====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
While in general agreement with Louis' views on all things WWP, the below passage strikes me as equivocal about Gadhafi, an attempt at nuance. It clearly makes reference to the "neo-liberal turn" without calling it that: ---------- After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and leveled much of Baghdad with a bombing campaign that the Pentagon exultantly called ?shock and awe,? Gadhafi tried to ward off further threatened aggression on Libya by making big political and economic concessions to the imperialists. He opened the economy to foreign banks and corporations; he agreed to IMF demands for ?structural adjustment,? privatizing many state-owned enterprises and cutting state subsidies on necessities like food and fuel. The Libyan people are suffering from the same high prices and unemployment that underlie the rebellions elsewhere and that flow from the worldwide capitalist economic crisis. ---------- Of course calling this an attempt 'to ward off further threatened aggression' by adopting measures that make that aggression unnecessary is an irony apparently beyond the grasp of the WWP writer. But WWP equivocation is matched by that of the White House and US government, which has yet to come out in favor of deposing Gadhafi. -Matt > Progressive people are in sympathy with what they see as a popular > movement in Libya. We can help such a movement most by supporting > its just demands while rejecting imperialist intervention, in > whatever form it may take. It is the people of Libya who must > decide their future. > You will notice not a single word about the neoliberal turn in this article. As I pointed out originally, which probably led to this intervention by a non-subscriber, the WWP is living in the past. This is *not* 1969 or 1979 any longer. It is as if writing about the PLO today as if it were the early 70s. Marxists who do not keep pace with historical events are not very good Marxists at all. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
