Re.: Yugoslavs & Palestinians (was Re: Chomsky and Zinn...etc.)

[Chris Brady <chris_brady@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie put the finger on it: I refer to tactical methodologies in a
bourgeois society (norteamericano) where most young people, people with
radical and even revolutionary potential, are swayed by the hipness of
the Circled-A, the culural biznez behind it, the hair and apparel
styles, the body-piercing craze, tattoos, the anti-authoriatianism that
coincides with a natural tendency of youthful rebelion stoked by
capitalist greed and marketing strategies, that strives to obviate or
eclipse real "alternative" anti-capitalist revolution with the immediate
gratification of moralistic anarchism.  The intellectuals among the
youth have little to grasp upon even as they are the minority who see
through the miasma and deliberate clutter of their culture as envisioned
and manipulated by the hucksters of MTV, CDs, video games and other
hedonism (sports, skate boards, bikes, cars, etc.), music and, for some,
drugs. These intellectuals grab onto the jeremiads of Chomsky and Zinn
who are recorded, have their speeches played over campus radio stations
once in a while, whose books are slickly produced and often actually
available--although I was astounded to discover that in the Valley
Library of Oregon State University, the last home of William Appleman
Williams (The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, The Great Evasion, Empire
as a Way of Life, etc.), there is no--not even one!--book by Howard Zinn
listed on their library web catalogue.  So where do we rank as Reds?  I
think the anarkids are basically no problem for the powers that be.  But
they could be... if they channeled their energy was more cogently.
That's where Marxian analysis comes in.  That is also why we're kept
out.

Jared and Henry, please, do not for even a nanosecond believe that I
endorse the collapse of the USSR or the implosion and fracture of
socialism in Eastern Europe. In fact, I would argue that the forces that
brought about that great tragedy were as much external as internal, and
that much of the internal problems had their origins externally as
well.  Ultimately people must realize that the result of the assault on
Yugoslavia had little to do with democracy and liberation--except as
excuses.
In the lands that once flew the red flag:
Who there is better off now than they would have been if that flag still
flew?  You cannot ask the dead Chechnyans.
Was there no possibility of a more controlled transition to a greater
workers' socialist democracy?
Has the plight of the masses in the Third World not worsened?
How can we explain in ways accessible to the people?
What conduits do we have that can actually access the people?
To engage, interaction is necessary.
We must take what is commonly understood and develop new directions
through the introduction of previously unknown or discounted
observations (e.g., the actions of the victorious capitalists in
liberated Europe and Asia immediately after World War II, i.e., they
left the structures and many of the personnel of fascism intact to ward
off the threat of communist revolution;  the true nature of Zionist
Israel; simple items that need inculcation: the rich are still getting
richer while we go to hell in a handbasket; there is only a vain and
pathetically misguided hope for rescuing the plant from ecological
collapse through capitalism, etc., etc.).

Of course the work of theory is different from praxis, but praxis puts
theory to work.  I am not belittling theory.  It is critical, crucial.
But it remains easier to maintain ideological purity and principles in
theoretical debates than it does when your objective is to win people
rather than arguments.

Abu Nasr alluded to a factor in his assertion of the relative importance
of the disctinction between Jew and Zionist--and that is the
consideration of the real conditions, for example, when armored soldiers
are firing automatic rifle rounds at your upper body protected by a
T-shirt and audacity.  Yes the enemy is Jewsih; yes, the enemy is
Zionist; yes, the enemy has taken all we own, our property, our lives,
our futures.  Meanwhile, far from that fray, in the streets of New York
City to the towns of the great Pacific Northwest, in both Argentina and
Britain, the differences are critical, crucial.

YFTR,
Chris Brady