In defense of Goff (was Re: [Marxism] Stan Goff on what to do now

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> This is so for two reasons. First of all, explaining how money is being
> spent on the war instead of social services offers the widest possible
> chance for the left to reach out to explain the consequences of the war.
> Every city, every county, every state, and the nation as a whole, is
> cutting back schools, libraries, hospitals, social security, etc. "Money
> for XXX not war" is a tool that can be used in writing letters to the
> editor, testifying at every single public hearing where there is a
> proposal to cut back XXX, and just plain talking to neighbors, friends,
> relatives, and co-workers, to educate them about the consequences of this
> war TO THEM and to enlist them in the fight to bring the war to a close.
> Ignoring these immense possibilities WEAKENS the antiwar movement.

I don't believe Goff was attacking "Money for XXX not war" as a slogan, as a
tactic in a box full of other tactics. He was attacking the elevation of
what should ONLY be a useful slogan, a tool, a tactic, into a complete and
articulated strategy. Like "Bring the Troops Home" and other BS the ABB
crowd and their covert allies feed us.

You in your answer (no pun intended) are guilty of this. A movement that has
a correct strategy is seldom hurt or weakened by the loss of a tactic. But
you seemingly elevate "Money for XXX not war" to the level of a strategy,
and hence view any criticism as "weakening" of the movement. Yes it weakens
that startegy, but that is a strategy that has led us to the road of
failure.

> Secondly, discussing how the ruling class is willing to fight this war
> even at the immense cost to its OWN working class in terms of these
> cutbacks is an educational tool to show both how important war, conquest,
> and domination are to the imperialist system, and how unimportant the
> well-being of its own working class (or at least unimportant compared to
> the importance of domination and exploitation).

Again, Goff didn't criticize this. You are figthing windmills, defending
from ghosts... Goff in any case can be construed as having said that the WAY
we are doing what you talk above is incorrect, not that doing it is not
neccesary.

> Goff also writes:
>
> > US monetary supremacy in the world, upon which our imperial privileges
> > rest, is directly dependent on our ability and willingness to wage war.
> > Without that ability and willingness, the same dollars we are talking
> > about will not likely be adequate for any of those alternative purposes
> > under capitalist governance, because they would quickly become
> > worthless.
>
> This is a very fatalistic approach, and certainly incorrect with respect
> to this war, which because of miscalculations has certainly cost more in
> the short-term than any monetary benefits it has brought to the ruling
> class.

Tell that to the shareholders of Halliburton & Co...

The stockmarket has been steady in rising, and is about to reach pre-2000
levels. The ruling class in the USA today is enjoying unprecedented wealth.

Look at this 5 year Dow Jones Industrial Index table:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=5y

Notice how it has a very chaotic but very visible downward tendency between
January 2000 and January of 2003. Then, as talk of war, and preparations for
war, spread, it started a moderate rise, and while it was steady with a
slight downward tendency for most of 2004, the DJI never fell beyond the
upper 9,000s, and is currently in a steady rise. The tendency from January
of 2003 has been an upward tendency, contrary to 2000 to 2002, in which it
had a downward tendency. Empirical data seems to contradict you.

Bush and his croonies celebrate this a victory, and it is, for them. This
war hasn't hurt the top 5% one little bit, on the contrary. And that top 5%
are The Enemy.



> In case Goff hasn't noticed, the dollar has been falling sharply in value,
> at least in part BECAUSE OF the war and its cost.

Not because of the war. As a matter of fact, the war has slowed down this
fall (although in the last year it has resumed its downward rate)!

USD v EUR (2 year Chart)... Notice how the dollar goes up at the beginning
of the war, only to resume its downward spiral as the economy settles...

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDEUR=X&t=2y

But the key here is competition. It is not so much the USA's economy
falling, but the European (and Chinese!) economy becoming stronger. This
downward tendecy of the dolar has been in place since the Euro became
official currency, and will continue until the Euro becomes the dominant
monetary unit, or the USA goes to war with Europe.

But as Goff points out, the relative value of money is abstract, and hence
it is not linked to any specific economic situation.

> The implication in Goff's remarks seems to me to be the same as the SWP
> approach which was that this war was inevitable so the antiwar movement
> was just wasting its time. Now I know Goff doesn't believe that, since he
> was (is) part of the antiwar movement, but I still think that's the
> conclusion to be drawn from this kind of approach.

That is one possible conclusion. There are other possible conclusions, much
more plausible than yours.

For example, you can draw a conclusion that the failure of the current
anti-war movement lies in its lack of a political alternative, in an
engaging conversation with the working class in the USA, to substitute
liberal peace sloganeering "peace is patriotic" BS, with a more compeling
political alternative.

And of course, the destruction of the Democratic Party as it exists today,
which Goff directly addresses.

> This war, no more than an invasion of Cuba or Iran or North Korea or
> anyplace else, was NOT inevitable, no more than the outcome of any
> particular strike is inevitable. It is the outcome of a global class
> struggle, AND the internal struggle within the ruling class itself, which,
> however united it is on GOALS, is rarely united on strategy and tactics
> toward reaching those goals.
>
> Imperialism (not "US monetary supremacy," as Goff writes)

A semantic difference. We all know what he meant.

> is dependent on exploitation of the third world. But more and more, as can
> be seen in countries around the world, that exploitation can be based on
> economic leverage (promises of the "reward" of being part of the global
> capitalist system, threats and implementations of boycotts/embargoes,
> etc.) and not only war or the threat of war.

Now, this part is really hard to understand for me, as a marxist.

I would expect liberals to argue a disconnection between "economic" and
"military" actions, but not a marxist. Since Marx and Engels, the whole of
marxist literature, from Kautsky to Lenin to Trotsky to Stalin to Mao to
Mandel to whoever is your Daddy-O, all of them have agreed that "war is
politics by other means", and its inverse "politics is war by other means",
with "politics" understood as inseverable from "economics" (Hence "political
economy").

What you call "economic leverages" are actually military threats. This
becomes more clear with embargoes, which are enforced by military and
para-military means, including the prosecution and harassment of blockade
runners. Your artificial and liberal separation between the economic and the
military is a mistake the US ruling class doesn't make.

I am open to hear discussion, it might be that I lack a certain
understanding of marxist political economy that makes me think you are
wrong.

>  Yes, the possibility of war (and hence a large, powerful military) must
> be there. But again, that doesn't mean that any particular war, or the
> continuation of any particular war like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan,
> are inevitable.

Yes they are. Imperialism truns war into a commodity, much like Capitalism
turned labor into a commodity. War is capitalism. Capitalism is war. Yada,
Yada, Yada.

If anything, Goff's provocation is a call to the basics. Communists (WWP,
RCP, CPUSA) have led one of the major mass political movements in the
history of the USA, only to give it away because it was afraid to confront
Imperialism at the root, to openly attack capitalism as what it is. It
offered liberal pain-killers instead of revolutionary chemotherapy. Both
will stop the pain, but only one gets rid of the cancer. That is the history
that has been written.

Goff deals with the history that we still have to write.

Even in the face of the catrastophic failure of the last 2 years, you still
uphold the very values that led to this failure. I don't ask you agree with
Goff, but I do ask you engage in some self-criticism. This is not February
2003, when we had the momentum and were on the offensive, and led millions
upon untold millions in struggle (even in Antartica!). This is January 2005,
and we failed misserably. So miserably, that even the alternative in the
polls was no alternative.

Your failure to see this WEAKENS the anti-war movement much more than Goff's
humble contribution to a neccesary debate.

> And "Money for XXX, not for war" is one of the most powerful tools in the
> arsenal of trying to prevent and/or bring to and end those wars.

Then we are really doomed. If that is our huge H-Bomb, and it has been so
disastrously ineffective, then there is no stopping this people-eating
machine. And you talk about fatalism...

Hey, Goff might be wrong in his analysis, but he is definetely more correct
than your liberal sloganeering. History has proven as much.

sks


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