[Peace-discuss] U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now

[Stuart Levy]

On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 08:43:30PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> John--
>
> The essential propaedeutic (I knew you'd like my using the word) for any 
> effective political action is an accurate account of the situation.

Hmm.  Including the (guessable but rarely measurable) motivations of the actors?  Why?  

> In the absence of a good analysis, the best will in the world can do the 
> right thing only by accident. So it's essential to understand what's really 
> going on.
>
> If you think the economic deprivation of the majority is a result of the 
> machinations of the Jews, you'll pursue different political remedies from 
> what you'd do if you think it's a result of the machinations of the 
> capitalists. That's what August Bebel (1840-1913) meant when he said, 
> "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools."
>
> Today, Obama's war is the anti-terrorism of fools. But Obama (and Bush) is 
> not a fool.  Therefore he's doing it for some other reason.  It's 
> worthwhile knowing why he's killing people, if we want to stop it.
>
> In the US, we didn't have much success with that for a century or so, but I 
> think Vietnam -- in conjunction with the civil rights movements and the 
> liberation movements from the 60s and 70s -- changed things a bit.  That's 
> why the neoliberal counter-attack of the last quarter of the 20th century 
> was seen by our rulers as so necessary. They were deeply frightened by the 
> success of "the sixties movements." And that's why today those struggles 
> have to be ritually repudiated by anyone seeking the approval of the 
> American ascendancy. (For a notable example, see "The Audacity of Hope.")
>
> Throughout that period, it's been the Democratic party, from Wilson to 
> Obama, that has been the instrument in the US for corralling "progressives" 
> into support for the regime.  It's instructive to learn what "Wilsonian 
> idealism" -- which the US leadership consciously opposed to "Leninist 
> socialism" -- meant in practice in regard to war, labor, Europe, Latin 
> America, etc.  We are the heirs of a century of that intellectual 
> corruption.
>
> And, after a century, our rulers think that there's more danger of our 
> winning than you do. That's why they're willing to go to such lengths to 
> prevent it.
>
> The question is indeed as Chomsky put it in the book Chavez praised at the 
> UN, "Hegemony [of the US rulers] or Survival."  I prefer the latter -- and 
> want to continue with the progress we've made against the former.  Regards, 
> CGE
>
>
> John W. wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu 
>> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>> If by "long-range mind-reading" you mean attempting to understand what the 
>> US
>> government is actually doing, behind its propaganda, I should think that 
>> that
>> was the first thing a group that wants to be AWARE should be doing.  --CGE
>> Carl....If we FULLY and COMPLETELY (am I being redundant?) accepted your 
>> analysis of what the US government is doing, and has been doing for the 
>> past
>> 50 or 100 years....what would be the basis for any hope whatsoever?  Why
>> wouldn't we just blow our brains out or set ourselves on fire, or retreat
>> into hedonism or the oblivion of alcohol or drug addiction, or something?
>> Why go on with any sort of political/civic involvement?
>> J.W.
>> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>> Our local efforts might be better spent, as usual, trying to organize
>> something similiar here rather than long-range mind-reading.
>> Ricky
>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>> --- On *Tue, 10/6/09, C. G. Estabrook /<galliher at illinois.edu 
>> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>>/* wrote:
>> From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu 
>> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>>
>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now To: "Peace-discuss" 
>> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net <mailto:peace-discuss at anti-war.net>> Date: 
>> Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 9:53 PM
>> [Dispelling some of the mendacious fog about how the "Obama team is really 
>> rethinking Afghanistan" (when all they're doing, of course, is trying to 
>> find
>>  the best way to enforce their colonial control). --CGE]
>> "The organizers of the October 7th protests note that the war and 
>> occupation of Afghanistan is linked to U.S. interests in controlling 
>> strategic energy resources and markets in central Asia."
>> Students to Protest Afghan War on 25 Campuses (Oct. 7) Posted: 06 Oct 2009 
>> 08:20 AM PDT
>>> From the Students for a Democratic Society Antiwar Working
>> Group: Demonstrations mark 8th anniversary of Afghan War -– demand 
>> immediate U.S./NATO withdrawal
>> Students on 25 campuses across the United States will protest eight long 
>> years of war against and occupation of the people of Afghanistan, on 
>> Wednesday October 7. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a 
>> nation-wide student organization committed to activism for peace, justice 
>> and equality, are organizing the protest...
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