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On 06/05/2014, at 8:52 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote:
But even more puzzling is the absence of debate on their own mailing list on
Yahoo or here about all this. I have trouble figuring out whether this is a
function of the sort of disdain for the petty-bourgeois Internet shared by
the ISO and the SWP or instead a pronounced tendency in their ranks toward
allowing an orientation to be determined by specialists like Renfrey
Clarke.
For one thing a lot of Internet discussion has moved to Facebook, for good or
ill. For another Renfrey isn't necessarily revered as an expert, for example on
Libya where there was a lot of public discussion around 2011-12 and if I recall
correctly to the extent there was any line adopted, Renfrey's very positive
stance towards the rebels was a minority one. See e.g.
http://links.org.au/node/2300. For a third thing Socialist Alliance's line
clearly isn't what's in Links, as there's a variety of views there. Socialist
Alliance is discussing a line for a conference in a month, which is:
[From
http://alliancevoices.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/draft-international-perspectives.html]
7. The fragile recovery from the GFC and the Great Recession that followed has
been at the expense of the large majority of people who have been forced to
shoulder the main burden. As a result a continuing political crisis of
neo-liberalism continues to break out into political upheavals and what the IMF
calls “geopolitical risks”. These include the continuing wars and uprisings in
the Middle East, the conflict in Ukraine and the continuing popular
mobilisations against austerity in southern Europe.
8. However, many of these mass uprisings also revealed the limits of
spontaneous revolts as well as the challenges – and necessity – of developing
the self-organisation and political consciousness of the oppressed and building
a political force that represents the interests of the oppressed and is capable
of leading a struggle for political power against the ruling classes. In the
absence of such developments, right-wing populists, local elites and
imperialist powers will exploit the situation. We can see this dynamic unfold
in Egypt, Syria and the Ukraine.
9. The Socialist Alliance will continue to stand in solidarity with all
struggles against oppression and exploitation even where we disagree with the
political leadership of such struggles. For instance, we defend the supporters
of the Muslim Brotherhood and other dissidents facing brutal repression under
the Egyptian military regime, even though we disagreed with the politics of MB
and the former Morsi government.
10. We oppose – and seek to expose – any imperialist intervention and
manipulation of these conflicts but we reject the approach of those leftists
who in the name of opposing imperialism whitewash bloody dictatorships like
that the Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad. Similarly, while we condemn the
interference of the US and EU in the conflict in Ukraine we also call for an
end to the intervention by the Putin government of Russia. We support the right
of self-determination of Ukraine as well as the right of people in the Crimea
to decide their future; however, this must include the right of the Crimean
Tartars to return to their homeland.
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