[Marxism] Re:"Anti-Americanism, " the Spanish elections, the antiwar movement, and the Militant

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think Walter Lippmann has the right political fix on this issue.  I
think most of what the Militant says about this is an excuse for
abstention from the antiwar movement, something which is rather sharply
alien to the tradition of  the Socialist Workers Party -- including of
the literature they sell at the book tables, things like Out Now!, the
writings of Cannon and so on -- and therefore needs to be aggressively
defended internally against members who feel pressure, partly because of
that tradition, to "adapt" to the movement and who feel some enthusiasm
for it.

The position also has broader right-tending and social-patriotic
implications, of course.

First of all, let's get grounded on what the Militant considers
"anti-Americanism" -- I leave aside the tradition the Militant claims to
adhere to on this question, including Malcolm X's declaration that "I'm
not an American.  I'm a victim of Americanism."   The Militant is
careful to keep this idea out of reach of the 2,000 new readers --
mostly factory workers and student youth -- that they are seeking to
reach in the current subscription campaign.

Readers of the Militant in the United States -- where the line of the
paper is set, where it is written and edited, and where the great
majority of its readers live -- will get the impression that the antiwar
movement is a manifestation of an imperialist Europe gone mad with a new
and super-dangerous form of "national chauvinism."  Readers will find
nothing to counter rightist claims that hatred of "Americans" is
sweeping Europe in the name of opposition to the war in Iraq and the
"war on terrorism" more generally.

But most of the "Anti-Americanism" the Militant refers to consists
simply and purely of criticisms or expressions of dislike and opposition
to US President George W. Bush.  There have been no manifestations that
I can see of hatred of Americans among Spanish working people in the
period leading up to the elections.  Unlike the impression that is
spread by the right, and will be reinforced among readers of the
Militant by its coverage, "Americans" are not in the process of becoming
an oppressed national minority in Europe.  The 'anti-Americanism'
consists of opposition to the self-proclaimed (and actual) leader of the
imperialist "free world," the organizer and initiator and controller of
the coalition that has brought the Spanish, British, Australian, Dutch
and New Zealand imperialists into the war (for their own interests, but
unmistakably as subordinates).

There have been no (or extremely few) manifestations of anti-American
chauvinism or hatred such as the downright racist denunciation of the
French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" during the "freedom fries"
outbreak organized by the US government during the invasion period.

The Militant uses this to present the left opponents of Aznar and Blair
as a de facto "lesser evil" in the elections.  For while Aznar was no
less anti-Arab and anti-Basque than his Social Democratic opponents,
Zapatero added a horrible new element to the mix -- the poison of
"anti-American" chauvinism.  At least Aznar (like Blair in Britain) had
the guts to stand up to this evil!

The Militant's brouhaha over Zapatero's failure to stand for the US flag
ducks what was happening.  Why did he acknowledge the British,
German, etc. flags but not the American.  Was this racism? Or
anti-American war fever?  Didn't it have something to do with the US
role as the leader and initiator of the occupation of Iraq, which the
unpopular Spanish government had joined.  Its perfectly okay to point
out the patriotic character of his action and why Spanish workers should
not identify with his outlook.  But the real context cannot be ignored
in favor of a fake "world war 3" context.

The Militant's crusade against "anti-Americanism"  can also provide the
pretext for denouncing Spanish WITHDRAWAL from the war, since the
government may couch this, if it happens, in anti-Bush terms.  And
withdrawal is quite possible given the problems Washington and the other
occupiers have run into in Iraq (about which the Militant has been
strangely in denial for many months).  The UN takeover which some seek
in the deteriorating sitution may not be easy to construct and hold
together.

Basically, the talk about a wave of "anti-American" chauvinism sweeping
Europe is simply a smear directed by the Militant against the opponents
of the US-organized and -led war in Europe, who are guilty of opposing
their imperialist rulers' getting in on this action.   As a further
cover for abstention, the Militant insists that no legitimate antiwar
activity can take place unless it is homogeneously imbued from the start
with its specfic analysis of imperialism, and its specific assessment of
the relations between the various imperialist powers (in which Aznar and
Blair have in so sense subordinated themselves to Bush in order to
advance the interests of their ruling classes, and are fully equal
authors of the war in Iraq).

It is, in fact, a smear directed even at representatives of imperialism,
like Zapatero or the bourgeois critics of Blair.  It effectively tilts
toward  the Blairites and Aznarites -- who are at least not
"anti-American" --  against their opponents within Spanish or British
imperialism.  While reactionary "anti-Americanism"  could develop
someday, types like Thatcher in Britain or Zapatero in Spain are not
"anti-American" at all -- nor, basically, are the French and German
imperialists.  Their crime in the eyes of the pro-Bush US rulers (and
apparently in the eyes of the Militant, too) is that they want an
alliance in which there is more room for them as competitors.  In
particular, they see the war in Iraq as an attempt to shut them out of
the Middle East -- which it was, although not an overwhelmingly
successful one so far -- and place them in an even more subordinate and
dependent position.

This analysis is flawed, as Walter, Louis, and I tried to show, in
several aspects -- one of them being a certain pacifistic "holy horror,"
hands-off approach to inter-imperialist conflict which is presented as a
division among the enemy that working people must fear and excoriate at
all times.

Of course, the position is a mass of contradictions.  On the one hand,
the Militant boasts -- it is hard to call it anything else -- of the
inevitable rise of Washington to unprecedented world hegemony.  The
European imperialist powers are so weak as to be negligible factors
against Washington, they are in decline, they "can't piss a drop" as
Jack Barnes might say.  (Authentic Barnesism, guaranteed overheard.)
They are not only insignificant militarily but economically -- the Euro
was not only barred by the inflexible laws of Marxism from coming into
being but, now that it has come into existence in violation of the
norms, it counts for nothing.  Among the imperialists, Washington is
all-powerful, and the aspirations of imperialist "old Europe" are a dead
duck.  Its worth keeping in mind, however, that the fact that this
analysis is way off the beam indicates that the European, Australian,
etc. imperialists are more of a problem for us and a more serious enemy
than they would be if the Militant was correct.

There was no positive content, for example, in German and Japanese
anti-American propaganda in World War I, even though it seized on some
things that were true.  But that is not what we are confronting today in
the antiwar movement in  Europe.
Fred Feldman

Finally I think Lshan is wrong to speculate that the Militant may be
right in its approach, but wrong to abstain.  When has abstention from
the class struggle ever led to correct politics.  There is nothing in
the Militant to indicate that this is an exception to this rule.
Fred Feldman

At the same time, the Militant insists that anyone who notices the
subordination of the other allied imperialists to Washington in the war
is a rotten, reactionary American-hater!  Of course, this makes no
sense.

But the reality also requires keeping in mind that reactionary,
imperialist-chauvinist anti-Americanism is actually a possibility and
can arise out of a situation where inter-imperialist competition is much
sharper than it is today, Washington's hegemony shaky or even in a
degree of decline which appears to me to be the case, and  its
imperialist opponents are lesser but still viable competitors.  There
was nothing progressive about German or Japanese "anti-American"
propaganda in World War II, for example.

The Militant's bending to national chauvinism against "old Europe" and
"anti-Americanism" is covered by its pretended role as the sole
newspaper of world Marxism, not the newspaper of a group based in the
United States.  If the Militant roars at rising "anti-Americanism"
represented by antiwar forces, this is to provide leadership to the
Spanish comrades -- and the confusion that can be reinforced among new
readers is a small price to pay.  The Militant cannot be revolutionary
defeatist in the United States alone, it must set the
revolutionary-defeatist propaganda line for fighters in each and every
country.  Thus the Militant --a newspaper arising out of the US movement
-- must center its fire equally on each and every imperialist power, and
call for the defeat of each and everyone of them in the
"inter-imperialist conflict" in Iraq.  That is because the fighters in
other countries are not "strong enough" to have their own paper  and the
Militant (and, through the Militant, the Socialist Workers Party), must
stand guard against adaptation in their feeble ranks.

Thus the Militant cannot be for the defeat of ITS OWN imperialism as the
lesser evil for this  would disorient the comrades in other countries
who, because of their inadequacy, dare not write for themselves. One
thing that has become to clear to me is that literature issued by the
English, French, Swedish, and other comrades for themselves would not be
worse for these countries than what the Militant is putting out today --
allowing for the errors that inevitably get made when people do their
own thinking rather than accept the imposition of the errors of others.
Of course, these groups may not feel  "strong enough" to put out their
own newspapers or propaganda at this point but, at this point, neither
is the SWP.   That's a fact that has to be faced.




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