[Marxism] Re: History of the car bomb

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is not only the victims, whether ruling class or ethnic, that have  
been unable to keep up with the car bomb. It seems that the Left is  
in the same position.

Perhaps it is because it in disarray after Reagan and the collapse of  
the USSR. It is difficult to condemn the military activists when your  
own political trend is impotent. The glare of the temporary success  
of terrorism is intimidating when you have so little to offer as an  
alternative.

In the early part of this century, Lenin and Trotsky (and Marx before  
them) wrote long and short articles against terrorist actions used by  
the non-Marxist revolutionaries of those days, which included Lenin’s  
own brother. During the 1970s, there were some newspaper articles to  
the same effect about the Weatherman and other groups that believed  
violent deeds could spark a revolution.

Now we have otherwise sound people commenting not only on terrorist  
action themselves but also on its victims as “little Eichmanns” as  
though the existential demand to act responsibly, which used to  
appeal to us as individuals, should replace all sociologic analyses.  
Thus an individual’s inaction and tangential association with a  
stratum of the ruling class or even a chance appearance at an event  
or in a place becomes only the “collateral damage” of an explainable  
although perhaps misguided terrorist activity.

So I hope Davis, in addition to his timely “History of the Car Bomb”  
makes some attempt at this. Whatever stand he takes, perhaps he can  
open up a dialog.

Brian Shannon

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