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.
The U.S. and its allies militarily imposed a government of brutal Northern Alliance fundamentalists, warlords, drug lords, and other thieves upon the Afghan people. Even Washington now complains that it’s corrupt. But this doesn’t stop the perfumed politicians and generals from sending U.S. soldiers to fight and die for it anyway. Meanwhile, for the Afghan people these have been ten years of surviving the terrors of being bombed and strafed from the skies, seeing their sons being hauled off never to be seen again, and being subjected to sadistic torture, “trophy”-taking and other outrages at the hands of the U.S. and other occupiers. Tens of thousands of their fellow citizens have died at the hands of the foreign invaders as well as the fundamentalist Taliban, and the first half of this year was the deadliest six months for Afghan civilians since the war was launched!
Now, confronted with mounting opposition in Afghanistan and the United States, and huge budget deficits, Obama plans to prolong this imperialist criminality using fewer troops.
Obama tries to put a good face on U.S. defeats
Bush left office with just over 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Obama “surged” this to nearly 100,000 troops. The predictable result was that the deaths of innocent Afghans skyrocketed, as did the deaths of Taliban fighters and U.S. soldiers. (In fact, there have been 1,093 U.S. deaths in Afghanistan under Obama in less than three years vs 575 under Bush in more than seven years.) But the Taliban only adapted its tactics by moving to other parts of the country as well as resorting to high-profile assassinations and bombings, including right in the capital, Kabul. More, after nearly ten years of fighting in one of the world’s poorest countries, the world’s most sophisticated and expensive killing machine just suffered its highest death toll yet in August.
Meanwhile, the just hatred of the everyday Afghans for the foreign invaders has only increased, and they’ve again and again mounted protests against U.S.-NATO atrocities and occupation, often sacrificing their blood in doing so. Their opposition is so great that President Karzai himself repeatedly denounces U.S. night raids and other atrocities. Moreover, in the midst of this growing mass opposition nearly 25,000 soldiers have deserted the Afghan army in the past six months, which is more than double the desertions for the same period last year.
And if there’s anything that shows that the “mighty” U.S. government is being defeated it’s the present bargaining with the “mortal enemy” Taliban over what share of governmental power it will have in post-war Afghanistan.
So in the context of his failed escalation, on June 22 Obama told the lies “We are starting this draw-down from a position of strength” and “are meeting our goals” in announcing a glacial retreat from Afghanistan: 10,000 troops to be pulled out by the end of this year, 23,000 more by the end of next summer, and 31,000 more by the end of 2014—which would still leave some 35,000 U.S. troops in the country. He also said that “the tide of war is receding,” something he should tell the families of the Afghans subsequently killed, as well as the families of the 66 U.S. soldiers killed in August. And Obama said that “the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance,” when the only peace he sees would be a rotten, militarily-imposed grand alliance between the murderous Northern Alliance and Taliban to rule over the Afghan people.
This is a coldly calculated plan under which Afghanistan will remain a U.S. killing field, and still more sons and daughters of the American working class and poor will be sent to die so that the U.S. imperialists can somehow salvage a propaganda victory and save face. World bullies that they are, the imperialists dare not reveal weakness. Also, it can be recalled that the Soviet imperialists followed a 1986 Afghanistan “surge” with a two stage 1988-99 withdrawal meant to save face, while they continued to give major military and economic assistance to the regime they left behind (which is what the U.S.-NATO also plans to do). But in two-plus years that regime collapsed anyway. Obama and his advisers gamble with the lives and treasure of the working people of America and Afghanistan hoping that this time will be different.
Solidarity with the Afghan people!
Secular and democratic Afghan activists have long said to western anti-war activists that the withdrawal of one enemy, the U.S.-NATO occupation forces, would make it easier for them to fight against their internal warlord and fundamentalist enemies: both government and Taliban. This is a hard struggle in a country where nearly 80% of the people are scattered in the countryside, where illiteracy is high and oppression brutal. (Additionally, the U.N. reports that seven million Afghans are currently experiencing food shortages due to drought, and that the number is likely to rise in the fall.) But the struggle has good prospects because the masses of Afghans are fed up with the U.S.-installed corruptocrats as well as the Taliban—which ruled over them for seven years and now inflicts “collateral damage” on them daily. Instead of being treated like dogs by the Karzai mafia and Taliban they want progress…and they look to the anti-war movements in the West to help rid them of the U.S.-NATO occupiers. It’s our duty to come to their assistance.
Fight the enemy at home
For ten years war contractors of all kinds have fattened their profits as the entire ruling class lusted for the wealth that expanding its empire would give it. But some 1670 mainly working-class sons and daughters have died for this rotten cause in Afghanistan, with many more thousands physically or emotionally maimed for life. Meanwhile, in the name of budget crisis, the politicians of both parties are viciously fleecing the workers and poor—with national minorities, women, the elderly and youth specially targeted, while they hand $trillions to the financial swindlers and Pentagon. Global warming accelerates, but the politicians of both parties do worse than nothing, e.g., they fight for more extraction of fossil fuels and more nukes! And to defend themselves from mass rebellion against these outrages, Obama has stepped up Bush’s government secrecy, and the building of an American police state upon which $80 billion was spent for spying just last year.
But this bipartisan program of war, impoverishing the people, and political reaction is causing mass anger, with increasing numbers of people learning the great lesson that both the Republicans or Democrats fight for the interests of the capitalist class, the rich, at home and abroad. History will not move forward as a result of voting for either party, or as a result of voting for any other party. The motor of history is mass struggle: protests, street demonstrations, strikes, and rebellions! Mass struggle is the weapon that brought the progressive changes of the 1930s and 1960s in the U.S. And the Arab spring uprisings that have now toppled three long-entrenched tyrants are again showing the power of mass action.
Today, anti-war sentiment has become one of the streams of really mass discontent in the country, the sentiment of the majority. It flows alongside many other streams of mass discontent, including those against racial discrimination and police murders, deportations of migrant workers, environmental destruction and global warming, and joblessness and mass impoverishment. This discontent is the basis for developing mass struggles more powerful than we presently have, with struggles on one front inspiring and fueling others. And demonstrations play a vital role in building up such a movement.
After ten years of bloody wars we say that the American working class has more in common with the workers and farmers of Afghanistan than it does with the bankers, CEOs, politicians, and generals who rule this country. Let us express solidarity with our Afghan, Pakistani, and other sisters and brothers living under the guns and drone attacks of our ruling class by demonstrating October 7. Let us target imperialism as the common enemy of workers and oppressed people everywhere.
Agitate for the demonstration!
March behind SAIC’s “For class struggle against imperialism” banner!
U.S. imperialists get out of Afghanistan now!
Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, September 4, 2011
Friday, October 7 at SCCC (Broadway & Pine) Meet at 4:30 pm, MARCH downtown!
Sponsors: ANSWER, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War–Anti-Imperialist, World Can’t Wait.
13 Comments
Note that the sponsors have changed the meet up time at SCCC to 4:30.–SAIC.
I reposted the text of this leaflet on my blog,
together with five points of criticism of it, here:
www(dot)revleft(dot)com/vb/blog(dot)php?b=6360
My criticisms include a diagram, and an animated gif, and
for this technical reason, I cannot post it here.
all the best,
Ben Seattle
Ben’s first complaint: That it is wrong for the leaflet to say the U.S. was “deluded about their military power”. But it is quite widely acknowledged that the US overstepped its power in taking on first the Afghan war, and then the Iraq war, and then with Obama, “minor” wars in other countries. This led to the need in the 2007-2008 timeframe for the U.S. to reduce troops in Iraq in order to try to get Afghanistan under control, something they’ve still not managed to do, and likely won’t ever manage. I doubt Ben disagrees with these facts. And how is this different from saying that they were deluded about their military power? Not at all. Ben raises “it is also possible that the imperialist investment in the region may strengthen their hand against China, Russia, Iran, etc.” But is there a contradiction between saying that the imperialists were deluded about their power, and saying that imperialist investment would (if it resulted in greater control of the region) strengthen their hand? Not at all again. So what is Ben’s point in raising this objection? Simply to be able to complain that SAIC is a “closed vessel”. What does this mean? Not much, but it sure sounds bad.
Second: Ben complains about the statement in the leaflet: “Global warming accelerates, and politicians of both parties do worse than nothing. … They fight for more extraction of fossil fuels and more nukes!” How is this statement wrong? Because Ben has decided that fossil fuel and nuclear power use will have to increase until a “lengthy” time after the revolution to overthrow the imperialists! And where does this come from? Again, from his head. Ben has the gall, after Fukushima, to side with the worst reactionaries to call for the creation of more nukes! And he wants SAIC to justify its opposition? But again, it isn’t his main point to debate the question of sources of energy now and in the future. After all, he gives no “links” to justify his “analysis”. Again, his point is to raise the vague and meaningless accusation “that is not how SAIC works”. Again, that nefarious SAIC is up to some kind of no good.
His third point revisits the same old same old point we’ve answered before. Let’s look closely at what Ben’s line is: “Activists (and ordinary people) need to know that a fundamental alternative to the class rule of the bourgeoisie (under which imperialist war is inevitable) is both possible and necessary. At this time, in the U.S., anything short of this fails to meet the needs of our time.” What does every leaflet SAIC writes argue for, in different words and different ways? A fight to end to rule of the bourgeoisie and the imperialist system. So this can’t be what Ben objects to. He’s complained before that SAIC doesn’t take a stand on what the society might look like after the imperialists are over thrown. He knows full well that SAIC agrees on a certain level of unity – the need to militantly fight against both the parties of the imperialist class, and the opportunists who drag the movement into the ditch every chance they get – yet it intentionally doesn’t take a stand on what the world will look like after the revolution tears down imperialism. This makes the organization open to anarchists, Stalinists, Leninists, Maoists, and other revolutionaries. It can work together on key struggle of the day, without having to achieve unity first on a final picture of post-revolutionary society. But I’ve asked him point-blank: is there room in the movement for such an organization as SAIC as I’ve described it above, and he avoided and evaded and never did answer the question, because he can’t. So now, he raises it in a vague way: “people … need to know … a fundamental alternative … is both possible and necessary”. He no longer says SAIC has to decide on what final society will look like before any of its work will be worth anything, and now he falls back to this mushy, meaningless verbiage.
In his 4th point, Ben wants SAIC to have an “open” leaflet writing process. What would this look like? Well, he suggests that the group post drafts on its website. That it post internal disagreements there also. He asserts that this would “result in better leaflets”. Would it? Well, let’s look at a practical case in the real world, rather than continuing to dwell in Ben’s head. Early in the life of SAIC, Ben suggested that SAIC set up its website so that people can post comments, and it has been set up that way ever since – for 5 years now. In that time, SAIC has written over 70 leaflets, posted on the site and distributed widely, but very little substantive discussion has happened on line (Ben’s copious “criticisms” being the exception). The group gets significant feedback from the masses who take the leaflets on the street. And in a few cases, as a result of discussion it has decided that a leaflet needed to be revised, but not as a result of online comments.
Ben’s final “criticism”: that SAIC’s banner will be the best one at the October 7th demonstration, but “eventually, the antiwar and other movements will have a better banner with which to march”. He’s “not sure what [it] will say”, but he’s sure there’s a better slogan out there somewhere for him to discover! Ben: if you come up with a slogan that SAIC agrees is truly better, we’ll adopt it. Until then, quit your grousing.
I have posted Eric’s reply, and the first part
of my reply to Eric, on my blog here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=8961
I suggest to readers that it will be easier to follow
this conversation on my blog, where the views of all
sides can be seen in full.
I made one error in the above post. When I wrote: “This makes the organization open to anarchists, Stalinists, Leninists, Maoists, and other revolutionaries”, I should have included the phrase “…so long as they uphold and fight for the points of unity of the organization.” There are plenty of Maoists, for example, who fight for the preservation imperialism by undermining the movement at every turn.
As far as Ben’s newest, I’ve only scanned it and may reply if I find the time and there’s anything there worth replying to.
Reply to Ben #4:
I replied in relatively brief form to each of Ben’s 5 criticisms of the leaflet. So far, he has answered nothing I wrote. He is a master of taking his polemic opponents’ words, changing them slightly, and then refuting the modified statement. Two points to illustrate:
The majority of his response is to attack the idea that US imperialism “blundered” in going into Afghanistan. In one half-sentence, he admits that the leaflet doesn’t say it was a blunder, but for him saying the US was deluded about its military might implies the move was a blunder, and that’s good enough.
The US clearly thought that it could take on Afghanistan, do a little house-cleaning, set up a puppet, and then repeat the process in Iraq, and even with Afghanistan bubbling in the background, this was deemed to be a “cakewalk”. The history of these two interventions shows that the US was badly wrong about what it could accomplish – put simply, deluded. Ben to the contrary, “blundered” means something very different. To call it a blunder is to assert that from imperialism’s perspective it was an error to invade at all; to assert that US imperialism didn’t gain any better position in the world by that action. Ben’s right, this would be difficult to prove one way or the other, but he’s wrong to claim that the leaflet as good as says it was a blunder.
Second: he writes, “Eric’s response to my criticism is summed up in his conclusion: “quit your grousing”.” The full sentence is “Until then, quit your grousing.” Until when? Until he comes up with a better slogan than the one which he says isn’t perfect, that some day someone will improve on. Not at all the same as just blowing off everything he says with a blanket “quit your grousing”.
(To seattleaic.org readers: sorry Ben has made reading this polemic difficult for you by posting his replies only on his own site. He seems to think that making you read it on his site is going to boost his google ranking or some such cheap bourgeois trick.)
This is a statement we sent to movement activists a few days ago:
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!
Hi Eric,
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
“Let us target imperialism as the common enemy of workers and oppressed people everywhere.”
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/
From someone who’s participated in a large number of Seattle demonstrations, I think that this was one of the better ones. Great crowd: spirited, militant, conscious, and with a number of very good homemade signs! More, the large majority was mobilized by the above leaflet, Black Orchid Collective, Occupy Seattle–which today played a real important role, and dedicated individuals. (Did anyone ever see the ANSWER/WCW flyer… anywhere?) So this is the trend in the movement that we need to further coalesce in what is shaping up to be a very busy fall. More later, and add your bit.
Response to Ben #8:
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.]
from http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=9061
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.
We handed out 1,738 of this leaflet. The total of all SAIC leaflets handed out since 2005 is 124,258.
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