Rui Correa wrote:
How do these two conjugate:
1. " Bush relies on the fear that politicos in the DP have to being
perceived as "soft" on foreign policy."
2. building on " We need many local protests.
Many. Out Now! Bug the congress people and local officials with Out
Now! Now it's the time to do these things" and wanting to go bigger - ie,
worldwide;
Would a worldwide onslaught make the "politicos in the DP" feel perceived as
even softer and become nationalist jingos or will they admit foreign
humiliation of US policies and welcome foreign help in "Bug the congress
people and local officials with Out
Now!"
First, yours is a great idea. An international wave of protests
against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, similar to the mass protests that
predated and coincided with the invasion, would have a major impact at
this time. Are they likely? I don't know.
But even local protests -- as long as they are loud, creative, and
massive -- would have now a large impact. First, because in the
aftermath of the Republican defeat in the midterm elections, these
actions would give *people* confidence to push for more. And also
immediately, it would put the new congress between a rock and a hard
place. The newly elected Democrats have an implicit commitment. Or
maybe it is explicit -- Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be speaker of the
House, declared that her top priority as speaker would be to end the
adventure in Iraq. The newly elected know damn well that they got
there riding the antiwar sentiment of *the majority* of the U.S.
people. So, they are likely to be less dependent on big money than
other Democratic cohorts and perhaps even somewhat tied to the
constituency that got them there.
That contrasts with the right wing of the DP, which has a vested
interest in the war and/or ties to big money that commits them to
*imperialist* objectives, even if not by means as blatant as under
Bush. I'm thinking of people like Clinton, Biden, Schumer, Obama,
etc. IMO, the main concern of the liberal Dems and perhaps some
newbies in congress is whether the traditional "patriotism" of
Americans (that is, the traditional ideological submission of white
working-classers to U.S. imperialism) is robust enough to reverse the
current antiwar sentiment. That's what they would want to know. The
liberals are afraid of being associated with "defeatism," "failure,"
"weakness," etc., which -- they believe -- would make them unelectable
in the future.
Bush, on the other hand, has made his intentions abundantly clear.
He's said repeatedly that he won't bring the troops home while he's in
office. As I wrote before on this list, that makes sense. He has a
different "objective function." He is not seeking re-election. He
knows that, *at this point*, the interests he's been trying to advance
can be more damaged by a disorderly retreat than by sticking to the
plan until the bitter end. If he doesn't pull the plug, he can't
blame the Democrats. When things fall apart, the dynamics gets out of
control and that they fear.
But right now, the old coalition that gave the Republicans large
turnouts in the national elections in the last few decades has been
shattered, perhaps for good. Well, here agency plays a role: ideally
the left would be working now to frustrate any attempt by the
Republican leaders to reconstitute their coalition. How? By driving
a definitive wedge between the plutocratic interests in the RP and the
so-called Reagan Dems -- working classers, who may be now sensitive to
joining a struggle to reduce the exposure of working families to
economic insecurity.
In any case, at this point, repairing the coalition is beyond Bush's
ability. The system of loyalties in the top and mid-range Republican
bureaucracy, and therefore at the grassroots, has begun to shift. The
gravitational forces that kept it together (power, which begets money,
which begets power...) has weakened and that feeds back in a vicious
cycle. That's why it makes total sense for Bush to say (and really
believe), as he said in his recent visit to Asia, that the true lesson
of the Vietnam war is that you only fail if you quit. In his case,
that's typical of what behavioral finance economists call "aversion to
a sure loss." And, in this case, that's institutional -- not merely
personal.
Perhaps most people on this list believe that imperialism is a
necessary manifestation of advanced capitalism. I don't think so. I
don't downplay the historical role of imperialism in capitalist
history and in our times. Politically, the struggle against
imperialism is operational, while I don't believe a direct assault
against the basis of capitalism is yet on the agenda. But,
theoretically, I view imperialism as an *extra-economic* mechanism
brandished by capital in rich countries to exploit labor abroad. It
is a more or less coherent set of policies that impose conditions on
other countries in violation of the rules of commerce equivalent trade
that characterize the capitalist mode of production proper.
Imperialism, IMO, is a mechanism of wealth (and value) redistribution.
It's exploitation by alienation or appropriation, not by production
of surplus value. In other words, it is *not* a mode of production.
Obviously, before wealth (and value) are distributed, they must be
produced. For the most part, the capitalist mode of production
predominates. But just because a re-distributional mechanism deviates
from the norms of the mode of production, that doesn't mean that the
deviation is not systematic, pervasive, hardened, and politically
significant. However, the differences between enlightened interests
that want to preserve the capitalist mode of production and those tied
to imperialist practices are also politically significant. But that's
another discussion....
Back to the topic, the midterm elections have unleashed a dynamics
with the potential to inflict massive damage to U.S. imperialism.
And, ultimately, reforming this country's foreign policy -- although
prompted and accelerated by external shocks -- can only be carried out
by the U.S. people. Again, the issue is whether the majority's
antiwar sentiment is temporary, a fleeting mood, being that the U.S.
people (particularly the majority of white "middle" and working class)
are fundamentally corrupted by the (largely illusory) privileges that
U.S. imperialism grants them. Or the opposite: the sentiment is
robust, systemic, and -- as a result -- a larger and larger crowd will
keep questioning the very premises of the country's foreign policy,
coming to the realization that such policy is designed to advance
special interests (large military contractors, large corporations,
Wall Street, oil companies, etc.), not only at the expense of the rest
of the world, but also *at the expense of the U.S. people* (their tax
dollars and human lives wasted). So the vision of an alternative
foreign policy, based on a modicum of mutual respect, cooperation, and
international rule of law as the foundation of genuine national
security, is not beyond their imagination.
I believe the latter is true. But arguing the point would make me
type another ten paragraphs. (Hint: the causal trend is something I'd
call the *political Baumol disease* -- and idea people like Chomsky or
Marx in Grundrisse have also floated.) My point here is that what
will happen next is not predetermined. Things are very fluid in this
juncture. And it's in these conditions, I believe, that the "battle
of ideas" (to use Fidel's term), mass organization and mobilization
can have a decisive impact. Lenin had a slogan that I'd adopt now:
"Explain patiently." It's time to engage in a patient explanation of
basic arguments that are now more likely to connect with the concerns,
perceptions, and experience of many people previously impermeable to
the arguments of the left. The twisted arguments of the Tom
Friedmans, not to mention the Bill O'Reillys, are now on the
defensive.
This is a *temporary* window of opportunity for the U.S. left. Since
the DP has now the ability to pull the plug and is susceptible to
pressure from the left, this is the time for the left to throw its
weight and make credible threats to whom it may concern. Why now and
not before? Because *now* a large majority of the population believes
Iraq is a fiasco! Before the people were not there. So, third party
attempts (like that of Nader and followers) were premature
ejaculations by a politically adolescent group of marginal leftists
and environmentalists. But now things are beginning to change. If
the battle of ideas is waged adequately, the left can leverage the
current situation. By giving them a majority in congress, *the
majority of the U.S. people*, opposed to the occupation, has thereby
-- effectively -- made the Democrats *co-responsible* for any further
loss of life and public treasure in Iraq. And for now, the people are
willing to take action.
Again, this fluidity is *temporary*. Without organization and motion,
the little progress made in the midterm elections will dissipate.
Politics as usual will set in. Disappointment will turn into cynicism
and then passivity. Of course, the left wing of the DP doesn't
believe much in mass protests or grassroots organization. The large
demonstrations against the war were organized by *radical leftists*
under different formations: UFPJ, International ANSWER, Not In Our
Name, grassroots local organizations. Even though they often act as
if they wanted to be really irrelevant, radical leftists are not
irrelevant. If they didn't view mass-mobilization as *the* strategy,
and elections as inherently demobilizing, then they would be in a
better position to lead the whole process and leverage it in the
struggle for socialism. On the other hand, the left wing of the DP
views elections as *the* strategy and mass mobilization as mob rule, a
nuisance, or (at best) subsidiary to their electoral needs. In fact,
for the time being, both mass protests and the voting booth should be
viewed as pieces in the tactical arsenal, converging in a workable,
unified strategy around the goals of rescuing foreign policy from the
special interests and reducing the exposure of the U.S. working people
to economic insecurity.
If you ask me, I believe people like Stan Goff and Joaquín Bustelo are
on the right track. Other people on the radical left are too
concerned defending orthodoxies. Who cares? Stan is absolutely right
in emphasizing the need for theorizing "from our own experience,"
developing a theory of the revolution "organic" to this country. That
doesn't mean that Marx's or Lenin's or Luxemburg's or Mao's ideas will
be useless. They will be if there's no movement to re-appropriate
them critically. But at this time, this is really a red herring. All
Stan is suggesting is that the way the ideas of Marx and others will
be *appropriated* by the working people in this country won't be a
linear academic exercise, but it will depend on the vicissitudes of
the struggle here as it organically evolves. Learning is not changing
one's mind. Learning is changing one's behavior -- *and* one's
results. No idea, smart or silly, old or new, should survive intact
its exposure to political practice. If it does, then that should
indicate that the practice is superficial.
[I apologize beforehand for typos, syntax blunders, and errors in
reasoning. I'm too tired and cannot proofread.]
