Re: [Marxism] Is Lebanon on the verge of a new fighting?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Walters comments:
Let me say that I actually like the Walter/Yossi discussion. The issue 
is a real one that Marxists and socialists have to confront: a 
non-working class (in every definition possible) anti-imperialist 
political/military organization that is highly effective in confronting 
Israel and by proxy, the United States.

I generally agree with Yossi on this. He's clearly thought things 
through. While it might seem like leftist platitudes to talk of a  
'revolutionary party' (and proscribed by Louis from discussions about 
this) it does point (again) to the issue of how to deal with 
organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas (who are in broad tactical 
agreement with each other despite the obvious theological differences).

Fred Feldman comments:

David, as usual, offers a generally thoughtful and sane contribution from
the sectarian side. I disagree with both Yossi and Walter, and therefore
with Dave. (I've decided to be more open about my differences with Walter,
which he is well aware of, because we are friends but not a party unto
ourselves although I also agree with him on many things. I tended to keep
these off the list because of the endless baiting of Walter including by
David and threats of unsubbing by Louis.

But I have realized that unsubbing is a sometime thing, as have 
Walter and S. Artesian long since realized. I think I have been unsubbed 102
times to Artesian's 407. I look forward to catching up with and surpassing
him.


Is there any disagreement you can't express in other ways. What political
gain, besides the political gains of redbaiting, that you obtain by starting
with a labeling of Walter's views as a supposedly Stalinist echo of the
Cuban regime rather than the facts of the situation.

I actually don't disagree with Walter's claim that it is redbaitin. But
whatever the motivation, it is CLEARLY based on the identification of Cuba
with Stalinism in one way or another. 

I am willing to accept as given that Hezbollah is not simply NATIONALIST but
NOT SOCIALIST. That is, it is consciously directed by leaders of all class
origins toward solving bourgeois democratic problems of Lebanon, NOT the
class/social problems that underly the whole crisis.

There is no sense that I can see in which they represent a perspective that
bridges capitalism and socialism as even the early programmatic statements
of the July 26 movement, Chavez, and Morales clearly suggest. Hezbollah is
more like Ahmadinejad, Hamas, and NOT like the Taliban or many of the
Pakistani and Iraqi Islamists.

But in the case of Hezbollah, this calls for more than support against
imperialism. It requires real support for the legitimate struggle for more
Shia power in the government and state, pointing toward the 
South African goal -- today regarded too often as oh so inadequate -- of
minority rule.. It requires more support for the struggle against Israel
which is central for Lebanon, a good half of which is part of historic Judah
from one or another historical point of view -- and quite consciously in the
minds of the leaders of Israel for the last 60 years.

"The problem of course is that whenever movements bubble to the surface 
that seek to unite the actual working class as a class, 
something...SOMETHING seems to intervene to prevent this. Interestingly, 
the last time this happened with massive united demonstrations, 
Hezbollah launched it's reprisal kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers and 
changed the landscape politically (and militarily). This is not the 
first time this happened, BTW."

Oh, bad Hezbollah. They disrupted the STRIKE by taking on the national
question frontally. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?!!!
David seems to suggest an implicit conspiracy of why Hezbollah does this,
but I don't care whether this was true or not. This indicates that the
organized, and supporting unorganized working class, can unite around many
things but not the struggle against Israel. But this indicates that Yossi's
estimate that the working class is ready to establish proletarian state
power in Lebanon if only Hezbollah would allow it to do so is off the throw.
The working class AS A CLASS cannot be united against Israel at present. It
follows that it is not ready to exercise state power in the interests of the
oppressed and exploited.

It cannot do this, apparently, without first learning how to unite in
support of Hezbollah or whoever against the Israeli state. Or creating their
own alternative leadership which places the fight against the Zionist state
at the center of its politics. No sign of that at present. 

At least that is what I get from David's presentation of the situation.
After all, the Hezbollah followed its priorities. The confederation of labor
followed its priorities, obviously the priorities o0f many workers, Muslim
and Christian. Why did a blow against Israel divide rather than unite them?
Tis a puzzlement!
Fred Feldman


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