[Marxism] Seven Theses on the Current Period, the War and the Anti-war Movement

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

Seems to me that Achcar is still stuck in the 1968-72 mould of radical
politics. He writes:

"Since the collapse of the USSR, the evolution of the global
relationship of military forces has virtually eliminated all
impediments to imperialist interventionism."

This may be so technically, but this type of FI rhetoric as per usual gives
far too much credence to the political power, political unity and class
confidence of the imperial elites. The workers and peasants are typically
portrayed as weak and their enemies as strong, in FI rhetoric, except when
there is some mass strike or mobilisation, and then those events are praised
to the skies as instances of "class struggle". It's basically academics
contemplating the wild world out there like generals without troops.

In a world armed to the teeth (one smallarm for every 9 people on the
planet, never mind missiles, ships, planes and armoured vehicles), every
foreign military intervention can also have serious repercussions, which can
spin out of control. Moreover even with overwhelming military superiority,
it is no longer possible to maintain absolute military control over a
territory. Strategic bombing can wreck political and social systems, but not
eliminate popular resistance. Also, the costs of sustained intervention are
an enormous burden on governments already saddled with big debts. The
certainty, the unity and the resolve which Achcar suggests simply do not
exist among the elites in reality. Fascist terror campaigns by the US
government just alienate more and more strata of the population, at home and
abroad.

"The main point is that no military force on earth can stop the steamroller
of US hyperpower once it has
decided to invade any given territory."

Maybe so, again the rhetoric is splendid, but the real point is whether that
invasion achieves anything (do the advantages outweigh the political and
financial costs incurred) and whether it can be sustained, or whether the
invasion eventually runs out of steam. Whenever the US armed forces have
attacked anything bigger than a Caribbean island, they have always
miscalculated (and they miscalculated even in Cuba, e.g. Bay of Pigs).
Hi-tech proved no match for local culture, local politics and social
relations. They had all the hardware and no social intelligence. The basic
problem in Iraq is that they cannot afford to stay, and they cannot afford
to leave - hardly a successful move for the world's "only superpower" on the
geopolitical chessboard.

Achcar makes it sound as though only the peace movement stands between us
and Armageddon. But in reality today's rulers don't give a shit about a
bunch of peace protestors waving placards in market square anyway. All that
concerns them is voting power and real political clout, and a population
that stays under control, just so that they can get on with the business of
clearing away the obstacles to market expansion. A mass demonstration is not
a serious political worry for them. It is a political worry only if it gets
out of control, e.g. when it begins to involve serious street fighting,
looting and destroying cars and houses. The only worry we have is if a mass
rightwing movement gets the upper hand and provides a mass basis for fascist
campaigns of military terror. But a peace movement cannot stop such a
rightwing movement. Peace movements are doomed, unless they broaden their
political scope beyond talking about peace.

Achcar believes in resolutionary rituals which went out of fashion long ago,
i.e. in the 1980s. Nobody who's serious communicates in that way anymore.
It's time to stop talking support-group politics, and look at what is really
happening now under your own nose. Who gives a shit about the "geopolitical
relationship of forces" when the people you know can't organise themselves
out of a paper bag.


Jurriaan

"I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper
tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not
Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar
of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper
tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet
been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be
overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger."

  -Mao Tse Tung, 1957






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