It's pointless to carry on any debate begun by Lou -- he merely echoes, or exhibits in its final decay, the pathological Trotskyist lust to have a correct opinion on every township or equivalent in the world. There is no correct position on the Middle East. That region will only be able to fight out its internal tensions when NATO, Russia, and (above all) the U.S. have been driven from the region. And that can only be brought about by movements within those nations handicapping or breaking the will or the ability of those nations to continut their war against the Middle East -- a war that began with the overthrow of Mossedegh and has been continuous ever since.
Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paddy Hackett Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 3:52 PM To: Progressive Economics Subject: [Pen-l] The 1916 Rising In Ireland The 1916 Easter Rising is not an event that ought to be commerated by the working class in 2016. The 1916 Rising was undertaken by a small group of petty bourgeois insurgents. The Irish Citizen Army led by James Connolly capitulated to the petty bourgeois nationalist politics of the Irish Volunteers led by Tom Clarke and others. However the ICA was essentially a petty bourgeois paramilitary organisation. It did not see the need for social revolution and the estabishment of communism. As a petty bourgeois nationalist movement the insurgents sought, at most, the establishment of a 32 county Irish Republic that would serve the interests of small Irish capitalism and its petty bourgeoisie. Ultimately it would also serve the interests of big capital too. But what was worse there was no chance of this band of insurgents being successful in their formal goals. Indeed some, if not many, of its leaders and organisers were of the opinion that they were not going to succeed in its aims. In this way they were engaging in a project that was to lead to the deterioration of the conditions under which Irish workers lived. The War of Independence that followed partly as a result of the events surrounding the 1916 Easter Rising was to further that deterioration of Irish workers. The eventual realisation of a 26 county Republic represented the failure of Irish Republicanism. It also failed to serve the class interests of the Irish working class North and South of the border. Had Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom the Irish working class would have been no better off than it is today. In fact it may, in some ways, have been comparatively better off. The establishment of a dual state system in Ireland represented merely another form of maintaining the oppression of the Irish working class. At most some of the adverse effects of the Second World War may have been avoided by the existence of the southern state in Ireland. But this may be merely a matter of historical contingency as opposed to the inherent class nature of the Irish Republic. In short, the hullabaloo over the commeroration of the 1916 Rising is merely another device intended to perpetuate the deception of the southern Irish working class. It forms a part of the overall ideological paradigm under which southern Irish workers are to be oppressed and divided from much of the working class in the North. Take Care Paddy On 13 Dec 2015, at 15:12, Robert Naiman <[email protected]> wrote: I watched Tariq Ali's speech at the anti-war demonstration in London before the vote. It was embarrassing. He said: 1. The UK shouldn't bomb ISIS because innocent people will be killed. 2. If the UK wants to destroy ISIS, it should cooperate with Russia and the Syrian government to do so. Standing alone, each of these is a defensible position. But not in combination. In combination, they indicate someone with no concern for consistency at all. Something all honest people should be able to agree on: there's for sure nothing magic about Russian and Syrian government bombing that spares civilians. The Western "purity of arms" is obviously greatly exaggerated; but to claim a Russian or Syrian government "purity of arms" would be arguably even more preposterous. Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898 x1 On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 7:59 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: On 12/12/15 11:15 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: > It has everything to do with Corbyn. Sorry. I should have been clearer. Tariq Ali's article was a joke but the witch-hunt against Corbyn is not. Unfortunately his decision to have remained as the nominal head of STWC was misguided. It made him vulnerable. In terms of Ali's article, his comment that SWTC "does NOT take positions on the demerits or otherwise of the Taliban, Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad. It is in favour of the withdrawal of ALL foreign troops (this includes the Russians) and bomber jets" is utter nonsense. I don't care about its pro-forma anti-intervention statements. The fact that its leading members go around giving speeches hailing Assad is what matters. This is documented here: https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/open-letter-to-the-stop-the-war-coalition-stwc-or-real-solidarity-is-needed/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
