[Marxism] Goff analysis of Petraeus testimony (and my comments)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Although I disagree with Goff that a frustrated antiwar population should
now focus their attention on angry protests against the Democrats.  I think
there is a need to FOCUS on the real possibilities of mass action against
the government that is waging the war, not primarily against individual
0oliticians who have disappointed the ex0ectations that 
Goff and I, for good reaons, did not have.  Although I admit that the
Democrats went even further toward embracing the war as their own than I
expected.

Also I thin that Goff may underestimate the savagery of the blow that the 
Democrats have succeeded in dealing the antiwar movement, with their
election campaign against the war followed by total capitulation. 

It is quite clear that aside from a few individuals afraid of losing their
places in Congress, the Congressional interrogation of Petraeus showed
clearly that THE WAR WILL CONTINUE UNDER THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION, NO MATTER
WHICH PARTY IS IN CHARGE.

So one question to be asked is: Yes, the Democrats' victory expressed
positive developments in the consciousness of the masses, and opened the
door therefore to deeper exposures of both parties.  But I would like
someone to explain to me how support of the Democratic party by conscious
revolutionaries like Goff, Joaquin, or myself could have or did advance this
change in consciousness, which in my opinion took place at a much deeper
level. How does this process advance because we, who have gone through our
own ex0periences that convinced us of the nature of the Democratic Party,
have decided to support it in order to expose it.

What is the evidence that support for the Democrats, rather than saying what
one really thinks about this 100 percent imperialist party. helped advance
the  positively changing consciousness of the masses rather than reinforcing
the underlying illusions (which are not new, of course)?

Of course, the alternative is propaganda, which is the sin of sins for many
today.  Having a newspaper r just expressing your views, supporting
alternative election campaigns (socialist where these are relevant to what
is happening socially,which remains my unshaken view of the SWP campaigns
from 1960-84).

At any rate, though I believe that the oppressed and exploited do gain class
consciousness through their experiences in the capitalist parties -- which
are profoundly negative as a whole in their struggles -- I do not see how
we, he conscious and open revolutionaries, help them do so by supporting the
Democratic Party. It seems our role would be counter to any progressive
dynamic, as the role of the CP and Social Democracy always was.
Fred Feldman







Date: September 12, 2007 12:51:20 PM PDT
http://www.counterpunch.org



The Petraeus Report

By STAN GOFF

In military drill there is something called the preparatory command and the
command of execution.  These were the two commands, followed in lockstep by
the press yesterday:

Prepare to kiss ass.

Kiss ass.

Or should I say David Petraeus' ass, followed by a whole raft of retired
generals who were immediately featured on the television "news" to re-spin
the Petraeus' spin, where he used the terms "al Qaeda Iraq" and
"ethno-sectarian" about 2,000,000 times apiece in the space of a few hours.

Members of Code Pink and Iraq Veterans Against the War, who had infiltrated
the hearing room, were serially arrested when they took their turns shouting
things like "How long will you listen ot these people?" and "Liar!" from the
back of the room.  God bless 'em.

The articulate, level-voiced General, though he only went to combat when
Bush invaded Iraq, has more fruit salad on his chest than any veteran of
three previous wars.

Cheney's input was in evidence in the  psyop, mantra-like repetition of the
key phrases as a form of mass mesmeric suggestion... "al Qaeda Iraq" ...
"ethno-sectarian"... "al Qaeda Iraq" ... "ethno-sectarian"... "al Qaeda
Iraq" ... "ethno-sectarian"... "al Qaeda Iraq" ... "ethno-sectarian"...

All designed to instill the same refrain we heard in the runup to the war,
Iraq associated with 9-11.oh, that's tomorrow!  Surprise!

...and of course, the war is an affair of those ethno-sectarian primitives
(the former guerrillas who were handed Anbar Province have been re-spun into
"tribal" leaders and sheiks").  The US occupation force (therein referred to
as "coalition forces") is just there trying to keep them from slaughtering
each other, provoked as they have been by who?  Oh yeah, "al Qaeda Iraq."

Rumsfeld's ghost made its early appearance with the charts and graphs.
Metrics, anyone?  The Commander-in-Chief, in rallying the most revanchist
sectors of his diminishing base, recently invoked Vietnam and the betrayal
thesis:  that liberal press and those left-wing hippies undermined the war
effort, and if we could have killed just a million more Vietnamese,
goddamit, we'd have won.  With Rumsfeld's metrics in Petraeus' mouth
yesterday, we have squared the circle with the simultaneous reincarnation of
Robert MacNamara and William Westmoreland.

Light at the end of the tunnel, anyone?

No Cheney-Rumsfeldian tableau is complete without its diabolus ex machina --
Iran naturally.  Petraeus invoked Iran early and often, beginning with the
now widely accepted and completely unsupported claim that Iran is supplying
weapons to Iraqi "insurgents."  This is one that provoked the arrest of a
Code Pinker in the back benches, when she shouted "That's a lie!"

She was right, of course.  This phony claim, originated out of the Public
Affairs offices of the Pentagon, has nonetheless become an article of faith
with the "journalists" of the American corporate  fourth estate.

The most enjoyable and potentially redemptive aspect of the whole
dog-and-pony show were the handful of Congress members who -- under pressure
from war-weary constituents and the polls showing rock-bottom approval
ratings for the newly-empowered Democrats -- lit into Petraeus with a vigor
seldom seen in the hallowed halls of hearingdom.

Congressman Tom Lantos (D - California) assaulted the credibility of the
administration with an unusual enthusiasm, with -- of course -- a ritual
denunciation of Iran, and called for immediate withdrawal of US forces.
Fellow Californian Loretta Sanchez as much as called Petraeus and his
co-conspirator Crocker liars.

Others weighed in, along partisan lines mostly.  Nothing shocking there,
though my gut tells me that the California Democratic Party -- holding
within its embrace Barbara Lee, the sole Congressional dissenter against the
resolution granting the Bush administration war-making powers -- is thinking
about its besieged national Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, now facing an electoral
challenge from Cindy Sheehan.

Unfortunately, this is the backdrop.  The 2008 elections, not the charnel
house of American occupation in Iraq.

Behind all the panting about the "heroism" of US troops, and the
"sacrifices" of military families who see that dreaded military in the
driveway, this is mostly about political ambition and the family feud over
which party will run the executive committee for Wall Street and the defense
industries.

Not a single member of Congress yesterday cited the most recent
extrapolation of Lancet Report showing that around a million Iraqis have
been "sacrificed" by the occupation.  In a typical US neighborhood with
families averaging four, this would be represented by a funeral in every
sixth house.

'Spose I've said this before, but the target of our misbehaviors (at least
Code Pink and IVAW were on hand to disrupt yesterday) must be the Democratic
Party.  They can ignore another protest  on the National Mall, but they
can't ignore people occupying their local Congressional offices.  These
occupations to end the occupation need to become ubiquitous.

Last year, I shocked many colleagues by recommending they vote for Democrats
across the board in 2006, but folks didn't read the fine print.  We needed
to put these people in power to expose them.  They were taking cover in the
"we're-just-a-minority" bunker.  Now they are in the open, and the
institutional rot as well as the class loyalties of the Democratic Party are
on vivid display.

What we saw o Monday, aside from the Petraeus-Crocker Show, in the loss of
good manners by a few Democrats, was a display of the latent power of a
wakeful people.  The Code Pinkers and Iraq Veterans Against the War
represent a minority in American politics right now, just as anti-slavery
advocates once were.  But let there be no confusion; this minority -- which
numbers now in the millions -- has the power to put its principles into
action in an instrumental way:  by threatening the fortunes of one of the
ruling class parties in the United States on the issue of a criminal
imperial war.

Misbehavior works.  Delegitimate.  Disobey.  Disrupt.

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US
Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000), "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft
Skull Press, 2003) and "Sex & War" which will be released approximately
December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army. His blog is at
www.stangoff.com.

Goff can be reached at: stan@xxxxxxxxxxxx









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