I meant Thiago's statement that 'we need the FBI'
to expose the machinations of the Indonesian army. In
the space of a few posts Thiago has moved from support
for the 1999 invasion of East Timor as an isolated
phenomenon to support for Australian and US foreign
policy whenever it seems to undermine Indonesia's
military. I don't see why we can trust any piece of
information that the FBI puts out about Indonesia, let
alone take it as an authority.

How about 'appeals to a global elite' to act
progressively? This is a quote from the Michael Hardt
article posted here and defended by Harald. Thiago
claims that

"Appeals to the global > ruling elite" means
recognising that popular > struggle can force
concessions,

In fact, Hardt was doing nothing of the sort. He was
appealing to the self-interest of, for example,
multinational companies and IMF. Like Kautsky with his
theory of ultra-imperialism in the First World War,
Hardt is 'hey, fellas, war is actually bad for
business - drop it'.

I notice that Thiagovacillates between insisting that
imperialism can act proressively under popular
pressure, ie the protests that supposedly forced
troops into East Timor in 1999, and that the US and
Aussie can sometimes act progressively without any
discernable pressure. Where were the mobilisations of
the left forcing Australia's post-Bali intervention to

take a progressive character? Where is the pressure
that forces the FBI to play a partly progressive role,
in the short-term at least, in Irian Jaya?

Why is the Situationist article on Argentina
ridiculous? What it does is show that the ideology of
what we might call 'cultural revolution' - the idea,
sometimes found for instance amongst anarcho-punks,
that certain changes of lifestyle (diet, clothing,
shopping etc) can be revolutionary - has no relevance
to a real revolutionary situation. In Argentina we
have dual power, but people still like soccer and TV.
Shit, what a shock. So either there is a revolutionary
situation, or else Situationism is kaput. The
Situationist opts for the latter conclusion. If he
wanted his claims to be taken seriously he would have
to show that soccer is, for instance, weakening the
organs of dual power. His only explicit objection to
soccer is that it is a Western phenomenon, so it
wasn't unfair for me to point out that this is largely
untrue. The broader point is that liking a sport does
not make you a victim of capitalist ideology, and
accomplice to counter-revolution. Sport is a pretty
complex and various phenomenon. Let's remember that
the first mass mutiny of the First World War took the
form of a Xmas day soccer match between German and
Allied troops.

Tom M has now made three posts in reply to me without
making a single political point. I don't mind if he
insults me, as long as he also says something of
substance. I have no idea what his criticisms are on
any of the arguments I've made over East Timor and
over the Situationist's take on Argentina.

Cheers
Scott




=====
"Revolution is not like cricket, not even one day cricket"

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