[PEN-L:11635] Progressive Unity, was Re: Australia, East Timor, & Conscription

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote (on lbo):

> Gary MacLennan wrote on Lou's marxism list:

[SNIP]

> I have no idea whether DSP will oppose conscription or not.  Who can say
> with Social Democrats? It should of course put an end to their stupid claim
> to have forced the government to send troops to East Timor.   But I doubt
> it will do that.  They will retreat even further into the laager and throw
> shit over the walls at their left critics.   *****
>
> One of the reasons these military interventions are fought in the name of
> "humanitarianism" is to overcome one of the remaining effects of the
> Vietnam War: many people's opposition (in America, Australia, and
> elsewhere) to see their own countrymen dying in a protracted war.

> [SNIP}

It seems to me that in the last months (particularly since the u.s.
aggression in Yugoslavia) at least two principles of unity of a
future progressive coalition have emerged: a principled opposition
to all u.s. ("humanitarian") intervention and opposition (in the u.s.)
to tailing the Democratic Party (or hoping to reform it). Within
that unity there remain very important differences (as the recent
debate in pen-l on origins shows), but I would suggest that
those who agree on these two issues should (using the Chinese
vocabulary) regard other differences as "contradictions among
the people."

Carrol