[Marxism] Re: Anti-imperialism?

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>]

Brian Shannon:

> This is completely abstract. You are trying to get away with vague
> “radical” or “militant” actions, but when Louis describes actions
> that actually happened, you try to wriggle out of it by saying you
> didn’t mean that particular action, but another action that existed
> neither in the past nor in the future. You apparently have a picture
> of a perfect “more provocative” action that “hundreds” (elsewhere you
>  simply throw out 5,000 as a figure) are to “risk arrest and all that
>  comes with” it.

I don't need to "wriggle" anywhere, because I guess the fact that I make
light of really annoying labour-like marches that bore the crap out of
me and don't do the same to other demos who are looking for "some thing
more provocative" and mention yet smaller numbers who are "willing to
risk arrest" confused you. However, none of these things can exist
without each other, and since that's my main point, I really needn't
bother explaining further, but I'll give you this much.

I don't have any "image" of any demo here or there, any action or such
in any form. What you, Joaquin and Louis are doing is not "just stating
facts", you are playing little games with what people "really mean"
rather than simply hear what is being said: then decide if that's really
worth arguing with.

> On the other hand, you denigrate large demonstrations as candlelight
> marches and 200,000 pushing strollers and calling for immediate
> withdrawal. “Out Now” was a political demand that was won by
> struggle. However, all of the demonstrations against the war also
> encouraged other demands from a multitude of constituencies. The main
>  focus was the war, but it was never the sole demand or issue.

Right. Aside from incorrectly stating that I denigrate them carte
blanche, I should clarify that I find them incredibly powerful to a
point, but after a certain point, they become fairly disempowering and
people have no new answer. I don't have one either, so I'm not going to
try and make one up on the spot, just to say that when the movement gets
into hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, then we have no new
option.

This war, unlike the war in Vietnam, is not one the USA can walk away
from under any circumstances; it would (even more than starting it did)
destroy the global hegemony of the US dollar via collapsing oil control,
which in turn would send not only the value of the US dollar down, but
simultaneously sky rocket the price of oil, making it completely
impossible for the United States to use the brute force of its markets,
look far worse the depression of the 1930's and leave global capitalism
in a terminal crisis that this war is staving off only by a few years.
As is known, force is usually the last option of imperialism, yet to
re-conquer the oil fields now is all the US can really afford to do.

In this, as a side bar, we can do a lot more to help defend the people
of Iraq and the world be making direct connections to the struggle to
save the ANWR regions of Alaska and the Gwitch'in nation who will be
forever wiped out as a people with any oil development as well.

but that's a sidebar to the thrust of my post. Why do I feel the need to
denigrate large mass rallies? I guess it is a subconscious rejection not
of them as a tool for mobilizing, but that we collectively have no other
thinking going on. However, I always attend them, I have organized them
many times and I think they are essential components of the struggle--
yet, we think they are the be-all, end all and they clearly are not
any such thing. Since, for the reasons I ranted about above we know they
can not be forced out of Iraq by anything other than Iraqis, and even
then it will be something far more than a bloody nose that the
resistance gives them that forces them out, we need to realise our role
is not wrong in building mass rallies but rather *insufficient*.

I don't know what the answer is, but I wrote something for lefthook
asking people to start asking the question over a year ago:

http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/361

...anyhow, Brian, you then rail at me more:

> You throw out a reference to the Black Panther Party. Their 10-point
> program was very good, and they showed that young urban black men and
> women could be organized into a political organization opposed to the
> U.S. government. However, you seem to think that by connecting to
> them in the ether that you have succeeded in wrapping yourself in
> their iconic mantle for the future, but you fail to say anything
> about their documented well-criticized mistakes.

I'll leave that to you, if you really want to do that. My point in the
original and all the proceeding posts since then, and stop me if you've
read this already, is that when marches of "Out Now" reach hundreds of
thousands in number, several thousand will want to do something that
isn't necessarily a march where the event is permitted and given a legal
marching route to nowhere, but will want to, say, go to the governors
mansion. And several hundred or so will want to try something
"provocative" and get themselves (and probably others) arrested. I am
not saying this is good, or this is bad, or this is anything other than
a stating of the facts.

Those who you state "simply state facts" are the ones howling away about
how wrong this is, but that doesn't change it anymore than writing nasty
emails at people changes minds. Or yelling at couches for being
uncomfortable changes the position of the springs.

> Vague and abstract references work in the arts and can evoke strong
> feelings in poetry, dance, painting, etc. However, a revolutionary
> politician has the responsibility to the people that he or she
> influences. It is known as leadership. Not the leadership of a
> revolutionary party, but your affect on millions of people that hope
>  for a change in the conditions. You have to tell us what you want to
> do and why. You have to describe its purpose of your actions beyond
> providing some sort of space for making people like Martin Luther
> King appear more reasonable. BTW, this is a reformist program, but
> that's beyond this criticism.
>
> Nothing that you have said amounts to more than saying that there are
> a bunch of us that would like to do something really, really
> militant.

Strange that so many self-proclaimed materialists can miss the point and
throw idealisms about. I wasn't endorsing the BPP or MLK, either. I was
explaining their relationship-- everything that has a mass following,
more or less than others, effects every grouplet and faction and their
politics.

Anyhow, I've already clearly demonstrated to you (if you care) that my
point isn't about what "a bunch of us want to do", because I'll be
spending my summer doing research and writing articles, so my "really
militant" actions will take place during interviews and what not.

But if you know some people, and a bunch of you want to go and do your
"really, really militant" stuff, be my guest. I, on the other hand, said
no such thing.


--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
    --Bertholt Brecht.


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