me: >> good article! Doyle Saylor wrote: > What does this essay say that's new?
It says that some lefties are benighted and are embarrassing themselves and what's left of the left by endorsing (implicitly or otherwise) an authoritarian clerical regime. It's useful to learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others on the left -- while shunning personal attacks (as this article does). BTW, not all good articles have to say something new. > It implies a revolt rather than > election protest which to me sounds a stretch. A large number of people marching in the street (and chanting slogans from roof-top) in opposition to and in defiance of an authoritarian clerical regime -- including its thugs -- isn't a "revolt"? Maybe I don't know what a "revolt" is. Is there some Leftist Dictionary I've never heard of that defines such terms? Is a "revolt" something that _we_ approve of without any qualification? is it the precursor to socialism? what in heck is a "revolt"? Academics may draw lines between "election protests" and "revolts," but in the real world, the protest of a fixed election can easily turn into something more significant. In the end, it may just lead to the replacement of one privileged elite by another, but in the process there are openings for improving democratic rights and freedom. For example, the 1986 popular protests in the Philippines against Ferdinand Marcos's fixed elections helped lead to his ouster. The protests didn't bring on democratic socialism or workers' councils running all the factories, but it did lead to some improvement in democratic rights. Maybe they were marginal (from a leftist perspective) and didn't overthrow capitalism (in either the Philippines or the world) but these improvements were important to those involved. It deepened the extent of democracy. By the way, not all revolts are a good thing from a leftist perspective. Consider the case of colonels revolting against an established government, overthrowing it in a coup d'état ... Similarly, the revolt in Honduras (which was more complicated) is not something we on the left should support. > [the article] says the left doesn't > support the religious fundamentalist[s]. It disputes somewhat the working > class support for the changes. The article says that the left _should not_ support religious fundamentalism (or it implies as much). The role of the Iranian working class is complicated and not fully addressed in the article. Clearly (to me at least), a lot of the Iranian working class has been bought off using old-fashioned political-machine politics at the same time they have been denied such rights as unionization. (As usual, it's best to cloak the iron fist with satin: authoritarian regimes can't survive without some legitimation.) As has been argued on pen-l, the Iranian election wasn't "stolen" as much as it was _fixed from the start_. > There is no revolt in Iran. See above. > Why rush to support a movement that is far from > being a left challenge. I presume that this is a question, despite its punctuation. No-one on the left, as far as I can tell, calls for _unconditional_ support of the movement against the authoritarian clerical regime in Iran. Similarly, I doubt that that the leftist idiots who support that regime do so _unconditionally_. There are different degrees of support. In other words, it's a big mistake to set up a false opposition between total support for those who protest the authoritarian clerical regime and its fixed election (on the one hand) and total support for the regime (on the other). Either/or thinking is sterile and self-defeating. > The U.S. press reports that at night to signal > displeasure they chant from rooftops - God is Great. What else do you expect? do you want them to yell "All Hail to the New Iranian Socialist Revolution"? or "All Hail to Doyle Saylor"? Mass movements in actually-existing societies -- as opposed to those that happen in abstract pictures of society -- reflect the societies they develop from. They hardly ever reflect leftist preconceptions exactly. Back in the 'thirties, the sit-down strikers in US auto plants carried American flags. They said that Henry Ford and his ilk were not true to the "American way." Similarly, the people in the Iranian movements are saying that the current regime is not true to "the ideals of the 1979 revolution." Now those ideals are obnoxious in a lot of ways, but they were also rejecting the Shah and calling for more popular control of the government. Isn't that a good thing (all else equal)? Yelling religious slogans is also used as a tactic to avoid being arrested: can you imagine what the regime would do if people yelled "All Hail to the New Iranian Socialist Revolution"? and what would almost all Iranians think? I'd guess they'd think that the protesters had joined the Spartacist League or something. (BTW, does the SL still exist??) By the way, were the sit-down strikes during the 'thirties an example of a "revolt"? did they live up to your standards, Doyle? or were they mere protests that should be rejected? Doyle writes: > Be that as it may, what stake has the left in the electoral protest? One > could just as easily make the case that this protest is U.S. influence. > There is no substantial evidence for a left revolt. ... So are you equating "revolt" with a "left revolt"? as mentioned above, there are lots of other kinds. What stake has the left (or what's left of it) in the electoral protest? I'd say that we have a stake any time people are struggling for more democracy. Democratic rights are of direct interest to the working class, women, ethnic minorities, and more. Part of international solidarity is to support people who are fighting for democracy -- while at the same time maintaining political independence and critical distance. If we have a "revolt" or a mere "protest" in favor of increased democratic rights, I'd hope that the Iranians would support us. (BTW, as should be obvious democracy doesn't always work out very well, even when it's not corrupted by capitalism. But as that old anti-democrat Winston Churchill pointed out, it's better than the alternative.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
