Eric said:

> But there’s another widespread illusion which Ben (along
> with various opportunist groups) fosters over and over in
> this polemic and elsewhere: that imperialism is all-powerful.

Eric, I have known you a long time and I know you are capable of productive discussion that is not based on word-twisting, time-wasting, emotionalism.

I have been down to Westlake a number of times in the last ten days and have found the efforts of activists there to be inspiring. If the circumstances of your life and health allow you to visit, I believe that you, like me, might find it to be a breath of fresh air.

First: Ben writes that the leaflet tends to a view “that we need to find leaders who are more rational and less inclined to start up foolish ‘wars of choice’”, based on his fixation on the single word “deluded” in this passage:

“Ten years ago Bush used the 9-11 terrorist atrocity as the excuse for stepping up U.S. militarism in the name of a “war on terror.” In this, he was fully supported by the Democrats. Their first act was to invade weak Afghanistan on October 7, not just to exact bloody revenge on al Qaeda, but to also violently overthrow the Afghan government and replace it with their “own.” While they’d previously cared little about Afghanistan, now, *deluded* about their military power, they sought to dominate it as part of their geo-strategic maneuvering with Russia, China, Iran and others for domination in a region that includes oil-rich Central Asia. This was naked imperialism.”

What does the passage actually say? Simply that the ruling class – Bush and the Democrats – tried to “dominate” Afghanistan as a part of their imperialist strategy in the region, and that events showed them to be badly wrong. Ben argues that to be “deluded” is essentially the same thing as to have “blundered”, but I think this is distinction is clear to readers. The passage says nothing about whether U.S. imperialism is today in a worse place than they would have been had they never invaded, which would be one measure of whether it was a blunder.

But then Ben twists another turn, claiming that “hundreds (or thousands) of readers have read [in the leaflet] about how Bush was ‘deluded’”. But again the leaflet is quite clear in laying the blame on both Bush and the Democrats, who it says “fully supported” the invasion.

Second: Ben is correct that anti-imperialists have to fight against the widespread illusion that imperialism can be reformed to be less brutal and rapacious (which the leaflet does). But there’s another widespread illusion which Ben (along with various opportunist groups) fosters over and over in this polemic and elsewhere: that imperialism is all-powerful. Ben repeats that the imperialist leaders are “conscious”, “highly intelligent”, “conscious and intelligent” and even “highly conscious and very intelligent”. This is a fact that is “often underappreciated in the movement”. But in fact, many in the movement are demoralized because they overestimate just how powerful U.S. imperialism is, and they quickly forget that resistance in Afghanistan has been very hard for them to put down and keep down, despite their overwhelmingly greater military might.

Mired as he is in idealism, Ben holds that ruling class “consciousness” and “intelligence” trump material facts such as harsh terrain and climate and the determined mass opposition to the invasion and occupation.

[Due to an error this post was originally posted signed as by SAIC.]

I find it strange that you still support the “Libyan people’s uprising”. If you still think that this was not an imperialist adventure, then it is probably the news sources that you choose to believe that has caused your confusion.

The following sources might be useful.

http://wsws.org/
http://blackagendareport.libsyn.com/
http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
http://www.uprisingradio.org/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/

Thank you for taking the time to reply to me.

I have posted your reply, together with my reply
to you, on my blog, here:

(reply to Eric/SAIC, part 2)
Our class enemy is conscious and intelligent

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=8961
(Fifth comment from the top)

——————
Also: in my reply, I explain, carefully, that I post
on my own blog (rather than here) because it is not
possible for me to post graphics here, and I believe
graphics are useful and important for communicating
ideas.

All the best,
ben

March with the Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee October 7!—
STATEMENT ABOUT THE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE AFGHAN WAR DEMONSTRATION

After a decade of bloody war in Afghanistan, and with more people opposing it than ever, the Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee eagerly took up the task of uniting as many anti-war forces as possible to begin organizing the October anniversary demonstration. Thus, we widely circulated a July 29 letter to all activists that we have addresses for, as well as having various personal discussions with some of them. The result was that the August 11 initial planning meeting (attended by representatives of ANSWER, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War-Anti-Imperialist, World Can’t Wait and ourselves) decided to have a march from SCCC that would circulate downtown at quitting time on October 7 in order to connect with workers, high school students, and others at that busy time. 4:00 pm was tentatively discussed as the meeting time, and Westlake was to be just one of the destinations, perhaps the final one.*

SAIC helped formulate this plan, which it thoroughly agreed with and was ready to shoulder responsibilities in implementing. But upon arriving at the second scheduled meeting our two comrades found X of ANSWER outside the meeting place, which she’d locked. She indicated that she had discussed it with Y of WCW, and they’d agreed that they “could no longer work with” SAIC to build the demonstration against the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan because of our anti-imperialist stand in support of the mass uprising in Libya!** And with X saying things like “You can’t force us to be in coalition with you…I’m not going to listen to anything you say to try to change my mind,” and “you can do anything you want” with her fiat, discussion was impossible. Furthermore, the planning for this undemocratic, bureaucratic expulsion was done behind the backs of the VFP and VVAWA-I representatives, who showed up to the meeting only to find it canceled.

Despite this sectarianism on the part of ANSWER and WCW, SAIC has been passing out the leaflet at http://www.seattleaic.org/statements/into-the-streets-october-7-no-more-war-in-afghanistan as part of our building for a militant October 7 demonstration, and we’ve now produced a poster to supplement this work. Meanwhile, ANSWER and WCW have produced the flyer advertising the event @ http://www.answerseattle.org/flyers/oct7011.pdf, and if anyone calls them to volunteer, it’s what they’ll be given to hand out.

But after ten years of U.S. atrocities in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, the politics of this flyer are NOT militant. For example, it calls for a “walk against the wars” rather than a march or demonstration. (Wouldn’t want to frighten anyone!) There is no expression of internationalist solidarity with the Afghan people. There is no mention of Obama or imperialism, nor any kind of call to build the anti-war movement. Instead, the focus is on money, which is raised three separate times. And the tactic for the day is to have a “die in” at Westlake. The latter is apparently meant to shock passers by into realizing that the Afghan war is terrible and still going on, or something. But whatever the explanation, this is not a mature or militant tactic.

We think that behind this flyer is an insulting, elitist, liberal-reformist outlook that views the masses of people as incapable of understanding anything but their pocketbooks, and which wants to guilt-trip or shock the people into motion rather than mobilize them with scientific politics.

But this outlook is in no way new for ANSWER or WCW, and it leads them to being oriented toward the liberal imperialists rather than the masses of workers, including the specially oppressed national minorities and youth. This is why both groups have always paraded “community leaders,” labor union bureaucrats, and clergy from the Democratic Party milieu on their speakers platforms (and sometimes even Democratic Party politicians)…while refusing to expose to the masses of protesters the ways in which these people work to channel the anti-war movement into reformist dead ends. It’s why in organizing the fall 2006 demonstration ANSWER worked to channel the entire anti-war movement into relying on the war makers by complaining “The war won’t be on the ballot but we can still show the politicians the will of the people.” And opportunistically seeking an alliance with a section of the liberals is the entire reason the RCP initiated the WCW project. Thus, in its mass work WCW was mute against liberal-Democrat sabotage of the anti-war and other progressive movements, and it also resorted to liberal political methods such as fear-mongering about supposedly imminent Christian fascism. And WCW used breathless, moralistic appeals to obscure the gulf between what they were actually doing and the scientific tactical work that needed to be done to build the anti-war and other progressive movements on a revolutionary working class basis.***

So it’s these politics that are behind the weak ANSWER/WCW poster for October 7. And while these groups only represent a small section of the anti-war movement, the issue still remains to organize the movement with a different kind of politics. To achieve this, for six years SAIC has been working to raise the mass consciousness that the imperialist system is the cause of war after war and other crimes against the masses, that both the Republican and Democratic parties are imperialistic, and that organizing the anti-war movement independent of and against these parties and their opportunist helpers is necessary.

Moreover, we’ve always encouraged anti-war activists to take matters into their own hands to organize the movement in this direction, as well as appealing to them to unite with SAIC to build marching contingents and other joint activity. From this framework we call on you to bring signs and banners and march with SAIC on October 7. Let’s build an anti-imperialist contingent. As opposed to the politics of the ANSWER/WCW flyer, let’s militantly march together in solidarity with the oppressed people of Afghanistan, and oppressed people everywhere! Let’s target U.S. imperialism and it’s chief assassin, Barack Obama! Let’s work to organize the independent political movement of the working class!

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee,
September 24, 2011

————————————————————————————————————————

* The SCCC meeting time has now been moved to 4:30, which is late for arriving downtown while foot traffic is still at a highpoint. Furthermore, on September 25 X of ANSWER informed us that they were going to march straight down Pine to Westlake, and that was it.

** At the first meeting there had been a brief airing of disagreements about supporting the Libyan people’s uprising in the context of discussing an ANSWER proposal for “over-arching” theme or slogan that would have to appear on all agitation. But at that time ANSWER eventually said that it would rather not have such slogan at all than have a “weak” one, i.e., one that focused on Afghanistan. SAIC didn’t think a slogan merely dealing with Afghanistan would have been weak, but it agreed that there was no reason to have an over-arching slogan that bound everyone anyway.

The SAIC leaflet concerning the Libyan uprising is at http://www.seattleaic.org/statements/support-the-libyan-people%e2%80%99s-uprising. It’s basic premise is that bringing down Gaddafi and creating democratic openings for the masses to organize in is not aiding imperialism, but the opposite. (In the months since we wrote the leaflet it has come to light that Gaddafi was so enmeshed in the imperialist camp that his regime tortured “suspects” that the CIA rendered to him as part of the “war on terror.”) Despite the fact that bourgeois forces have dominated, and that the new governments will continue to be cogs in the imperialist machine, the Arab spring in general, including in Libya, is strengthening the fighting capacity of the masses. And the fact that the bourgeois TNC called for and got NATO air support in order to prevent a slaughter of the then rebel forces can not be used to deny the extremely great importance a hard-won democratic opening gives for the ability of the masses to organize further.

*** SAIC’s early-2006 leaflet dealing with WCW’s politics is at http://www.seattleaic.org/leaflets/statement_on_world_cant_wait. Today we could add more.

All out for October 7!