It won't surprize me when Mark is subjected to a barrage of flaming
"critiques" for this one. So I'm thanking him in advance for doing what he
does so well... just saying it.
He has put his finger on precisely what is wrong with the so-called left,
which has come to be dominated by the magical thinking of people like Bond,
Chomsky, et al. They don't acknowledge necessity, and in fact spend a
great deal of effort in trying to market their own peculiar denial of it.
Under all the superficial complexity of capitalism, there are people with
weapons, and in a fight between someone with a higher moral purpose and
someone with a gun, the gun wins every single time. Even the mass
non-violent strategies of Ghandi and King, et al, were acted out against a
background of the Soviet Union's armed force. Never doubt, that in the
absence of that mighty alternative, Ghandi and King and their followers
would have been slaughtered en masse.
I spent 24 years in the armed forces, and I can tell you that when we are
talking about force, we aren't talking about assault rifles. We are
talking about fuel-air bombs, computerized, long-range missles systems, a
smorgasbord of hi-tech surveillance and eavesdropping capabilities, high
mobility weapons platforms for air, land, and sea, forward looking infrared
monitors, electronic chain guns that can rain 3000 rounds per minute, and
all the paraphernalia of the new, militarized police.
This is the system, and all the rest is cover, and the highest, and still
only ultimately effective, form of struggle to sieze power is revolutionary
civil war. Anyone that believes that can be done through the magic of
"decentralization" or "leaderless resistance" or "non-heirarchical
organizing" is smoking some seriously high-quality hash.
I can already hear the flood of objections about Blanquism, etc, but that's
not what I'm talking about. Mass struggle is still key, and any leadership
worth a second thought must be mindful from the very beginning that that
struggle will either assert itself in disciplined armed struggle at some
conjuncture, and prepare for that eventuality in every aspect of its
organization from day one. Leadership that fails to do so is making an
extravagent hobby of politics, guiding the masses yet again to the
sacrificial chambers of reform and reconciliation, and needs to be replaced.
When I carried an M-16, I won all my arguments... except when someone shot
back.
There are no magic formulas and no short cuts. Study your history.
Stan
"...all truly great scientific abstractions are both universal and simple.
They are simple not because they explain so little but because they explain
so much. Generality does not arise because an abstraction represents
everything that could possibly happen, but because it remains valid no
matter what happens."
Alan Freeman
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