[Peace-discuss] David McReynolds of UFPJ - "Syria: What is to be done?"
Stuart Levy
stuartnlevy at gmail.com
Wed Aug 14 21:03:03 UTC 2013
David McReynolds of UFPJ recently wrote a piece for a symposium on
Syria, including this:
"Most of all I don't think there is anything the left can or should
do except profoundly and totally oppose any military aid to the
rebels, and give all possible support to negotiations."
His full article is below.
(Also quoted for some reason on the same UFPJ thread is a bit from the
Christian Science Monitor on the resurgence of the Communist Party in
Japan - "unlike the other parties, they were always anti-nuclear" and
"?It?s healthy for the political development of the country that there
is a party that is at least clear in what they say, whether you agree
with their positions or not.?" - so that's included below too. (The
one time I visited Japan, in 2001, I happened on a candidate speaking to
a lively political rally. I understood nothing but took a picture. A
Japanese friend later explained: it had been a JCP rally.))
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ufpj-activist] Syria piece
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 22:11:57 -0400
From: David McReynolds <davidmcreynolds7 at gmail.com>
To: Joanne Landy <jlandy at igc.org>
CC: Bruce Cronin <bcronin60 at gmail.com>, ufpj-activist
<ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org>, 'CCDS Members'
<members at lists.cc-ds.org>
And here it is - sending it also to my EdgeLeft list. I look forward to
the issue.
Friends, Joanne Landy, of New Politics, is running a symposium on Syria
and asked for my comments, They follow.
*Syria: what is to be done?*
We know that the war in Syria - which is a civil war, not a revolution -
is profoundly tragic, with over 100,000 dead, with tens upon tens of
thousands of people fleeing into neighboring countries. I'm baffled that
the left seems in confusion. I know there are some on what might be
called the "hard left" (I'd be inclined to call it the thick headed
left) who see Assad and his regime to be socialists under assault,
including, by one recent statement, by Israel. (I have no idea what
Israel will do - its foreign policy is brutal and clumsy but not usually
insane - I doubt very much the Israeli generals, much as they may hate
Assad, want to risk trading a relatively peaceful border for one under
the control of extreme Islamists). And I'm aware that another part of
the left seems to feel that we must intervene (a small segment of the
left, but one we heard from on Libya as well).
At least I know how little I know about Israel. I have never been there,
nor made a study of it. (Unlike Libya, about which I did know something,
and where I think US/NATO policy was dishonest). I know Assad has run a
brutal regime. I also know that he does have some genuine popular
support (my source for this is the New York Times). And I know that at
this time, the rebels are in retreat and Assad is gaining the upper hand
in a military sense. It may well be that Syria cannot be "put back
together", that a Rubicon has been crossed in terms of bloodshed. I know
there are deep religious divisions in Syria (not, I think, the cause of
the trouble, but, once the trouble begins, then, as with Iraq, they take
on a terrible life of their own).
Most of all I don't think there is anything the left can or should do
except profoundly and totally oppose any military aid to the rebels, and
give all possible support to negotiations. Some things to keep in mind.
Lebanon had a similarly bloody civil war which continued until it
finally simply ran out of steam. The US had a civil war which,
considering how small our population was, took a terrible toll. More
Americans lost their lives in our civil war than were lost in the
Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War _all
put together!!!
_We do know (even if, as with me, we don't know much) that there were
some decent, secular, democratic forces involved in the original
uprising against Assad. We can seek to maintain contact with them, even
as we categorically refuse to send military aid, either overtly or
covertly. (Here, as so often, I would urge those who feel we need to
send military aid to find a way to go there and join the fight - I'm
sure the rebels would rejoice in a few English speaking radicals willing
to carry guns, and I'd suggest that those in the hard left who think
Assad must be defended to take similar action - put their bodies where
their slogans are).
I'm disturbed by the shallow level of some of the discussion. We have
heard of possible use of poison gas by Assad - though of late that
charge seems to have lost steam. For Americans to raise the question of
chemical war is in poor taste, since we were teachers in this area, not
only with tear gas, but with the enriched uranium littering the battle
fields of Iraq, and the terrible toll agent orange took of the
Vietnamese (and of Americans serving in that war).
It is in particularly poor taste for the Americans to raise this, given
the "covert" role we played in helping Saddam use poison gas against the
Kurds and the Iranians.
And speaking of Saddam, and bloodshed, and the need to intervene for
"humanitarian reasons" in Syria, I do not remember _*one word*_ from the
White House during the terrible war Iraq launched against Iran and which
took the lives of a half million young men _*on each side*_ over the
course of that war. On the contrary, the US was delighted to see Iran
under military attack.
As a pacifist I would not fight in this or any war - some would say a
cheap way out. But I can distinguish between and among wars. If ever
there was a just war, it was that of the Vietnamese people against the
US, and if ever there might have been reason for a Security Council
decision to establish a no-fly zone, it would have been there, against
the US. I think all of us who are now old would say the Spanish Civil
War was also a just war, and we salute those who fought there in defense
of the Republic. We can say, of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and on
Lebanon, that while they were not attacking secular, democratic forces,
they were engaged in barbaric attacks on civilian populations, and
involved the use of white phosphorus. I'll take the "humanitarians" in
the State Department seriously when they speak out in defense of the
Palestinians.
But most of all - granting how terrible this war is, and how unjust it
is for its impact on the civilians - have we not learned by now that one
cannot count on an imperial power to act with democratic and
humanitarian concerns? Have we forgotten how, in Indochina, the US sold
out the Viet Minh, with whom we had been working, and turned that area
back over to the colonial control of France?
No military aid to the rebels. A curse on all who send in weapons,
whether Russia, Iran, or Hezbollah or, as some seem to forget, Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf States which have been so eager to fund the rebels
but are totally opposed to democratic and secular movements in their own
territory. What has happened to that part of the left which seems to
think the US has a positive role to play in these areas?
Let me close by noting of the voices in the State Department for some
form of humanitarian "aid" that they represent an armed and oppressive
state which invaded Iraq without reason, has laid waste to Afghanistan
and has given Israel unconditional support. They have lost the right to
speak in moral terms. Silence would become them very well. Or, at the
least, serious work with Russia for an international conference to bring
the warring parties to the table.
- 30 -
[...]
>>> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Rick Kissell
>>> <rick at kissell.org <mailto:rick at kissell.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Communist Party makes a comeback ... in Japan
>>> by Gavin Blair
>>> The Christian Science Monitor
>>> 8/5/13
>>> A smiling, smartly attired 30-year-old woman
>>> sits at an expansive table in a meeting room
>>> decorated with simple elegance on the fourth
>>> floor of a modern office building in central
>>> Tokyo.
>>> Only the sunflower broach ? an anti-nuclear
>>> symbol ? on the woman?s suit, and perhaps
>>> that the large calligraphy scroll on the
>>> wall behind her that isn?t hung perfectly
>>> straight, betray the fact that this isn?t a
>>> scene from corporate Japan. Yoshiko Kira
>>> doesn?t look like she intends to dismantle
>>> capitalism, but this is the headquarters of
>>> the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and she
>>> is one of its rising stars, and that?s her
>>> plan.
>>> When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal
>>> Democratic Party cemented its grip on power
>>> with a victory in the upper house elections
>>> on July 21, the unlikely other winners were
>>> the Communists. Ms. Kira was one of the
>>> party?s newly elected lawmakers who saw the
>>> JCP raise its representation in the House of
>>> Councilors from six seats to 11, giving it a
>>> large enough bloc to propose legislation.
>>> She was the first Communist to win in the
>>> five-seat Tokyo constituency in 12 years,
>>> while another young JCP candidate won in
>>> Osaka, the party?s first victory there in 15
>>> years. Overall, the Communists came in
>>> second to the ruling party in terms of votes
>>> collected in Japan?s two giant metropolises.
>>> How? Part of the reason has to do with the
>>> deterioration of the main political parties.
>>> DISARRAY
>>> What had been the main opposition, the
>>> left-of-center Democratic Party of Japan ?
>>> which spent three years in government until
>>> its defeat in December's general election ?
>>> is in almost utter disarray.
>>> Two of the founding members have left the
>>> party, while the third, Naoto Kan ? the
>>> prime minister at the time of the 2011
>>> earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters ?
>>> has just been suspended from the party for
>>> three months after supporting an independent
>>> candidate in the recent election. Some
>>> voters appeared to have seen the Communists
>>> as the only party able to counterbalance the
>>> nationalism of the Abe administration
>>> <http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2012/0926/Would-Japanese-nationalist-Abe-s-return-to-premiership-fuel-row-with-China>
>>> and its talk of amending Japan?s pacifist
>>> Constitution.
>>> Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso caused
>>> consternation in some quarters this week
>>> when he appeared to suggest, during a speech
>>> to a conservative think tank, that the
>>> current controversy around the constitution
>>> could have been avoided if Japan had changed
>>> it in secret, as was done in Nazi Germany.
>>> ?When I was a child there were a lot of
>>> books in my house with pictures of the war
>>> and the atomic bombing. I used to worry that
>>> planes flying overhead might be carrying
>>> bombs. Then one day my mother told me that
>>> Japan can?t have wars anymore because of the
>>> Constitution, and I thought I was lucky to
>>> be born in this country,? Kira says. ?But
>>> now the Abe government wants to change the
>>> Constitution so that Japan can start wars
>>> again.?
>>> ?It?s not just about war. When I was looking
>>> for work I applied to a large number of
>>> companies, and was told during interviews
>>> that hiring a woman was a risk. I realized
>>> there were many things about Japanese
>>> society that need changing,? says Kira.
>>> ONLINE MASCOT CHARACTERS
>>> Founded in 1922, the JCP is the oldest
>>> political party in Japan, and has enjoyed
>>> constant representation in parliament for
>>> longer than any other. But until recently,
>>> its image was one of older activists and it
>>> struggled to attract younger voters.
>>> July's elections were the first in Japan
>>> where online campaigning was permitted, and
>>> it was the JCP that is widely seen as having
>>> made best use of it. As well as savvy
>>> leveraging of social networks and video
>>> streaming platforms, the party created a
>>> series of online mascot characters that
>>> addressed individual issues such as the
>>> planned consumption tax hike, shady business
>>> practices, the heavy US military presence on
>>> Okinawa, and constitutional change.
>>> ?We were able to use the Net to reach out to
>>> younger people, many of whom don?t read
>>> newspapers or watch TV much. Through the
>>> characters, we could communicate issues
>>> simply and appeal to young voters,? says
>>> party spokesperson Toshio Ueki, who reports
>>> that the characters? webpages got 1.5
>>> million hits in the weeks before the poll.
>>> While the party has embraced new technology
>>> in its campaigning, it can still lay claim
>>> to a consistency in both policy and
>>> personnel that sets it apart from other
>>> parties in Japan. Kazuo Shii has led the
>>> party since 2000, during which time Japan
>>> has seen nine different prime ministers. And
>>> while some politicians have turned
>>> anti-nuclear since the accident at Fukushima
>>> Daiichi Nuclear power plant, the JCP was
>>> always against nuclear power.
>>> 'REFRESHING'
>>> ?One of the appeals of the Communists has
>>> been the clarity and consistency in their
>>> pledges; people find it refreshing,?
>>> suggests Takashi Inoguchi, professor
>>> emeritus at the University of Tokyo. ?It?s
>>> healthy for the political development of the
>>> country that there is a party that is at
>>> least clear in what they say, whether you
>>> agree with their positions or not.?
>>> Although Japan is not yet on the road to a
>>> workers? paradise, having struck a chord
>>> with the electorate, the JCP may now have
>>> the opportunity to establish itself as the
>>> most cohesive opposition to the current
>>> government.
>>> ?If we did take power, the JCP wouldn?t try
>>> to implement a Communist economy
>>> immediately. It would require huge changes
>>> and we would seek the support of the people
>>> for each step,? Kira says. ?And we would
>>> want to use the best parts of the current
>>> economic system, too.?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://news.yahoo.com/communist-party-makes-comeback-japan-134436281.html
>>>
>>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20130814/d54dfbff/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
ufpj-activist mailing list
Post: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org
List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist
To Unsubscribe
Send email to: ufpj-activist-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org
Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/ufpj-activist/slevy%40ncsa.uiuc.edu
You are subscribed as: slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu
More information about the Peace-discuss
mailing list