>Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>>You have a really fine political mind -- but you are almost
>>deliberately trashing it. Anyone who takes you and Mark
>>really seriously can only conclude that further political
>>theorizing or organizing is pointless. The world is over.
>>Forget it. Let's go to the movies.
>
>That's not fair. As far as I can tell, Lou thinks that we need a
>socialist revolution; I'm not sure what Mark thinks these days. What
>I'm not clear on is what exactly this socialist revolution would
>mean for industrial and agricultural practice, energy sources, the
>transformation of the built environment, living arrangements, etc.
>
>Doug
Let's suppose an unlikely event: the Japanese working class rise up &
make a socialist revolution (of some kind). What would it mean to
energy sources, agricultural practice, built environment, etc.?
Well, Japan got no domestic energy source to speak of, and it has
become accustomed to importing much of its food (except maybe rice &
some fresh vegetables & a little fish). The rest of the imperial
world, condemning the expropriation of Japanese & other
expropriators, swiftly puts an embargo on Japan to restore freedom
and democracy. Cities darken and industries begin to collapse due to
severe rationing of oil, electricity, etc.; busses & trains, alas, do
not run on time any longer, and bikes are no substitutes; Cubans
sympathize but can't help the Japanese much -- they got little oil
themselves -- so they send cigars instead. The socialist government
of Japan tries to form an alliance with Iraq to get oil, and then
leftists in America collectively denounce the Japanese government for
not denouncing the absence of freedom & democracy in Iraq. Russia,
Venezuela, and sundry other governments try to circumvent the
embargo, but their oil gets confiscated by the U.S. Navy, and they
give up. In desperation, the socialist government of Japan tries to
move urban children off to the countryside (as the Japanese did
during the World War II) to prevent starvation and to resuscitate
dead agricultural villages of yore. American leftists once again
collectively denounce Japanese socialists for taking a page from Pol
Pot. The Japanese populace become discontent too, and many
intellectuals emigrate to America, Canada, and elsewhere, creating a
shortage of experts in Japan; and encouraged by the CIA, etc. some of
the Japanese will organize armed insurrections. The USA will then
aid freedom fighters with military experts, weapons, food, and other
necessities. The civil war rages on -- sooner or later, American
troops (already conveniently stationed in Japan, South Korea, etc.)
must openly join the war (with or without a Congressional vote), and
much of the country gets laid to waste. Socialism will collapse in a
few years, or else, in an even more unlikely event of the Japanese
victory, the battered socialist government will have to build
everything back up from scratch amidst ruins, _who knows how_.
And this if America doesn't bomb Red Japan back to the Stone Age from
the get-go.
Yoshie
