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MICHAEL YATES wrote: > > One thing I noticed about Bina's paper is the considerable amount of > self-referencing; it borders on the egomaniacal. I once reviewed a > book of essays he and some colleagues edited. It's mentioned in his > end notes in the Iran article. A truly dreadful collection, with a > couple of exceptions. And Bina's own essay was most dreadful of all. > Maybe he was over his head talking about labor. His notes in the > Iran essay seem to say that he is expert on nearly everything else. > He trashes Baran and Sweezy nearly as badly as he does Monthly Review > on Iran. My guess is that if Bina and Sweezy were taking insights out > of their brains and throwing them in the ocean, Bina would exhaust > his first and by a long margin. Bina has some strange ideas about imperialism and makes the incomprehensible statement in the paper that the USA is not imperialist. His trashing of MRZine is in the context of a long reply to Paula Cerni, who is his dialectical opposite, believing that just about every country in the world is imperialist. There is one thing that I agree with him on, however. And that is MRZine's shameful defense of the present government of Iran. It must be stressed however that this has little in common with the views of Magdoff and Sweezy. Unfortunately, by referring to Monthly Review rather than MRZine, he might lead the people on Jerry Levy's list, where his post appeared, to believe that the two publications have views in common on Iran. Here's something from Monthly Review that you would never find in MRZine: Saeed Rahnema and Haideh Moghissi Clerical Oligarchy and the Question of "Democracy" in Iran Monthly Review (New York, N.Y.) 52 no10 28-40 Mr 2001 For more than twenty years the Islamic regime in Iran, along with its extensive repressive apparatuses, has created an impressive array of ideological and economic mechanisms of control to construct an Islamified civil society and build consensus for the establishment of a theocratic state. Through massive propaganda and the manipulation of religious beliefs the Islamic ruling bloc has succeeded in maintaining its monopoly of power against all external and internal odds. Political repression eliminated, jailed, and exiled the progressive secular forces that had initiated the revolution in 1979. Ideological indoctrination maintained a strong following for the clerical regime. However, faced with social, political, and economic realities, a growing number of Iranians, even those who were once devoted supporters of the Islamic regime, have turned against it. The Islamic Republic is in deep political crisis. The Islamists' economic policies have failed, the per capita income is less than half of what it was before the revolution, and the gap between the rich and the poor has drastically widened. The regime, which assumed power in the name of the dispossessed, is increasingly losing its popularity among the most dispossessed Iranians, and public unrest and dissatisfaction are on the rise. The Islamists' moral crusades have also run out of steam as people increasingly and openly express their disapproval through any means they can. The Islamification policies, primarily targeting women and youth, have produced the opposite of the intended result. Not only has the regime been unable to push women back into the home and reestablish the gender order of bygone days, but its policies have produced an unprecedented increase in gender-awareness and resistance by women. Likewise, the authority of the Islamic rulers faces a formidable challenge from Iranian youth, now over 65 percent of the population. Born and raised under Islamic rule, the youth in Iran have turned their backs on the political and moral regime established by the clerics. "Youth distancing themselves from the revolution and faith" has been a recurring concern of the Islamists.(FN1) Political suppression, particularly the series of assassinations of prominent intellectuals and nationalist leaders, which came to be known as chain assassinations, have severely discredited the regime. A disgruntled public, which has remembered the unfulfilled promises of the 1979 revolution, grasps every possible opportunity to show it despises what the Islamists stand for. Iranian voters have repeatedly expressed their discontent with the regime by voting against the fundamentalists' favorite candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections. Internationally, with the exception of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the regime's early policy of "exporting the revolution" failed to link it to other Islamic movements. (clip) ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
