On Wed, 15 Feb 1995, Doug Henwood wrote:
> I think Counterpunch did an important thing by circulating this famous
> memo, but the danger of this sort of muckraking is always that it focuses
> too much attention on individuals and away from systemic forces. You don't
> need a memo to know that Wall Street wants to see the Zapatistas crushed -
> all of Wall Street, and the Mexican elite as well, not just Chase and
> Roett. Let's give a moment's thought to Goldman Sachs, former home of
> Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, present home to the ubiquitous Jorge
> Mariscal, and the biggest foreign underwriter of Mexican securities from
> 1992-4.
>
> Doug
>
Doug:
I see no "danger" here. I see no opposition between identifying the
functionaries of capital and understanding "systemic forces". In the
first place theoretical arguments about "systemic forces" means little or
nothing to most people. What does means something is who knew what, when
and what they did about it. In the second place, theoretically speaking
the concept of "systemic forces" has no meaning without agency. I don't
mind the use of the term but I would never give it the kind of
structuralist interpretation that leaves out subjects. Things certainly
happen behind the backs of the actors, but mostly what that means is that
the outcomes of their actions are not always what they expect or intend.
In this case we get a glimpse of what has beem said by those actors
behind closed doors. We get a better understanding of some of the forces
in U.S. capitalist policy making. Sure, we all think that ALL of Wall
Street wants the Zapatistas crushed, but that doesn't mean the story of
their internal discussions is useless to know. There is not always
consensus in policy matters and it is often very useful to know who is
saying what to whom, to take advantage of it in struggle.
Remember Vietnam. There was consensus, more or less, for a long time with
a few exceptions such as George Ball. But as that consensus began to
disintegrate and those of us in the anti-war movement recognized it as
such, we were able to widen the conflicts into a split that weakened the
Johnson and then Nixon administrations and helped bring their war to an
end.
Chase is clearly embarassed by this report getting out, enought to
disassociate itself from Roett. Roett is probably royally irritated even
if he might have suspected that was one of the rules of the game. Knowing
that Zedillo chose to go into Chiapas partly under pressure from Wall
Street is useful for the anti-war effort in Mexico. Few there enjoy the
idea that their government is an agent of WAll Street whatever they think
of the Zapatistas etc.
This kind of thing also allows us to raise an issue which has been
ignored for too long by too many: the role of the university in foreign
policy making. Roett is Director of Latin American Studies at Johns
Hopkins. Such area studies were created to feed scholars and analysts
into the American imperial machine. We realized all that back in the
1960s. NACLA did a lot of reserch on area studies in Latin AMerica.
Attacks on such connections were an important part of the anti-Vietnam
war effort, they helped rupture the socialization of students into the
establishment and disrupted the research and public images of those who
had sold their souls to the Defense Department or to State or to the CIA.
Remember the revelation of Project Camelot in Chile where individual
social science researcher activities were being paid for and coordinated
as part of a counterinsurgency agenda? Remember the articles in VIET
REPORT on the Peasant and the Professors about the role of the Unversity
of Michigan in Vietam? Remember the expose "Anthropology on the Warpath"
in the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS about the use of anthropologists research
in the counterinsurgency campaign there? All these revelations
contributed to the struggle.
The result was a crisis in the connections between the universities and
business. For the last 15 years business and the government have been
trying to renew those ties and craft new ones. It has not always been
easy. Part of the Vietnam syndrome has been the memory of distaste over
such links.
For example, a couple of years ago a new administration in the Institute
for Latin American Studies here at University of Texas wanted to open a
program to train military personnel in Latin American studies. It would
bring in new money they said! The reaction of most faculty and students
was quick and aggressively negative. The program was not started.
Hopefully, the information about Roett will reach the faculty and
students at Johns Hopkins and there will be those who will protest his
position there, perhaps call for his resignation --considering that he
has called for murder ("elimination of the Zapatistas"). That's a hell of
thing for a "scholar" to be doing.
Therefore, I say: the more such information we can lay our hands on, the
better. The more we know about who is making the decisions that cause
war and the more we know about their motivations, the easier it will be
to fight them. Let's encourage Rubin and Mariscal's flunkies to turn
coat and leak some of THEIR honest comments. Let's encourage student
interns to leak what passes through their hands, housekeepers to check
the wastecans before throwing out the evening's trash. Let's have more such
"guerrilla research", more such revelations that give flesh and blood
to our discourses about the vicious nature of capitalism.
Harry
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Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173
USA
Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 442-5036
(off) (512) 471-3211
Fax: (512) 471-3510
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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