Re: [Marxism] The Left and Support For Islamic Resistance

[Michael Smith <mjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:20:16 -0500
Ruthless Critic of All that Exists <ok.president+nbsy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I think the discussion is too premised on the (false) presupposition
> that everyone in this list is a living-in-imperialist-country leftist,
> which leads to the conclusion that "calling for a stop to US meddling"
> is going to be somehow effective, whereas "calling for a stop to the
> oppression of women and gays by the religious clerics" will be
> ineffective .

I don't presume to give any advice to leftists living in (say) Iran 
itself. But for those of this who *do* live in North America or Western 
Europe, the problem with the two "calls" mentioned above is not that 
one is likely to be effective where the other isn't. Indeed the second 
of the two is more likely to be effective than the first, since it's 
more likely to be enforced by American or European bombs. 

The problem is that the two calls are antithetical. Going to bat for 
the girls and the gays in Iran lends whatever modest support we can 
provide to the humanitarian interventionists and laptop bombardiers 
who are always eager to send the Marines to impose enlightened 
humanism on backward peoples. 

When we play the two-beaked Hapsburg eagle with our two contradictory 
"calls", we're in effect handing ammo to the Holbrookes and Clintons
and Albrights of the world and then telling them not to use it. It's 
not hard to imagine what the results are likely to be.  

-- 

Michael Smith
mjs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org

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