Re: [Marxism] Supporting the resistance? To BK

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Hostility and animosity is one thing, but the only intellectual arrogance I
see is emanating from your posts when you presume to tell the Iraqi people
that they should wait around until rapacious capitalist imperialism allows
the Iraqi trade union movement to blossom.

As remarked, there appears to be a great many workers in the Iraqi
resistance to occupation by the world's foremost Imperialist Capitalist
powers: aren't they struggling with capital? Of course the presence of many
workers in any organisation does not guarantee that it must have the
strategic aims and interests of the working class. But, in the case of the
Iraqi resistance, the basic calls have been, including by Sadr, for a
sovereign Iraq free of occupation and democratically governed by the whole
Iraqi people (and not the partioned ethnic minorities the US seems to
envision). Do you think this a socialist goal, or do you think democracy and
sovereignty can be attained under imperialist occupation, with a
constitutional government set up by and ran in the interests of the same?

Where do you expect the massive trade union movement to arise in Iraq with
the domestic industry there now a complete shambles? Are the Iraqi
resistance not fighting the 'bosses' of capital? Or ought they to wait
around until these bosses give other bosses the chance to give them jobs?
How is Iraqi industry to grow again whilst totally dominated by
international Capital? Or do you intend to buoy up Iraqi teachers and
journalists unions by a healthy influx of Western 'red aid'?

You repeat the claim that it is only 'Islamists' and Baathist remnants' that
are conducting the fight against the occupation of Iraq. If this is true,
what does it say for the Iraqi trade union movement? Do you know anything
about Islam, the Ba'ath party, or the history of Iraqi politics? You have
schematically set up resistance to occupation in Iraq as a fight between
Islam-Fascism on the one hand and Humanism-Modernism on the other. That
merely shows that you are a bigot and have no understanding of the many
diverse theological, philosophical and social trends in 'Islam', not to
mention In Iraq.

I myself have no confidence that demonstrations in the West will force US/K
imperialism out of Iraq. But you suggest that workers in the West can put
the kibosh on the US/K war effort by refusing to load military equipment and
so on. How and when is this likely to happen? Are the starving Iraqis to
wait around for Socialism to be instituted in the West before they resist
their destruction? I suspect if you had been born and riased in Iraq, had
suffered miserably in Iraq, had thus an intuitive understanding of Iraqi
culture and politics, and had the chance to resist, your so-called Marxist
attitude to resistance to occupation would be tempered somewhat.

Why do you refer to comrade Lenin but condemn Trotsky's role in the Russian
revolution? Woe the caste of professional anti-revolutionaries.

BK WROTE:

> It's truly extraordinary how much hostility, animus
> and intellectual arrogance is generated in response to
> suggestions that workers MUST be at the forefront of
> the struggle for socialism.

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