At 08:17 AM 2/21/01 -0000, you wrote:
>
>> As I whistle through this graveyard in the dark, I do two things: try to
>> look for positive solutions (localism, bioregionalsim) and ask myself "what
>> about the Left?". Why exactly IS the Left so afraid to address this issue?
>> .....the issue with the ultimate and most serious threats to the oppressed.
"The Left", however you want to define this amorphous group, is not afraid
to address the issue. The VAST majority of "the left" is not in possession
of the relevant facts and the relevant analysis. Had it not been for
stumbling acorss this list, I would still not understand the relationship
between niche construction, the laws of thermodynamics, the incorporation
of natural capital into the equation with dead and live capital, or the
simple math on petroleum production. This rhetorical assumption of the
left being "afraid" is precisely part of the problem. It substitutes
name-calling or a softer version of it for analysis and education.
>> The arguments I have perceived here on Crashlist are generally a) "only by
>> destroying capitalism first can we do anything about it." b) "it's not my
>> problem, I am too busy trying to support the revolution" c) "there is
>> nothing we can do" d) "these enviros are a bunch of idiots."
Again, Tom, this gratuitously confrontational and oversimplified
characterization of "the left" may be a fine outlet for frustration, but it
does nothing to either bring more people to understanding or build
alliances. I consider myself a leftist, and I have never taken any of
these positions as stated. This is a caricature. What are YOUR arguments,
Tom? What do YOU propose? It's easy to throw rocks.
>>
>> The Left (for want of a better term) has the skills, organizational
>> understandings and the courage to address the issue in ways world-wide that
>> no other socio/political/economic entity does. Yet for the most part the
>> Left is still focused on hair splitting the differences between NATO and
>> other killers, Bush and other puppets, Wall Street and other tulip bubbles.
Let's break it down.
1. We can either accept the problem, or we can do the best we can with the
conditions and resources available to combat, ameliorate, and survive the
problem.
2. The conditions and resources available to accomplish this are material
and social.
3. If there is a solution or partial solution, it can not be effected
without social action.
4. The developing crisis is developing endogenously with the system, which
is capitalism.
5. Since the problem is developing endogenously, restructuring solutions
within that system can not address the roots of the problem.
6. The people who run this system and benefit from it are not hearing your
appeal to their long-term self interest, and they have no intention of
voluntarily letting the system go. They will kill or jail or declare war
on everyone of us before they do.
7. That system has its own dynamics and its own concretely developing
crises, which involve shifting alliances and priorities. These specific
political conditions are just as real and unavoidable as the state of the
atmosphere and topsoil.
8. The differences between NATO and other killers, Bush and other puppets,
Wall Street and other tulip bubbles are anything but hairsplitting in this
context. They are the facts bearing on the real social, economic, and
political terrain that must be traversed for global, militant, effective
action to happen. Brushing them aside out of impatience is tantamount to
dropping the struggle altogether or opting to sit on the sidelines and jeer
while others do the work.
9. Once we accept that without political power, we are limited to crying
and complaining, then the question becomes, how do we take political power?
10. That question is not moral or academic. It's strategic. It means we
have to identify specifically WHO will do it, HOW will they do it, WHEN,
WHERE, and WHY to aim our strategic blows--NOT to effect the changes we
both want to see... because we already know that siezure of political power
is a precondition of any solution... but to take that material power.
I agree with Mark. Social justice is not only a distraction, it is the
chimera of transformation through restructuring... a recurrent
hallucination of liberals. Until "the left" returns to the gritty business
of siezing political power, we are in deep shit. But the center of the
system is the US ruling elite, and to attack them, we have to attack their
interests, including NATO and other so-called tulip bubbles. That center
must have material inputs to maintain its power, and many of those inputs
are in places like the Balkans, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Pacific
Basin, etc. The fights to pry their fingers off the periphery are integral
to weakening them, in order to make the transfer of power.
Will that be enough? I don't know.
Will it happen in time? I don't know.
Can it be avoided? Absolutely not.
Do we need to engage and educate those who are serious about this
taking-power thing? You bet!
Are there any guarantees? NOt in this world.
So what! Are we going to cry? Or are we going to fight?
>>
>> Why is the Left's indignation over the bombing of one criminal's assets by
>> another criminal cartel so acute, when the world is dying from the actions
>> of neighbors we could all influence? ... simply by, as Mark comments,
>> "addressing the issue" and educating those within our spheres of influence.
>>
>> To me it seems so much more appropriate a use of our limited time and
>> resources.
>>
>> The news sparking this post awakens us to the fact that we could do the
most
>> to insure a better life for ... say ... the oppressed of the Balkans, the
>> Near East, or the Indian Subcontinent by insuring their water supplies. It
>> is not yet an insurmountable task to do so, or to at least mitigate the
>> abject misery their children will suffer.
>>
>> We should at least entertain a discussion on the list as to why "we [fail]
>> to make these facts the
>> basis and guiding compass of [our] politics."
"Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or hideous dream.
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection"
-Brutus
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