Re: An letter to Against the Current

["Macdonald Stainsby" <mstainsby@xxxxxx>]

> The presumption by Jenyan, Grinker and Nestor is that the Zimbabwean
> working class is simply duped in its desire for democratic rights.

Forgive me this, but I believe the question here is not A vs. B, but that 
people are
(myself included) concerned that the struggle for democratic rights not leave 
the
people of Zimbabwe with absolutely nothing. No one thinks that the workers of 
the
USSR, for example, were duped into wanting to lessen the strict reigns on them 
during
the last years of the USSR. Those feelings are good, human ones. But feelings 
alone
are not sufficient to mount a movement. In the collapse of the USSR, it was 
democracy
and neo-liberalism- spliced together- that ended up leaving the population with 
less
than nothing.

Unfortunately, sometimes one needs more defensive positioning than offensive. 
From my
vantage point- way the heck away from the ground in Zim- I see the same story 
with
different players: a democratic opposition and a fifth column that knows not 
where it
is taking the "national project", but is taking it ther just the same.

Good comrades make bad strategic decisions. That doesn't mean we have to follow 
them.

Macdonald