I am surprised that you do not mention that Galbraith is the sone of John
K. Galbraith.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 11:38:42AM +0300, Keaney Michael wrote:
> Yoshie writes:
>
> Forward planning indeed. I believe that the CNRT may be expected to
> become what the ANC has become.
>
> =====
>
> MK: No doubt. You can add Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and, should it ever
> come to pass in Scotland, the Scottish National Party. Nationalism is no
> substitute for proletarian internationalism. Sorry if that sounds more than
> one generation out of date, but I can't think of a snappier, more with-it
> phrase that captures what I'm trying to convey here. But there's more to
> East Timor than bourgeois nationalism. Basic survival was at stake.
>
> =====
>
> Now, back to the work of Peter Galbraith. His political career
> concerning Iraq, the Balkans, & East Timor has been emblematic of
> liberal internationalism. Don't let the lucrative oil deal blind you
> to it.
>
> =====
>
> MK: Blind me to what? That East Timor is being incorporated into the liberal
> capitalist family? How shocking. Like his father (John Kenneth) Peter
> Galbraith is trying to engineer the best outcome within the confines of the
> status quo. It's an honourable course of action if not usually blessed with
> the likelihood of success. But compared to the policies enacted by
> Suharto/Wiranto it's a major improvement, as is the outcome so engineered.
> That does not equate to ultimately desirable. But it's better than the
> preceding 25 years. His effective rebuke of Howard/Downer is also a further
> illuminatory reminder -- as if any were needed -- of the disgusting position
> adopted by the Australian ruling class throughout this entire sorry episode.
> By extension, of course, guilty parties include Australia's partners in the
> Echelon/CAZAB network which sanctioned the buttressing of anti-communist
> geopolitics that Suharto's invasion (begun as Ford and Kissinger flew out of
> Djakarta) represented. One of the saddest aspects is that even someone as
> emblematic of progressive social democracy like Gough Whitlam -- who, like
> Harold Wilson, was not afraid of trying to assert control over his
> US-dominated foreign and security policy -- could nevertheless wash his
> hands of the original invasion as merely "an internal matter" for the
> Indonesian government.
>
> Yoshie, you've been good at pushing people for programmes of late. You've
> also been good at probing my presumed approval of the present reconstruction
> process in Indonesia. Would you have preferred the uninterrupted subjugation
> of East Timor by General Wiranto and his "citizens' militias" safe in the
> knowledge that "Empire", as depicted by Hardt and Negri, was being somehow
> thwarted? If so, and given the IMF's involvement in Indonesian political
> economy, why couldn't "Empire" be just as capable of incorporating a
> bloodily subjugated Indonesian-occupied East Timor as it is a nominally
> independent and safer one?
>
> What exactly is our disagreement here?
>
> Michael K.
>
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
