Erm... I am confused, though I think I must agree with what you have written now. I thought you, in your previous post, had whipped up the charge that Chomsky and unspecified leftists were soft on Pol Pot, Hussein, Castro, Lee Kuan Yew (!!! this just cracks me up every time!), North Korea and other acceptably sinister 'Regimes' around the world. Supposedly it was a major crime that the 'left' supports these goons against the US. I pointed out that this is not so, that in fact Chomsky strongly rejects such bipolar blackmail. In fact, he is a major exponent of the art of exposing this racket.
Only the other day we had a large march here in Sydney against Australian involvement in the proposed war; one of the major blocks was headed by the Communist Party of Iraq, a bunch of Stalinists who I personally find practically impossible to work with. Their major slogan is "No to Dictatorship and No to War." In this they have my full support - indeed this concurrs with what you say: Iraqi communists were the major target of Saddam's fury until the Iranian revolution, and he persecuted them with major assistant from the gringos terroristas. I am yet to hear a single speaker at a rally over here support Saddam: all, specially the Iraqi left, support wiping the guy out, none support the idea the US has any right to do this. They tend to get very anxious when people like you or I start criticising Saddam - for the reason their families might end up blown to smithereens courtesy of what is perceived as endorsment of our government's line. It takes serious trust-building for them to understand we actually share their views. And if these guys and girls perceive an endorsement, why would Howard, Bush and Blair fail to? I cannot shake the feeling that should I have mentioned this little annecdote about the CP of I two posts ago, you would have found this to be ample evidence of the left's will to apology (of Stalin, that it is...). Ohm gate gate paragate parasamgate... Thiago On 4/12/2002 2:57 PM, "Steve Diamond" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Your perspective is representative of many on the left and thus expressing > it seems far from pointless. But that does not mean that it makes sense. > For example, you admit to some problems with the Castro regime (rightly > describing him as a thug) but then leap to the conclusion that "that mean[s] > that I must at once call for his elimination, the murder of tens of > thousands of Cubans and the installation of a US friendly regime." That > reminds me of a typical discussion that occurred in the 1980s during the > independent movement for democracy and human rights in eastern europe > supported by the western nuclear disarmament movement. In a talk at > Stanford, Czech dissident writer and Charter 77 writer novelist Zdena Tomin > endorsed the call for unilateral disarmament being made by E.P. Thompson and > others. An American student asked, "but if the Americans leave, what will > be left?" Tomin replied with an arched eyebrow, "the Europeans?" You, > Thiago, seem to see the world in the same bipolar fashion as that Stanford > student - and thus you pose change in Cuba, and presumably Iraq, in the > terms I initially applied to Chomsky (the enemy of my enemy....). Did it > occur to you that your opposition to Castro's thuggery might be endorsed by > the direct victims of that behavior - the Cuban people themselves? And that > you might find allies among the Cuban people short circuiting the aims of > those who really do want to impose a Washington-friendly regime. That > approach apparently did not occur to the organizers of the recent antiwar > march in Washington who structured the entire event around opposing U.S. > aggression without any suggestion that there really does need to be dramatic > political change in Iraq, apoint of view that noone as far as I could tell > was willing to make at the rally. In fact, I would argue that the antiwar > movement in the U.S. would be greatly strengthened by acknowledging the > thuggery of Saddam Hussein regime rather than attempting to rationalize it. > Then the antiwar movement might find new allies among the Iraqi people > themselves who will indeed need to be organized to resist the future that > the Pentagon seems intent on imposing on them in the near future. > ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au
