G'day Thaxists,
>But Rob, do you really imagine that there can be any political situation,
>let alone a crisis , that does not team with numerous contradictions and
>different class interests?
Oh, I don't doubt that for a minute, Chris. It's just that the particular
contradictions in play at the moment either do or don't wipe out East
Timor, Ambon, Aachi, West Irian, a host of places of which we've never
heard, and the whole of the PRD - perhaps even a sizable chunk of
Megawati's support base - with, er, extreme prejudice. That depends on the
here and now, and it's why I favour going in mob-handed NOW - rather lend
some gravitas and credibility to the sorely tried idea of a civilian
president within a quasi-liberal democratic setting, than aid and abet in
the whole idea's destruction by a remilitarised Golkar and a Wiranto
'presidency'.
Of course, which ever of those two scenarios transpires (and I have Wiranto
installed at 3/1-on), has a lot to do with contributing to a new dynamic of
transformed contradictions. But we are talking megadeath here (sorry to
bleat again, Bob), and I share with you the suspicion this might just be a
significant criterion in this debate. I just don't see how a civilised
person can say 'either a workers' vanguard or nobody' when it comes to
crises like this.
And, anyway, if East Timor is still a viable entity, it was NEVER going to
be meaningfully independent. Neoliberal hegemony was ALWAYS its fate for
the foreseeable future. To pretend different is to do your bit to help the
powers-that-be to destroy these people completely. And whatever neoliberal
hegemony is capable of, its capacity to destroy people completely is at
least moot (neoliberalism breeds contradictions; death just breeds maggots).
>Instead of being fatalistic we have to struggle
The left does more to nourish my fatalism than anything else ...
>a) to think globally, and then
>
>b) not to think like the transnational bourgeoisie.
Well, while I await the contradictory unity of a global bourgeoisie and a
concomitant global proletariat (unforeseeable whilst the left is
constituted by the entropic assortment of jagged shards it is at present),
I think I'd do well to remember that the institutional setting today does
seem to offer a little more relevance at the level of the state. Not much,
but at least some.
>But the more blunders the latter makes the more it will arouse the
>opposition of millions. One outcome of this could be Indonesia joining
>Malaysia is a strongly anti-IMF world stance.
I think that's gonna have to take a massive default on Indonesia's part -
and unless I have the sociology of the ideal-type Wiranto way wrong, he's
not about to do that, Chris. He knows who butters his bread now, and he
knows Indonesia will not have the butter for that job for a long time - if
ever.
Cheers,
Rob.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
