Re: [Marxism] Attitude toward Iraqi CP

[DLVinvest@xxxxxx]

In a message dated 5/9/04 4:42:25 PM Mountain Daylight Time, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx
writes:
> Hmmm. Foucault. Have you read what Alain Badiou had to say on the matter?

Some have a lot to say about everything, others nothing to say about anything
-- and vice versa. Even if reality were merely a social construction, its
deconstruction is not the same as social reality.

What the Iraqi CP has to say on Iraq only matters to the degree they have any
influence or base in Iraq. And what we have to say about them matters even
less. The anaology to Nicaragua is apt only insofar as the Nicaraguan CP had
very little base of support in Nicaragua because it had done little to organize
workers or anybody else against Somoza, who is alleged to have bought off some
of its leaders. They were mostly ignored by the guerrilla organizations that
merged to form the FSLN under Cuban patronage. They were of little use to the
US in trying to assemble a united opposition to the Sandinistas, who managed to
fragment themsleves in power and even faster when they lost to Chomorro
without much help from the inconsequential PCN.

Iraq's contra coalition, the Governing Council, is similar in social and
political composition to the rump midwifed by the US in Nicaragua, except for 
the
very large variables of Islamic sectarian religion and ethnic-national
diversity that overwhelm any analogy. But condemning the current political 
position
of that party is no substitute for the more useful examination of how they got
to be that way -- they used to have much greater influence but were largely
killed off by Saddam in his rise to the top of the Baathist heap of bodies, to
the applause of the US and Brits who saw him as useful stooge or lesser-evil
(ational)-socialist. What killed them was not just bad positions or timing but
their own illusions.

It's useful to analyze these phenomena in the same way it's useful to conduct
autopsies on corpses, but it's only humane to do that when they're actually
dead, not to wish for it, which may be imminent despite the wishes of some
correspondents. They should be careful, as the blade seldom stops cutting at the
fine line between former friends and future enemies.

Douglas L. Vaughan, Jr.
Investigations
for Print, Film & Electronic Media
3140 W. 32nd Ave.
Denver CO 80211
303-455-9429
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