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Confusion on the Left <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2017/03/14/confusion-on-the-left/> Posted on March 14, 2017 <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2017/03/14/confusion-on-the-left/> by oaklandsocialist <https://oaklandsocialist.com/author/oaklandsocialist/> *'“Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are fighting in solidarity with Syria in defending Syria’s soverienty and this is a great act of international solidarity. The liberation of Aleppo was a victory for the people against imperialism. The US role has been to support and **enable ISIS with tremendous military aid from the US along with Turkey. They support ISIS, Nusra, El Quaeda and the so-called democratic **opposition forces in Syria, which are just as terroristic and violent as ISIS. They all attack and commit genocide against the people of **Syria. It is foremost a war against the people and the entire infrastructure of the country. ISIS is a neo-colonialist force for the imperialists.”* So wrote somebody on a left e mail list, expressing a view that is all too common on the left. Let’s dissect this statement: *Analysis*'“Iran,* Hezbollah and Russia are… defending Syria’s sovereignty and this is a great act of international solidarity.” * "Really? Here we have the right wing, chauvinist Putin regime, the regime which bases itself on chauvinism at home and allies itself with far right bigots and racists and neofascists throughout Europe such as Jobbik in Hungary and the National Front in France, the regime that bombed Grozny (in Chechnya) to smithereens, and the right wing, religious fundamentalist Iranian regime, and Hezbollah – the representative of Shia capitalists. If anybody thinks they are sending troops into Syria, or bombing Syria (in the case of Putin’s forces) as an act of solidarity or to help the Syrian masses, or not acting in the interests of their own respective capitalists, they are living in an alternate universe.... "*Historic Role of Working Class* "What lies behind this sort of “thinking” is not only a refusal to take a serious look at history; it’s also a failure to consider the working class as a potential subject of history; it sees the most powerful capitalist country in the world – US capitalism – as having unlimited power to manipulate and control everything. It refuses to see that there are not only laws of motion of the capitalist economy; there are also laws of motion of political development. "If foreign policy is just an extension of domestic policy, then the reverse is true also, and this is the problem. Much of the same left that doesn’t see international struggles in clear class terms also doesn’t see the struggle here like that. The same light-minded, ahistorical approach, the same refusal to look beneath the surface, the same failure to see the *class *forces at work apply at home too. Hopefully, this will change as a more open class struggle opens up in the US." See more: https://oaklandsocialist.com/2017/03/14/confusion-on-the-left/ -- "No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them." Asata Shakur Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com and // www.facebook.com/WorkersIntlNetwork?ref=stream _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
