[Marxism] East Timor replies

["Tom OLincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone, checking in briefly to respond to my fan mail. :-) 

Bob Gould:
> > Tom O'Lincoln, Scott Hamilton and my good friend Greg Adler are battering away at the DSP for supporting the 1999 Australian intervention in East Timor.<<

Bob should read my one post which explains why Iâm NOT addressing that 
issue. 

Nick F on the Community Consultation:
> > The people who turned up to meetings or wrote submissions for this report were totally self-selected<<

If I remember rightly, a previous critic complained they were hand-picked. 
Well, itâs probably a mixture of both. Look, I have some experience with 
government consultations, though not in this field. Of course a certain 
in-group turns up, and maybe a few cranks, but governments like to see a 
certain diversity of opinion. Not because they are seriously open to 
adopting the views of (say) Oxfam, but because they want to know where Oxfam 
is at, so that they can plan strategy. If they find that Oxfam has moved 
closer to the government, this will tell them something about the mood out 
there. Shouldn't it tell us something too? 

Mike K:
> > Nice theories. Why keep repeating them when they so obviously crash
against the rock of hard reality?<< 

I refer you to your fellow DSPer Nick, who acknowledges âthat the 1999 
intervention did have *some* imperialist-illusion generating effect.â 

> > Did John Howard need the "legitimisation" of East Timor to join the
invasion of Iraq in 2003?<< 

No of course not. He had a different legitimising event: September 11. East 
Timor 1999 remains useful in legitimising interventions in our own region, 
which have a different political logic â as shown by the way Labor 
supports them while opposing the Iraq war. For the contradictory relation 
between joining big-power adventures in far-away places and interventions in 
the local region, see my article in MRZine:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/olincoln110606.html

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