[Marxism] Re: Blair plays the terror card

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"The attack on London represents a brutal attempt to coral the British
population behind accepting the introduction of the national ID card,
renewing support for the war on terror and reinvigorating trust in a
government that had the backing of less than 15 per cent of the country.

"Even at this very early stage it is clear that the evidence points to
inside
involvement."

Of course it does.  Once you get your mind in that set, there is no
doubt that it would.  In this case, certainty precedes the evidence and
can only be reaffirmed by it.

Obviously, if something happens that seems to help Blair or Bush in our
view, Blair or Bush did it.  Qui bono? QED.

And we don't have to face up to the fact that in a war-torn world, the
US has taught some forces in the targeted region that targeting
civilians is the way to go in modern warfare.  We don't have to discuss
terrorism as a political analysis and strategy that human beings can
actually consider and adopt.

Partly this thinking is tied to the paranoid spirit in the times, but in
fact it has some links to traditional Stalinist thinking -- the idea
that all actions against your interests, as you see them, are the work
of agents and government plots.

Why can't UFPJ and ANSWER hold one demonstration instead of two?  Qui
bono? The rulers.  Therefore it's a neocon plot (and once I start
pursuing that useful line of inquiry, you'd be amazed at the way
"evidence" can pile up).

Marxists used to argue against terrorist strategies and thinking. The
Moscow Trials period is when the CPs began to push the idea that if a
coal mine explosion took place, or a group split from the CP, or someone
didn't split from the trade unions on schedule -- it was all a plot by
foreign enemy governments.  That explained a lot, in fact, almost
everything, albeit not very well. Now the tendency is to curl up in the
womb of denial -- claiming that it is all the work of US or British
government plots -- everyone in the world fights as we think they should
except those controlled by the government.

Of course, all these people -- like everyone from Iraqi children to US
Gis to the Egyptian ambassador -- are victims of the imperialist war.
Just like everyone in Afghanistan and everyone -- "little Eichmanns" or
whatever -- who died in the World Trade Center.  The imperialist war is
the source of all this violence and the teacher of the groups whom they
are convincing of the viability of the weapon of anti-civilian war as a
weapon against their enemies.

But because they are all victims of imperialism, we should not assume
that imperialism must gain from the events, although that will probably
be the trend in terms of the rights of immigrants, ID cards, etc.  There
is a growing awareness  also that these are events in a war that is not
just and that should not be being waged.  So, like the GI casualties,
they are also part of the argument against the war.  The self-comforting
speculation about goverrnment plots is a diversion from  making this
fundamental point about who is to blame regardless of government plots
-- where we can gain in time by telling the hard truth rather than the
easy fiction.
Fred Feldman



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