Racists at Tehran conference
xnic...@hotmail.com
deniers and anti-Semites from around the world in convening their
Holocaust denial conference, "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision."
The following is a sampling of those haters and others who accepted
the invitation to present their views during the December 11 - 12
sessions in Tehran "
Amongst others attending.......
Dave Duke (USA)
Perhaps America's best-known racist, David Duke was instrumental in
the Klan resurgence of the 1970s. He has since continued to
propagandize white supremacist views as a frequent political
candidate, with a variety of fringe organizations and, in recent
years, in Russia, Ukraine, other parts of Europe and the Middle East.
Wolfgang Frohlich (Austria)
A neo-Nazi and former member of Austrian Joerg Haider's far-right
Freedom Party, Wolfgang Frohlich was convicted of inciting racial
hatred and defaming the memory of the dead by an Austrian court in
2003 after he wrote and widely disseminated a book called "The Gas
Chamber Fraud," in which he argued that Jews had devised the Holocaust
story as a means of establishing a "new world order."
George Kadar (USA / Hungary)
Originally from Hungary but a longtime resident of the U.S., George
Kadar is an associate of David Duke and a reporter for the anti-
Semitic newspaper, American Free Press. He is an active participant in
the white supremacist Stormfront electronic forum, and in the late
1990s was a member of "American Spring," a white supremacist, anti-
immigrant group.
Bradley Smith (USA)
Though he often tries to present himself as a free speech activist,
Bradley Smith has functioned as a propagandist for the Holocaust
denial movement since 1983. He achieved his greatest notoriety as the
director of the now-defunct Committee for Open Debate on the
Holocaust, whose mission was to disseminate Holocaust denial to
students on college campuses. In April 2004 he spoke at a conference
organized by the Institute for Historical Review and the neo-Nazi
National Alliance.
Fredrick Toben (Australia)
Originally from Germany, Fredrick Toben now lives in Australia where
he promotes Holocaust denial and hatred of Jews through his "Adelaide
Institute." Toben claims that the Holocaust is a lie devised by Jews
but perpetuated by Western nations intent on subjugating Germany and
"eliminating Germans as an ethnic group."
dave.w...@comcast.net
Zionists. This list, as accurate as it is, is produced by the ADL, one
of the leading pro-Zionist organizations in the US today. Clearly the
ADL wins this one based on the utter stupidity of the Iranian gov't of
allying with Fascists. This shows the limitation of the the theocratic
bourgois nationalism of the gov't there, even when it episodically
plays an anti-imperialist role.
David
Vngelis
When under threat by an imperialist bombardment pro-USA zionists come
out to attack Iran. Reference was made to Saddams role as a dictator
and a nazi prior to the invasion. The same is being played again with
Iran.
Holocaust denial is a thought crime now in Europe and people are
imprisoned for it.
9/11 Osama Bin Laden denial will soon also become a thought crime if
an attack on Iran occurs.
Whilst there are limitations in every bourgeois nationalism they are
no more or less limited than the opposing forces which is bankrupt
USA. 4 years now they are fighting a country half the size of Vietnam.
If they embark on an attack on Iran and this is not clear that they
will do this, they will bankrupt themselves even faster. Either which
way the USA is cornered and does not know what to do.
xnic...@hotmail.com
> This goes to show that the Iranian gov't objectively aids the
> Zionists. This list, as accurate as it is, is produced by the ADL, one
> of the leading pro-Zionist organizations in the US today. Clearly the
> ADL wins this one based on the utter stupidity of the Iranian gov't of
> allying with Fascists. This shows the limitation of the the theocratic
> bourgois nationalism of the gov't there, even when it episodically
> plays an anti-imperialist role.
>
It's a pity that most of the anti-war left has failed to be honest
about this, which is utterly stupid, since it was widely featured in
the mass media.
The fact that the source ist the ADL is irrelevant. Whatever their
positions on Israel, the ADL have a right to expose and resist anti-
semitic racism and in this case, the facts are undeniable.
Nor can it be claimed this is yet another "conspiracy", unless we are
to believe that the Iranian authorities carried out a "provocation"
against themselves.
Those like Finkelstein, who denounced this Circus were quite correct.
He should have been given more support by the left. Those on the
left who participated are at best opportunists, at worst consciously
trying to disorientate people.
Not that I'm directly equating Ahmedinejad and Chavez, but Alan Woods
has been able to intervene in Venezuela and Cuba and put forward a
Marxist Programme in a principled way. This contrasts with the
approach of sectarians, who either issue blanket denunciations or
become cheer-leaders.
dave.w...@comcast.net
rights of Jews who are denied them", they spend their time attacking
Jews (and others) who are opposed to Zionism.
I don't disagree with their criticism of the Tehran nazi/denier
conference. My point was that this conference gave credance to the
ADL!
I defend Finkelstein at every level and his point of view on the
conference was correct: the only purpose of the conference to was to
continue what other Holocaust deniers have done: to try to pass of the
Holocoust as "simply" some excess collateral damange "no different"
than the other victims who dies in WWII. He was right to oppose the
conference for such nonsense.
As far as I know, there was no one on the left who participated except
some lost Arab nationalists.
Trotsky supposed that if imperialists were to attack fascist Brazil in
the 1930s, it was the duty of anti-imperialists to militarily block
with Fascist Brazil against the imperialists, as this would be
objectively an anti-imperialist fight that would mobilize the class
against imperialism AND their fascist gov't.
The same holds true for Iran: defense of Iran against US/Zionist
attacks but recognizign the counter-revolutionary nature of the
Iranian gov't. (this, BTW, is what Vngeils, our resident Holocaust
denier, thinks is "hypicrtical").
David
dusty
xnic...@hotmail.com wrote:
> It's a pity that most of the anti-war left has failed to be honest
> about this, which is utterly stupid, since it was widely featured in
> the mass media.
>
> The fact that the source ist the ADL is irrelevant. Whatever their
> positions on Israel, the ADL have a right to expose and resist anti-
> semitic racism and in this case, the facts are undeniable.
I have no argument with you about the Nazis. But that is an excess
arising in the midst of the middle eastern oppressed Islamic peoples.
That oppression is the product, not just of recent events, but goes
back at least as long as western oil and strategic interests imposing
themselves there, deeply frustrating these peoples national rights in
the process. Zionism, whose principal seat today is the US of A became
a part of this oppression and has become a much greater cause of anti-
Jewish feeling around the world today than anything else.
Just by screaming "kill the Nazis!" over and over, whether on the
streets of Western capitals or not will not change that fact.
srd
> Not that I'm directly equating Ahmedinejad and Chavez, but Alan Woods
> has been able to intervene in Venezuela and Cuba and put forward a
> Marxist Programme in a principled way. This contrasts with the
> approach of sectarians, who e
There's no question that the quote you supplied by Woods was cheerleading.
I mean, he invented a damn revolution that didn't exist.
srd
Vngelis
>
> There's no question that the quote you supplied by Woods was cheerleading.
> I mean, he invented a damn revolution that didn't exist.
>
> srd
Its called the Bolivar Revolution.
In Russia it was called the 500day plan to the market.
In Ukraine the Orange Revolution.
There are plenty of 'revolutions' everywhere.
You pay your money and take your pick.
In the era of the new world order words lost their meaning a long time
ago.
It will take some time for them to recover. But recover they will.
srd
> I defend Finkelstein at every level and his point of view on the
> conference was correct: the only purpose of the conference to was to
> continue what other Holocaust deniers have done: to try to pass of the
> Holocoust as "simply" some excess collateral damange "no different"
> than the other victims who dies in WWII. He was right to oppose the
> conference for such nonsense.
Whether the "holocaust" was different from other Nazi atrocities is NOT a
poltically significant question. Nor does it have so clear an answer as
you seem to imagine, mainly because of the hopelessly vague nature of the
issue when understood broadly and its trivial character when taken
narrowly.
Socialists have no stake in comparing the magnitude of Nazi victimization
suffered by various groups. While there is a stake in not letting Nazis
diminish their crimes, the holocaust icon serves not so much to indict
Naziism as to mythologize the specialness of Jewish suffering and
rationalize Zionism. Let me make this concrete - why would a socialist
want to join the Zionists as claiming that Jewish Communists killed in the
camps augment the number of Jews and not Communists killed?
It is one thing to invite politicized Nazi scum and another to invite
idiots who deny the millions of murders out of the same obsessional
preoccupation that others apply to Kennedy assassination conspiracy
theories and ufo fantasies. Leftists have a duty to confront Iran with the
odiousness of collaboration with Nazis. Leftists who are equally concerned
with Iran's hobnobbing with non-political nutcases strike me as displaying
the same idiotic preoccupations as the Kennedy people or the non-political
deniers themselves.
srd
Vngelis
>
> Whether the "holocaust" was different from other Nazi atrocities is NOT a
> poltically significant question. Nor does it have so clear an answer as
> you seem to imagine, mainly because of the hopelessly vague nature of the
> issue when understood broadly and its trivial character when taken
> narrowly.
>
> Socialists have no stake in comparing the magnitude of Nazi victimization
> suffered by various groups. While there is a stake in not letting Nazis
> diminish their crimes, the holocaust icon serves not so much to indict
> Naziism as to mythologize the specialness of Jewish suffering and
> rationalize Zionism. Let me make this concrete - why would a socialist
> want to join the Zionists as claiming that Jewish Communists killed in the
> camps augment the number of Jews and not Communists killed?
>
> It is one thing to invite politicized Nazi scum and another to invite
> idiots who deny the millions of murders out of the same obsessional
> preoccupation that others apply to Kennedy assassination conspiracy
> theories and ufo fantasies. Leftists have a duty to confront Iran with the
> odiousness of collaboration with Nazis. Leftists who are equally concerned
> with Iran's hobnobbing with non-political nutcases strike me as displaying
> the same idiotic preoccupations as the Kennedy people or the non-political
> deniers themselves.
>
> srd
The Kennedy assasination conspiracy theories like the ones on 9/11
centre on the involvement of the US state in assasinations for war
ends. As such they cannot have anything to do with this conference
whose purpose was I believe to show that there is no historical or any
other reason for the creation of the state of Israel.
The invitation of 'holocaust deniers' was done for internal
consumption to show that Europe denies people a platform to express
view ie 'thought crimes'.
When confronted with 'nuclear annihilation' one must combat it. To
confuse the Iranian government with the audiences participants serves
imperialist propaganda. One that has a long and dishonourable
tradition. The nazi dictator and butcher of the Balkans, Milosevic,
the dictator Saddam, now the Iranian etc.
If a revolutionary government was in existence in Iran, it is not, it
would not of course invite many of the clowns due to the bad publicity
from the global press. But I dont believe under the current historical
circumstances that would have saved them anyway. Whoever the Iranian
government invites is odious insofar as they haven't invited the Dick
Cheneys of the world to take over their country as the Baathists ended
up doing in Iraq
srd
about "holocaust denial." It is to sustain their "anti-fascism" campaigns.
There are only so many Nazi rallies to break up these days.
'Anti-fascists' must find other issues to focus their anti-fascist
activity. So "holocaus denial" is treated as a major fascist threat.
Nominal anti-Zionists worship the icon of the Jew as unique victim, only
to lend exaggerated importance to "holocaust denial" - and this only to
inflate the significance of their anti-fascism organizing tool.
Except for their self-righteousness, the result would be mostly comical
and irrelevant, although they manage to lend excessive intellectual
importance and hence credibility to various claims.
Perhaps these "anti-fascist" need to be reminded that the the "we will not
forget" movement is Jewish cultural nationalist, nothing more.
srd
xnic...@hotmail.com
Don't talk crap. Strange that the Anti-Americanism of the Iranian
revolution didn't prevent one of the most reactionary dregs of the US
right being invited along.
And having largely driven such people from the streets in this Western
Capital, do we really want to see them being afforded public platforms
by people now in the target of the Western war machine? Ignore it if
you want to, applaud the "principled" line of Vangoulies. I say it
was an own goal.
nada
with holocaust deniers, period. That should be pretty obvious to
anyone who has heard this guy speak.
Secondly, there is also a Stalinist a-historical argument that
dovetails with the fascist symps in the denial movement: that there
was nothing 'special' about the Jews murdered during WWII, after all,
many others died to. I get this from deniers all the time. It was part
and partial of the GDR's view on WWII and the holocaust (except the
Stalinists admit the numbers killed and the methods used). This latter
point I will address here.
Historically there were only two 'national' groups targeted for
extinction: Jews and Gypsies. To deny this means you are denying the
historical record. Yes, millions of other died, but not to eliminate
them from the planet. While Poles were to be denied any sense of
nationhood through occupation and enslavement, Jews in Poland were
murdered by the *millions*. They are targeted as part of the "Final
Solution". While the French suffered occupation, French Jews were
wholly deported to German concentration camps and died there. These
were not work camps, these were death camps.
People know about Auschwitz in Poland. What most don't know is that
the camp was divided in two. One half was the death camp with which
almost 1,000,000 Jews were killed. The other half was Polish, a work
camp made up of factories. It was where all Polish political prisoners
and others were kept, but not murdered outright. According to
"Fighting Auschwitz", the story of the Polish side as told by the Home
Army veterans who were *sent in* to organize the camp, it was a
massive shop of exploitation with 10s of thousands died, but were not
targeted for extinction.
It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
of the peoples of Europe. German exterminiation squads specifically
aimed at Jews and no others existed in every occupied country. There
was a difference between Jews and Communists and workers and peasants
and all were treated specifically to the rules and objectives that the
Nazis set down.
David
Vngelis
There is another reason. 'Antifascism' fits in with globalism. How
does one sustain the line that the whole world should be allowed to
move anywhere at anytime at the drop of a hat and anything else would
be seemed racist and ...fascist. Notice what was said by a participant
here. The nazis were driven off the streets of the USA. Funny cos they
are now in central government and their jackboots are fighting all
over the world. The tendency to global fascism is now worse than it
was in the heydey of the 1980's when the Sparts marched along empty
streets chasing a few nazis to justify their non-existence.
Pseudo-antifascism is a cover to not fight globalism nothing more
nothing less. And the epithet of 'racism' is used to cover for the
fact that they prefer their bosses to countries like Iran. First it
was the 'oppression' of women there, now its the 'fascism' of the
government and the fact that they are 'holocaust deniers'.
The western 'left' are 'USA global cop deniers'. Everyone is an enemy
but their own government. A representative of the occupation govt of
Iraq was present in the main anti-war speech of the lesbian leader of
the British SWP. I didn't see a protest by anyone on here or anywhere
else. But I did see a protest on the day by youth who disrupted the
proceedings and he wasn't allowed to speak.
Was the man a 'racist'. Most certainly yes. Against the Sunni
resistance and for the US occupation.
The silence is ...striking.
Vngelis
So why is there no gypsie homeland set up somewhere?
Fabricating the past by pretending that nazism had a specific policy
of jewish extermination has been the hallmark of western imperialist
historians in order to give them 'anti-fascist credentials'.
Kristallnacht occurred in 1938, not 1933. First the political parties
were eliminated, then the jewish threat was created AFTER the defeat
of the parties. It wasn't a systematic procedure or clearly thought
out but ad hoc. The killing of millions in the capms towards the final
years of the war, was the fear of insurrection in the camps and the
knowledge that the brutal treatment would be known by other countries
contravening the rights of prisoners at war.
If there was a specific jewish policy the camps would have been solely
jewish instead of multinational which they were. Even the italian
chemist writing about his captivity in the camps speaks of different
nationalities present there. Calling someone a jew was like it is
today calling someone a terrorist. Everyone could be labelled ad hoc
at any time. One didn't have to be either a jew or have anything to do
with them. Hundreds if not thousands of Germans were labelled jews.
Einde O'Callaghan
> I think I understand now why a section of the left gets so overworked
> about "holocaust denial." It is to sustain their "anti-fascism"
> campaigns. There are only so many Nazi rallies to break up these days.
That may be the case where you come from, but in teh city where I live
open Nazis got over 10% of the vote in teh last city eloections and
anotehr even more vicious Nazi party got just under 10% of the vote in
the last state elections.
An anti-fascist former member of the state parliament, a disabled man,
finally abandoned his home after the fourth firebomb attack. Every day I
read in teh newspapers about people being beaten up because of their
skin colour or their political views. The turkish owner of one of my
local kebab shops was knifed to death in an apparently racist attack at
the beginning of last weeek - gthe motive wasn't robbery as the whole
days taking were left in the till. Synagogues and the offices of
left-wing political parties and are regularly smeared with swastikas and
Jewish graveyards are also regularly desecrated.
For you anti-fascism may be a purely theoretical issue; here in Germany,
as in many other European countries, it's an ever-present necessity of
left-wing politics.
Einde O'Callaghan
srd
> It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
> different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
> of the peoples of Europe.
On the facts, see vngelis's response.
You explain your view, accepting the claim of specialness of the Jewish
persecution. What you don't explain is what makes this "lie," if a lie it
is, "major." Why is this little particle of supposed historical truth
worth political any signficant political effort.
srd
nada
> On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:30:33 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
> > different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
> > of the peoples of Europe.
>
> On the facts, see vngelis's response.
Please...
> You explain your view, accepting the claim of specialness of the
> Jewish persecution. What you don't explain is what makes this
> "lie," if a lie it
> is, "major." Why is this little particle of supposed historical truth
> worth political any significant political effort.
>
> srd
Because the basis of Holocaust denial in large part is part of the
effort to further the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy"...and ultimately
to make the Nazis "not so bad".
I don't make the claim that Jewish oppression was 'special'. The fact
that the holocaust against Jews happened was a logical extension of
the anti-Semitism that Trotsky and every communist wrote about.
Really, to deny the specialness of Jewish persecution means denying
everything from Mein Kampf to the Nurmeberg laws to the Final solution
laid out at the Wannsee Conference. It is historical revisionism.
A small, yet other stupid point by our resident Denier, of course the
camps were "multinational", because Jews from throughout Europe were
sent there. He might ask his erstwhile Italian chemist WHY the Jews of
Italy were sent there? Why were ANY Jews and ALL Jews caught by the
Germans sent to the Camps? If there was nothing special about Jews,
they wouldn't of had to where their yellow stars, now would there.
SRD, the only people who really peddle this shit are Nazis and nazi-
symps.
David
srd
wrote:
> On Feb 27, 1:33 pm, srd <srd152...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:30:33 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
>> > different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
>> > of the peoples of Europe.
>>
>
> Because the basis of Holocaust denial in large part is part of the
> effort to further the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy"...and ultimately
> to make the Nazis "not so bad".
So what? First of all, can you really deny that a "Jewish conspiracy"
shaped the customary view of this period? If not, why do few know of
and even fewer mention the Gypsy genocide.
The most powerful interests in this bit of history are Zionist. How
can it _not_ be that the view contains distortions. These maybe don't
rise to the level of a "conspiracy," but are a function of more
customary historical biases, a distinction important to historians but
not to revolutionary politicians. Socialists should be emphasizing the
biases of the Zionists, rooting them out, not upholding the icon of
tradition and catering to the "we won't forget" crowd.
In this context, the absurdities of the deniers appear more as an
excess of enthusiasm. The idea that Jews sympathetic to Zionism played
a role in establishing the received view of the period is a point that
socialists should make, although of course not with absurdities and
exaggerations.
So the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy" should not be anathema, when
"Jewish" is understood as meaning involving a disproportionate
influence of individual Jews with a stakse in Zionism.
The other side of your explanation is that the claim is in the service
of making Nazis look less bad. If the idea of a "Jewish conspiratory"
is, in itself, mere overstatement, the idea life under the Nazis was
total hell is politically irrelevant. Why do you care to make this
point? There is nothing liberating about an exact appraisal of how bad
things really were.
This part of the explanation is particularly unconvincing because it
seems disingenuous. because the information you actually imparted--
that the politically persecuted, such as Communists, and other
persecuted groups (one assumes, homosexuals, for example)--that these
groups were placed in work camps and not death camps. Well, this was
news to me, but of course I believe you, at least to the extent the
distinction between Jew and not-Jew was actually made *correctly*. As
vngelis points out, to the extent the distinction did not correspond
to the reality of the divide between the camps, the distinction is
only a formal one. In other words, for me, you made the Nazis look
_less_ bad than I believed, because I thought Communists too were put
in the death camps, as I had thtought were the homosexuals. (I knew
mere ethnicities were treated otherwise.)
What I'm saying is just that this bit of elucidation does not even cut
clearly against the Nazis. But I don't see that today it is horribly
important to know exactly how bad the Nazis were. Should fascism be
accepted in the Italian variant? Should be count our blessings not to
have lived then?
My sense is that you are thinking politically on this. You are
reacting out of moral and intellectual revulsion, about a bit of
trivia.
>
> I don't make the claim that Jewish oppression was 'special'. The fact
> that the holocaust against Jews happened was a logical extension of
> the anti-Semitism that Trotsky and every communist wrote about.
> Really, to deny the specialness of Jewish persecution means denying
> everything from Mein Kampf to the Nurmeberg laws to the Final solution
> laid out at the Wannsee Conference. It is historical revisionism.
How horrible that, historical revisionism.
The only practical significance I see is that the crimes of the Nazis
serve as an illustration of how bad capitalism can get. Well, the
facts are well-established about the genocidal practices of the Nazis.
These foundations of historical literacy are NOT under serious attack.
srd
srd
> On Feb 27, 1:33 pm, srd <srd152...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:30:33 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
>> > different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
>> > of the peoples of Europe.
>>
>
> Because the basis of Holocaust denial in large part is part of the
> effort to further the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy"...and ultimately
> to make the Nazis "not so bad".
So what? First of all, can you really deny that a "Jewish conspiracy"
shaped the customary view of this period? If not, why do few know of and
even fewer mention the Gypsy genocide.
The most powerful interests in this bit of history are Zionist. How can it
_not_ be that the view contains distortions. These maybe don't rise to the
level of a "conspiracy," but are a function of more customary historical
biases, a distinction important to historians but not to revolutionary
politicians. Socialists should be emphasizing the biases of the Zionists,
rooting them out, not upholding the icon of tradition and catering to the
"we won't forget" crowd.
In this context, the absurdities of the deniers appear more as an excess
of enthusiasm. The idea that Jews sympathetic to Zionism played a role in
establishing the received view of the period is a point that socialists
should make, although of course not with absurdities and exaggerations.
So the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy" should not be anathema, when "Jewish"
is understood as meaning involving a disproportionate influence of
individual Jews with a stakse in Zionism.
The other side of your explanation is that the claim is in the service of
making Nazis look less bad. If the idea of a "Jewish conspiratory" is, in
itself, mere overstatement, the idea life under the Nazis was total hell
is politically irrelevant. Why do you care to make this point? There is
nothing liberating about an exact appraisal of how bad things really were.
This part of the explanation is particularly unconvincing because it seems
disingenuous. because the information you actually imparted--that the
politically persecuted, such as Communists, and other persecuted groups
(one assumes, homosexuals, for example)--that these groups were placed in
work camps and not death camps. Well, this was news to me, but of course I
believe you, at least to the extent the distinction between Jew and
not-Jew was actually made *correctly*. As vngelis points out, to the
extent the distinction did not correspond to the reality of the divide
between the camps, the distinction is only a formal one. In other words,
for me, you made the Nazis look _less_ bad than I believed, because I
thought Communists too were put in the death camps, as I had thtought were
the homosexuals. (I knew mere ethnicities were treated otherwise.)
What I'm saying is just that this bit of elucidation does not even cut
clearly against the Nazis. But I don't see that today it is horribly
important to know exactly how bad the Nazis were. Should fascism be
accepted in the Italian variant? Should be count our blessings not to have
lived then?
My sense is that you are thinking politically on this. You are reacting
out of moral and intellectual revulsion, about a bit of trivia.
>
> I don't make the claim that Jewish oppression was 'special'. The fact
> that the holocaust against Jews happened was a logical extension of
> the anti-Semitism that Trotsky and every communist wrote about.
> Really, to deny the specialness of Jewish persecution means denying
> everything from Mein Kampf to the Nurmeberg laws to the Final solution
> laid out at the Wannsee Conference. It is historical revisionism.
How horrible that, historical revisionism.
The only practical significance I see is that the crimes of the Nazis
serve as an illustration of how bad capitalism can get. Well, the facts
are well-established about the genocidal practices of the Nazis. These
foundations of historical literacy are NOT under serious attack.
--
Stephen R. Diamond
srdi...@gmail.com
srd
> On Feb 27, 1:33 pm, srd <srd152...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:30:33 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > It is a major lie to state that the deaths of Jews of Europe were "no
>> > different" or simply "par of" the overall Nazi exercise of subjections
>> > of the peoples of Europe.
>>
>
> Because the basis of Holocaust denial in large part is part of the
> effort to further the idea of a "Jewish conspiracy"...and ultimately
> to make the Nazis "not so bad".
So what? First of all, can you really deny that a "Jewish conspiracy"
> I don't make the claim that Jewish oppression was 'special'. The fact
> that the holocaust against Jews happened was a logical extension of
> the anti-Semitism that Trotsky and every communist wrote about.
> Really, to deny the specialness of Jewish persecution means denying
> everything from Mein Kampf to the Nurmeberg laws to the Final solution
> laid out at the Wannsee Conference. It is historical revisionism.
How horrible that, historical revisionism.
srd
> And having largely driven such people from the streets in this Western
> Capital, do we really want to see them being afforded public platforms
> by people now in the target of the Western war machine?
That presumptuous "we." Contesting marginalized fascist-caricaturing
crackpots is _your_ accomplishment. Many of "us" gladly concede the
dubious glory.
srd
srd
> My sense is that you are thinking politically on this. You are reacting
> out of moral and intellectual revulsion, about a bit of trivia.
I meant to write "My sense is that you are NOT thinking politically...
Indeed, likely a Freudian slip, at least if there's anything to vngelis's
take.
srd
srd
> There are plenty of 'revolutions' everywhere.
> You pay your money and take your pick.
So it seems. But some Trotskyists should be reminded that 'revolution' is
a precise term for Marxists. There's, you know, that directive to tell
things like they are.
srd
srd
> A neo-Nazi and former member of Austrian Joerg Haider's far-right
> Freedom Party, Wolfgang Frohlich was convicted of inciting racial
> hatred and defaming the memory of the dead by an Austrian court
Only "Nichols" could be so servile to the norms of bourgeois
respectability that he can, with a straight face, speak of the crime of
"defaming the memory of the dead." This ranks with Turkey's thought crime
of "insulting Turkishness" by claiming that the alleged Armenian genocide
in Turkey did occur. (Not to be outdone by their enemies, Armenia and
Frace have criminalized taking the opposite position.)
srd
xnic...@hotmail.com
I notice that the "sanitised" fascists of the BNP recently got 31% in
a by-election.
The other point worth making is that it was mainly in Black and Asian
areas like Southall and Leicester that some of the biggest
mobilisations against the NF took place in the 1970's. Although the
NF leadership were undoubtedly pro-Nazis. the question of anti-
semitism was secondary,
I don't think there's much doubt that in Britain, rises in attacks on
blacks and Asians and antisemitic attacks have coincided and come from
the same sources, despite the Israel-Palestine dimension to them more
recently.
Vngelis
> On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:03:01 -0800, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > There are plenty of 'revolutions' everywhere.
> > You pay your money and take your pick.
>
> So it seems. But some Trotskyists should be reminded that 'revolution' is
> a precise term for Marxists. There's, you know, that directive to tell
> things like they are.
>
> srd
That died years ago.
The language of the new world order took over.
Every word which the left had and it had some meaning has been taken
over prostituted and inverted, overemphasised by the corporate media
until it loses all its meaning.
The same is happening with the word racism now.
Everyone is calling everyone a racist.
The word will be neutralised out.
Bert Byfield
> The language of the new world order took over.
> Every word which the left had and it had some meaning has been
> taken over prostituted and inverted, overemphasised by the
> corporate media until it loses all its meaning.
> The same is happening with the word racism now.
> Everyone is calling everyone a racist.
> The word will be neutralised out.
Everyone will still know who the racists are, regardless.
dusty
Bert Byfield wrote:
"Everyone will still know who the racists are, regardless."
Bert
You are an ill-informed cyber-pest. The only worthwhile thing you have
said that I have seen in my searches on this Trotskyist chatroom is
your description of your visit to Russia with a group of Catholic
school girls when you learned (not without some considerable
prompting) that actually it was Russia that won the decisive battles
of WW2. Jeez, what a revelation. How old did you say you were when
this happened? Then you think you can come in behind the Jewish
cultural nationalist Walters and call Vngelis a racist. You're just a
dumb yank. As Gore Vidal said recently, yanks as a group know bugger
all outside their own country. Cop this Bert:
The Guardian 28 February, 2007
Republic vs. Empire:
An interview with Gore Vidal (part 2)
RM: Do you blame Harry Truman for the United States becoming the
authoritarian country it is today? Many Americans do not share this
opinion. George W. Bush, for example, has said recently that the man
who dropped the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a good
president.
GV: Well, remember two things: most Americans have no information at
all on history, on geography, or on what's going on in the world.
Truman was personally rather popular. He knew nothing at all about
geography, history, religion, he knew nothing. Behind him he had ...
Dean Achinson, the Secretary of State, and a great international
lawyer.
Achinson knew everything. He was the one who then designed the totally
militarised state that emerged by 1949/50 under Harry Truman. And it
all comes down to one document, the National Security Council Document
Number 68. There were several points:
We were to be forever at war with somebody.
We were going to fight communism everywhere on earth even if it didn't
threaten us.
It was a holy war, just as now we've made one on terrorism and Islam,
equally stupid and equally irrelevant.
Everybody who knows nothing admires Harry Truman, and they don't know
why. He was just a nice little man.
But he ended the Republic and set us on this wave of conquest. He went
yelling and screaming to the people that the Soviet Union was on the
march, that they were about to seize Greece, that they were
immediately going into Italy, they could then cross over to France,
and cross the Atlantic at any time.
We hear echoes of this in the current little man, Mr. Bush, who says:
[imitating GW Bush] "Well we if can't fight them over there we're
going to have to fight 'em over here".
We don't have to fight them; they have no way of getting here. But no
American can ask questions like that because they will be thought
unpatriotic or silly.
RM: According to your own words, "the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995
are explained according to a law of Physics: there is a reaction to
every action". You were speaking about the hatred spread by the United
States around the world and in its own country. Was this a prophecy?
GV: What happened after McVeigh [was that] the Clinton administration
- and we now look back on it as being a very American one, in the best
sense of the word - drew up draconian rules about terrorism in the
United States. And that became the USA Patriot Act.
After 9/11 happened the Bush Administration found these papers from
the Clinton administration in the Justice Department. They activated
all of them and that is the USA Patriot Act. It has just about removed
our Constitution. It just annulled everything about sacred liberties
and that was the result of McVeigh.
A child of five who knows nothing about the law can tell you that 9-11
requires a police response.
[But] you can't go to war without an enemy nation to attack. You can't
have a war without a country. Try and explain that to an American, I
don't think they know what a country is.
We certainly know 80 percent of them believe that Saddam Hussein who
had a country called Iraq was working in tandem with Osama Bin Laden,
who was living in a beautiful palace in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's
all nonsense. They had no connection the two.
But Bush wanted to complete the work of his father, and to show that
he was bolder than his father, he would be "Bush of Baghdad".
Americans think they [Bin Laden and Hussein] are the same person, and
that both of them attacked us on 9/11.
Banana Republic
RM: A recent CBS poll shows that 75% of the population in the US is
not in favour of him or his policies. His popularity has plummeted to
historic levels. Will Bush be the most hated president in US history?
GV: When I said I am not a prophet that doesn't mean I can't
occasionally guess what's coming.
I knew that what those they call the "neo conservatives" in the United
States (the old word that was used to describe them was "fascist"),
they want to use American power in order to get the corporations which
are generally gas and oil to maximise profits. They want to manipulate
the constitution so that it is rendered meaningless. They want supreme
power, and circumstances allowed us to elect a man that's a real fool,
literally a fool.
If the American people had a free press, an alert media, he could
never have been elected anything. He's not competent; if you listen to
him talk for ten minutes its clear he doesn't know what he is talking
about. He's desperately trying to read a teleprompter and nothing
really makes sense, and without one of his advisors he can't face
anybody when it comes to a question.´
Since Woodrow Wilson left the oval office in 1921, no US president has
written his own speeches. The president reads what other people write.
Sometimes the President agrees with it, and sometimes he doesn't.
Eisenhower used to read his speeches as if he were discovering
something new on the paper. During his first presidency, the country
was astonished when he said in the middle of a speech: "If I'm elected
president I will go to - Korea!?" He was serious. Nobody had said
anything to him before that surprise. But anyway, he went to Korea.
Well had the American people seen that and if we had a media that was
interested in the Republic, and not in profits, the whole story would
have been different; after all, Albert Gore did win the election in
2000 by the popular vote, some 600,000 votes ahead of Bush. And
eventually the intervention of the Supreme Court into that election
falsified the entire election. So we became overnight a banana
republic without any bananas to sell. And that is our problem at the
moment.
RM: The Bush administration has led the country into such a disaster
that Fidel himself said recently that he believes the United States
public will oust President Bush before he finishes his term. Do you
see this happening?
GV: The people running the Bush Administration are so mindless and
radical that they're apt to start bombing Russia, or start bombing
Iran. They would have to start a diversion, so they can scream: "true
patriots come to the aid of the Commander in Chief in war
time" [imitates Bush].
In other words, they create events. They create panic.
Two days after 9/11 there was somebody in the government saying, "it's
not if they attack again, it's when!" The nonsense had already begun.
Then we say, well it's been seven or eight years and they haven't
attacked and they say "well that's because of the precautions that we
take at the airports. Oh! You don't like them! Because you have to
take your shoes off, but at the same time that is what has saved you
from an attack." Well, prove it! We can't prove it, they retort,
without revealing our secret sources. It's circular.
I hope that the Democratic Congress which comes in, with the
chairmanships of congressional committees, including the Judiciary,
gets every last one of them under oath before Congress to answer these
questions.
RM: What would be necessary to re-establish the Republic?
GV: Listen to the great words of our greatest president, Mr. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, at his first inauguration. The country was
collapsing, economically the banks were coming down, money was short,
and he struck a great political note which other presidents have
generally imitated until we get down to this junta he said [imitating
Roosevelt] "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." That is the
basis of the Republic. Don't be taken in by fear. There are people who
make money out of fear. That's their job, just to frighten.
I think we're going to have [an] economic collapse.
There was a headline in one of the big American papers the other day
that the army was begging the administration for money. They don't
have the money to make fools of themselves in Baghdad. They've got to
raise it somewhere; we have no tax revenues because all the rich
people have been exempted from tax as well as corporations.
It used to be that 50% of the revenues of the Federal government came
from the taxes on corporate profits. Its about 8% now, they've just
eliminated it. Corporations don't pay tax and rich people don't
either.
So they've not only helped all their rich friends who now have enough
money to finance the Republican Party with billions of dollars so they
can tell lies about anybody in the country and pretend that the
patriots of the country are traitors. It's a very good trick both
economically for them and it's a bad trick on us real Americans, we
don't like it.
We've lost the Bill of Rights; we lost the Magna Carta, on which all
of our liberties are based for 700 years. No, it's not been an amusing
time.
Florida, Cuba & the mafia
RM: In your memoirs, you mention that during a conversation with JFK
he told you about his plan to assassinate Fidel, and that his alliance
with the extreme Cuban American right had become a nightmare for him
and his brother, Robert. Are these groups related to their deaths?
GV: Well it had total control [and] Kennedy had to give his life for
it. The assassination [as] we now know was done by Mafia. A man called
[Carlos] Marcello was in charge of it. Marcello was the boss of New
Orleans and also of the Havana casinos at one point.
They were trying to get Bobby Kennedy. [Santos] Trafficante who ran
the Mafia in Tampa Florida, said "we've got to get rid of Bobby". They
have this recorded, the FBI.
"We've got to get rid of him", and Marcello said, "If a dog bothers
you, you don't cut off the tail," and that was the death sentence for
Jack Kennedy.
RM: What is you perception of the true influence this Cuban American
community has had on US policy towards Cuba in the last 40 years?
GV: Florida has been a corrupt state from the beginning, from the days
of the confederacy. The addition of a bunch of angry Batista-lovers
did not help the political situation down there, and a lot of these
people had a lot of money or they made a lot of money and could be
counted upon to support anybody who hated Castro and hated what is
being done in the modern Cuba and they'd vote for him.
Well Florida is beautifully situated for any demagogue who appeals to
the Batista-ites, or just anybody who still wants to fight communism.
"They're still marching, and they're going to arrive on the beaches in
no time at all".
We have a misinformed population and Florida is still one of the first
places candidates go to and try and get votes. Florida is a big state;
it's a key State. We have something called an Electoral College which
often decides elections and it has so many voters which are based on
how many representatives get elected to Congress and so on.
The Electoral College is a piece of very complex 18th century
machinery to keep us from having democracy. Our founders didn't like
democracy, I find I often have to repeat that a few times, but they
didn't like it. And now of course we're bringing democracy to Iraq and
all these other countries who are longing for it.
RM: Silence and lies have kept five Cubans unjustly imprisoned in the
US. Could you comment on what you know about the case and your opinion
on it?
GV: I know of the case through lawyers, not through the media. And it
seems another stupid thing our government is doing. It is my
understanding that President Clinton and President Castro got together
on this one, to try and stop the terrorists in Miami who were bombing
tourist offices to discourage tourism to this country.
The two presidents were in agreement that this was a bad thing and
that they should try and stop it. So Clinton put the FBI on it and I
don't know what Castro did, but he went along with it and then the FBI
suddenly starts to arrest five Cubans who were dedicated to protecting
Cuba and innocent tourist owners of tourist agencies from terrorism,
from bombers.
We love imprisoning people almost as much as we like the death
penalty, which is just the brightest star in our diadem. So you have a
country mad about torture, murder, execution, and lifelong sentences
in prison.
The mindset is all there: If you're rich God loves you: that's the
proof. And if you're poor, he doesn't like you: that's the proof. It's
not a healthy mindset for any people and I'm afraid the State of
Florida has got a great many of those people.
The truth, the whole truth
RM: Oliver Stone was recently sanctioned by the US State Department
for violating the blockade against Cuba. His crime was traveling to
Cuba to make two documentaries about Fidel. Are these measures
constitutional?
GV: Well of course it's a violation, as the first amendment grants us
freedom of speech, the fourth amendment of the constitution is the
bill of rights, which guarantees our rights to assembly and so forth.
We have had since 9/11 a coup d´etat in the United States, the first
we've ever had, in which a group of rather dishonest oil and gas
people were able to seize the power of the State and by so doing they
ended up with the Congress in their hands. They ended up with the
presidency and much of the judiciary and much of the courts.
It happened very fast. It's quite unique. It will be a great story one
day at the moment it's just something the people don't understand.
What they've never seen before doesn't exist really.
Out of that come the sanctions, as you put it, on Oliver Stone, who
has every right to make any movie that he wants to make and in
whatever circumstance, as long as he breaks no laws, and no laws have
been broken here.
They [Bush and Cheney] just don't like it. Oh! My goodness me!
RM: Are you afraid of any reprisals against you when you return to the
US?
GV: I trust they'll never like anything I say or write or do.
RM: One last question. You've been here for a few days already. Is
Cuba anything like what the media presents to North Americans?
GV: [Laughs] Are you crazy?!!! NO! We're told everybody hates it here;
everybody is starving to death.
They put out stories about how in Cuba they say they have wonderful
doctors but in fact they are terrible doctors and nobody goes to them
- any Cuban who is sick goes to the Mayo Clinic in America!
There is no lie that our government will not tell and has not told. So
no correct picture gets through.
One of the reasons I'm doing television here, is I feel every now and
then I do have some audience out there. I can talk about what I've
seen. I've seen the influx of doctors, would be doctors into Cuba.
I've been in that building which used to be a Russian Naval Base, and
is dedicated to teaching a whole generation about medicine, about
community services, something Americans hate, you know: Everybody is
help for himself, grab all the money you can and then run away, to
Tahiti or someplace.
I was talking to eight or nine Americans from New York, Massachusetts,
who are studying medicine here. I said, "well, is it as good as they
say," they said, "oh yes it is, its better than anything we could get
at home, going to ordinary medical universities".
Why don't we do the same for the health of our people and other
countries? I see what you've done with medicine, from Africa to the
deepest Amazon or wherever.
We had a great Constitution, and a great legal system. Only by the
restoration of that can we have a country with aspirations and with
indeed successes like Cuba. Don't think I don't get extremely jealous
for the United States. I am a super patriot - I get very jealous.
RM: Will you return?
GV: Never make predictions.
nada
> Bert Byfield wrote:
>
> "Everyone will still know who the racists are, regardless."
>
> Bert
> You are an ill-informed cyber-pest. The only worthwhile thing you have
> said that I have seen in my searches on this Trotskyist chatroom is
> your description of your visit to Russia with a group of Catholic
> school girls when you learned (not without some considerable
> prompting) that actually it was Russia that won the decisive battles
> of WW2. Jeez, what a revelation. How old did you say you were when
> this happened? Then you think you can come in behind the Jewish
> cultural nationalist Walters and call Vngelis a racist. You're just a
> dumb yank. As Gore Vidal said recently, yanks as a group know bugger
> all outside their own country. Cop this Bert:
>
Dusty, Vngelis has exposed himself as racist, using perjoritive terms
for immigrants, waxing nostalgic for the 'old timers' (read: WHITE)
Londeners who didn't have to deal with the immigrant 'trash', or
whatever racist words he used. He is for conferences with Nazis. He
thinks Jews are behind Russia's ills...and you think I'm a
"natiionalist"?? Gawd...are you daft? What's next? "Walters drinking
the blood of Christian babies..."???? I suspect that being or Greek
origin (despite his White-English nationalism) he has lots of
Albanian, Turkish and Arab blood in him and the only way he knows to
purge himself of this is to line up with the British National Party
and the likes of David Irving.
David
srd
> Dusty, Vngelis has exposed himself as racist, using perjoritive terms
> for immigrants, waxing nostalgic for the 'old timers' (read: WHITE)
> Londeners who didn't have to deal with the immigrant 'trash', or
> whatever racist words he used. He is for conferences with Nazis. He
> thinks Jews are behind Russia's ills...and you think I'm a
> "natiionalist"?? Gawd...are you daft? What's next? "Walters drinking
> the blood of Christian babies..."???? I suspect that being or Greek
> origin (despite his White-English nationalism) he has lots of
> Albanian, Turkish and Arab blood in him and the only way he knows to
> purge himself of this is to line up with the British National Party
> and the likes of David Irving.
When the YSA in the U.S. invited Democratic politicians to anti-war
rallies, you didn't and don't oppose that practice. You agreed with
the YSA that opposing the war was "their contradiction." The demand
for no platform with the bourgeoisie was a Progressive Labor demand,
to which the Sparts, who allied with the PLP in SDS, adapted.
There is no principle that sharing a platform implies support. In some
struggles such support across class lines is even welcomed, but there
is no principle I'm aware of that condemns accepting the support of
anyone. And in an anti-imperialist war, even a fascist neo-colonial
_government_ is supportable.
You wanted the bourgeoisie on the anti-war platforms, because they
brought with them supporters you wanted to reach. You do _not_ want
Nazis or non-Nazi "Holocaust deniers" on the platform defending Iron,
because their being there alienates those you would like to reach.
You aren't a cultural nationalist, only an adapter to cultural
nationalism, and probably an adapter of the second or third order. You
adapt, that is, to others who are adapting.
If you think vngelis is a racist, you simply haven't tried to
understand his positions. Have you even thought through this critique?
If he's sympathetic to Nazis out of anti-Semitism, how is it that he
follows the Jew Trotsky? Your libels make no sense.
srd
nada
Actually a fairly accurate view of my own position. I've have changed,
however, over the years as the world political situation has changed.
I think whenever possible it is important to try to marginalized
capitalist politicians. I've heard democrat party city council people
give speeches that called for occupying workplaces and breaking the
law (just recently in fact, in SF). But...to your last two paragraphs:
> You aren't a cultural nationalist, only an adapter to cultural
> nationalism, and probably an adapter of the second or third order. You
> adapt, that is, to others who are adapting.
I don't adapt, except, in the transitional way, understanding that
most workers are not yet ready to move against, say, the war in Iraq.
Lots are, but a very small number. How to bring larger numbers into
action? That is the art of politics that excludes many on this list.
> If you think vngelis is a racist, you simply haven't tried to
> understand his positions. Have you even thought through this critique?
> If he's sympathetic to Nazis out of anti-Semitism, how is it that he
> follows the Jew Trotsky? Your libels make no sense.
SRD, you, and Dusty, know full well that Vngelis' comments *embarrass*
you. Hell, anyone who parades around a Trotskyist and totally makes
the kind of comments he has made on this list (like his Elvis comments
most recently) embarrasses me. Fortunately, it is only momentary, as I
realize that his ideas rarely get beyond this rather isolated forum.
There is no actual Trotskyist group or current that comes close to
this form of Posoadista UFO methods...
No, it's Vngels bizarre views that make no sense. I believe that
Stalin was an an anti-semite (not at his core, but he used when it
suited him) yet he was a follower of the Jew Marx. His KGB was full of
Jews. To ask to make sense of anti-semitism is a labor of confusion.
I understand he think he may not be an anti-semite. But questions as
he's poised as: "Who does Walters think is the major ethnicity of the
Oligarchs" is ONLY a question anti-semites make because only anti-
semites are concerned about the role of Jews in society.
He used pejorative terms to describe the multi-cultural London and he
identifies with the "old timers" who remember an all-white London.
SRD, you have two degrees...use one half of your brain then to
understand what this means.
He defends a conference that is used to deny the holocaust against
European Jewry. He thinks it doesn't matter that the KKK shows up,
along with Russian bigots, and other Euro-fascist scum, the kind we
try to smash in the streets when appropriate...that's OK for him. He
defends this. Do the math, it doesn't take high-end trig to figure
this out.
The idea that inviting an anti-war Democratic politician to a anti-war
march is somehow comparable to inviting a Nazi to a conference to deny
that millions of Jews were target for extermination is insane (and
you, as a shrink, should know this).
The only redeeming value of Vngelis is that he can be amusing (like
his last post). I'll hand him that. Fortunately, in the real world,
people like him are usually drowned at birth or put away.
I will even agree with him when he says something that is actually
political. For example, the way "anti-racism" is used by the ruling
class is true in large part. The issue of course is that he ruling
class IS racist and uses racism because it is inherent in any society
that expounds exclusion by the rich of the poor, thus class society is
racist by it's very nature. Amercian capitalism was based on slavery,
ergo it infects everything and defines class society here.
The too often use of violence against fascists to me is a major
distraction, often because it is the people in power, not the
politically outcast fascist thugs that is the real issue.(the same
when people call Bush a fascist when actually he is following in the
tradition of liberal democracy in crisis).
David
dusty
nada wrote:
> On Feb 28, 11:35 pm, "dusty" <trackdu...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> > Bert Byfield wrote:
> >
> > "Everyone will still know who the racists are, regardless."
> >
> > Bert
> > You are an ill-informed cyber-pest. The only worthwhile thing you have
> > said that I have seen in my searches on this Trotskyist chatroom is
> > your description of your visit to Russia with a group of Catholic
> > school girls when you learned (not without some considerable
> > prompting) that actually it was Russia that won the decisive battles
> > of WW2. Jeez, what a revelation. How old did you say you were when
> > this happened? Then you think you can come in behind the Jewish
> > cultural nationalist Walters and call Vngelis a racist. You're just a
> > dumb yank. As Gore Vidal said recently, yanks as a group know bugger
> > all outside their own country. Cop this Bert:
David Walters:
> Dusty, Vngelis has exposed himself as racist, using perjoritive terms
> for immigrants, waxing nostalgic for the 'old timers' (read: WHITE)
> Londeners who didn't have to deal with the immigrant 'trash', or
> whatever racist words he used. He is for conferences with Nazis. He
> thinks Jews are behind Russia's ills...and you think I'm a
> "natiionalist"?? Gawd...are you daft? What's next? "Walters drinking
> the blood of Christian babies..."???? I suspect that being or Greek
> origin (despite his White-English nationalism) he has lots of
> Albanian, Turkish and Arab blood in him and the only way he knows to
> purge himself of this is to line up with the British National Party
> and the likes of David Irving.
> David
In fact, these are the words Vngelis used:
"Who loves what and why isn't of our concern. The multicultural nature
of London which has overtaken New York on the amount of Immigrants is
truly astounding. Its open shop nature as well. This is the model of
success and what one sees as being proud as it shows 'tolerance and
diversity' the new watchwords from the globalists arsenal of drivel.
Walters on the issue of the London buses specifically defended the
line that bosses are justified in recruiting from all and sundry and
that overtime is an issue the unions should fight, but when they dont
he keeps silent on the matter pretending to ignore facts and reality
as it doesn't suit his line. Translating union leaflets into 400
languages for some is another way forward for unionisation. As if
people join unions because the information is written in their
language of origin. As if it was a matter of having translations. Is
that what the unions did in the USA in the 19th century?
Having abstained from the anti-globalist movement in totality the WRP
gets involved in certain strikes in a sort of division of labour from
the other union tops. They seek to control and keep the workers
involved in conflicts separate from the rest of the working class.
They put all their efforts into one strike over a 3-5 year period to
justify that something is being done when nothing is either being
achieved or leading anywhere as they refuse to tackle the central
premise of open shop London. The oversupply of cheap labour.
Having the oversupply of cheap labour as a sword of damocles hanging
over everyones head instead of propagating this and warning workers to
be vigilant and to fight to defend their jobs tooth and nail, they run
the line of everybodys welcome here as the working class is an
internationalist class, whatever that may mean. But everybody knows
what that means in practice. Hand over your job to someone who is
willing to work for less and if you say anything against the mass
importation of cheap labour, we will brand you like the press as
a ...racist.
This is how the workers movement will go forwards. By going backwards
first. By agreeing to the destruction of the last remnants of unionism
in the country which first developed mass unionism. By spitting on the
past history of Britain, Rab finally accomplishes what he didn't in
the 21 years he was a unionist on British rail. He helps in his own
perveted way a return to the 18th century. Where the law of the jungle
operated in all spheres of domestic political life. This is what the
globalists want extended. A modern day Babel of the middle ages. Where
all relationships are governed by what one can get away with, no
contracts, no rules, no health and safety, no unions..."
In other words, the essence of Vngelis' position relates, not to
"racism" (what against northern European Poles and Balts?) but against
the flooding of labour markets, particularly in London, which anyway
has a very big component of what might be called an "Empire race":
take Gategourmet - they were nearly all from the Indian sub-
continent.. I can imagine how Balts, for example will react when the
bosses load up their country with Turks and Indians (why not?). When
that kind of thing happens (and believe me it is a dead certainty in
Eastern European countries), you will again fail to see the wood for
the trees and cry "racism". That's petty bourgeois moralism, not
marxist politics.
I have no personal brief for Vngelis or against you or Jews, though I
must say I consider Zionist Jews screaming "Holocaust" as they every
day exercise their vile CONTEMPORARY and very PRACTICAL religio-
national chauvinism is a disgrace and a bizarre historical paradox. Of
course they are also great globalists and big employers of "guest
workers", no racism there, thought hey are careful not to load up with
too many Palestinians. So much for the Palestinian "right of return".
I admire Vngelis' guts and intelligence for very effectively standing
up for positions for years and is clearly in the minority in the
Western "left", though not amongst working people. Another interesting
paradox. On the other hand, your positions are two bob a dozen -
though not with working people. As I see it, Vngelis's politics have
some chance of getting the support of working people suffering under
the "sword of Damocles" of globalism and your politics are essentially
right wing petty bourgeois moralism, a part of the problem.
As for the ethnic composition of his Greek nationality, where in the
shit did you get that? That is not, and never was, the issue.
nada
"The bars behind
which Khordhovsky is in and Berezovskys exile testify to that. I could
argue that you defend the line that capitalism has returned to Russia
due to the ethnicity of the oligarchs, but I wont as you probably dont
even know their ethnicity..."
Full: [http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/
browse_frm/thread/
af8b4bad0bf098c6/6d9abc2f23212da0?
lnk=gst&q=ethnicity&rnum=3#6d9abc2f23212da0]
Dusty, in the US...we would smash anyone, physically, who starts Jew-
baiting like this, in public. I don't know anyone who utters such
garbage who would not be ridden out on the rails. Personally, I'm not
into fighting fascists like some left groups tht would make a career
out it, as I stated it's more a destraction and draws too much
attention to such loons. But it almost always happens, because the
left and Black and Latino groups (and some Jewish groups) routinely
smash fascist meetings where bigotry like this is expressed. Thats a
very old tradition in the Workers movement, going back to the breaking
up the German-American Bund meetings, fighting the Silver Shirts and
the Nazis.
This Jew-baiting is R a c i st. There is not way to argue yourself out
of this.
>From the same article from the thread dealing with London he posts
articles from the capitalist press that nostaligize about London's non-
multi-cultural days as if this all-white period represented superior
once all the immigrants got there. Is that how you talk about Sydney?
Before the 1970s when all the European immigrants started showing up
opening up stores and restaruants?
Vngelis is neither brave nor a coward. His thoughts are simply
intellecual tripe, with no organizational manifestation, thanks the
gods. He is moving closer, almost daily, TO the positions of David
Irving, and others whose motivation IS anti-semitism. If you start
chasing Jews, too, you will find yourself in their company as well, no
doubt. The only people who chase Jews, starting counting Jewish names,
start questioning the 'ethnicity' of people are people who have a
bigoted reason behind it.
You are correct about Zionists who scream "holocaust" at very
opportunity. This is why Finklesteins book is so brilliant, so spot
on. I recommend eveyone get a copy and read it. It is the best expose
of the Zionist misuse of the Holocaust around. Also, because he
doesn't stupidly try to deny the holocaust happened or that it wasn't
aimed at Jews.
I'm trying to figure out where his hatred of everyone comes from. It
certainly isn't politics Dusty. He IS an immigrant yet he hates
immigrants. You see his bind don't you? Thus wild speculation on my
part that his self-hatred stems from his own background. But I've
never talked to him (or, to be honest, anyone like him).
As for his "appeal" to workers. No doubt. He will appeal the most
backward, racist elements in society, EXACTLY like the crowed the BNP
orients too. They will be all white, you know. Not an immigrant among
them, of course. The people who scream "Paki" or "raghead' or "nigger"
are his crowd. Go for it because they will agree with everything
states. That is what national socialism leaders to.
David
srd
> SRD, you, and Dusty, know full well that Vngelis' comments *embarrass*
> you. Hell, anyone who parades around a Trotskyist and totally makes
> the kind of comments he has made on this list (like his Elvis comments
> most recently) embarrasses me. Fortunately, it is only momentary, as I
> realize that his ideas rarely get beyond this rather isolated forum.
> There is no actual Trotskyist group or current that comes close to
> this form of Posoadista UFO methods...
I haven't found vngelis's more conspiratorial positions convincing. I
experience little doubt that Osama bin Laden exists and 9/11 really
happened more or less as the public thinks. I have never been able to get
interested in the Kennedy assassination. I don't reject these
possibilities, I have just not seen anything that would lead me to
entertain them seriously. But then, I think people have all sorts of
strange ideas about what kinds of objects exist in the world. Newton spent
more time on alchemy than physics. And I assume that my own beliefs are
no exception. Thus I generally avoid relying on controversial facts when
deciding anything important.
> No, it's Vngels bizarre views that make no sense. I believe that
> Stalin was an an anti-semite (not at his core, but he used when it
> suited him) yet he was a follower of the Jew Marx. His KGB was full of
> Jews. To ask to make sense of anti-semitism is a labor of confusion.
Rather than saying no sense could be made of his views, it makes more
sense to say that Stalin had no real views about anything. Everything was
what "suited him." I think Stalin's collaboration with Jews in the KGB,
even his formal adherence to Marxism, does effectively refute that he was
an anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism was a powerful force in Russia; of course,
Stalin would exploit it.
Let me put it bluntly: a doctrine (such as anti-Semitism) that you are
unable to make sense of, ought not form the basis for accusations. If you
don't understand a doctrine and can find no consistency in it, there is no
basis for making any attributions. How could you know what to look for to
confirm it, when you can deduce nothing from what its nature to find its
expressions?
> I understand he think he may not be an anti-semite. But questions as
> he's poised as: "Who does Walters think is the major ethnicity of the
> Oligarchs" is ONLY a question anti-semites make because only anti-
> semites are concerned about the role of Jews in society.
That's your best evidence? Surely you can think of many reasons why
someone would be concerned about the role of Jews in society. But as I
mention, if you cannot make sense of anti-Semitism, you will not be able
to produce better reasons for thinking vngelis one.
srd
nada
> I haven't found vngelis's more conspiratorial positions convincing. I
> experience little doubt that Osama bin Laden exists and 9/11 really
> happened more or less as the public thinks. I have never been able to get
> interested in the Kennedy assassination. I don't reject these
> possibilities, I have just not seen anything that would lead me to
> entertain them seriously. But then, I think people have all sorts of
> strange ideas about what kinds of objects exist in the world. Newton spent
> more time on alchemy than physics. And I assume that my own beliefs are
> no exception. Thus I generally avoid relying on controversial facts when
> deciding anything important.
On this we agree. I can say plainly that I'm open to anything but fail
to see any real evidence. On the other hand, at least on 9/11, he has
a lot of company on the left (the 'inside' job part of it). And, in
this there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence. I wrote Ralph
Schoenman about his position (without mentioned who it was). He is
what he wrote back in reply:
"The no planes crowd are disinformationists - clearly cointelpro - who
have
invaded the various organizations, notably Scholars for Research into
9/11."
OK, I won't go that far. I don't think V or anyone else in that crowd
is cointelpro (CIA/FBI counter-intel spooks). Clearly they are a very
small minority of the conspiracy folks.
>
> > No, it's Vngels bizarre views that make no sense. I believe that
> > Stalin was an an anti-semite (not at his core, but he used when it
> > suited him) yet he was a follower of the Jew Marx. His KGB was full of
> > Jews. To ask to make sense of anti-semitism is a labor of confusion.
>
> Rather than saying no sense could be made of his views, it makes more
> sense to say that Stalin had no real views about anything. Everything was
> what "suited him." I think Stalin's collaboration with Jews in the KGB,
> even his formal adherence to Marxism, does effectively refute that he was
> an anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism was a powerful force in Russia; of course,
> Stalin would exploit it.
Depends how you view anti-Semitism. I don't think antisemitism was at
the core of anything Stalin said or did. For him it was entirely
tactical. As you say it "suited him" now and again. But used once for
whatever reason, means accommodatin oneself to this form of bigotry is
pretty damning as far as I'm concerned. I doubt Blacks in this country
see comedian Richards as anything but what he did (and admitted) even
he said it only once.
>
> Let me put it bluntly: a doctrine (such as anti-Semitism) that you are
> unable to make sense of, ought not form the basis for accusations. If you
> don't understand a doctrine and can find no consistency in it, there is no
> basis for making any attributions. How could you know what to look for to
> confirm it, when you can deduce nothing from what its nature to find its
> expressions?
I don't get you here.
>
> > I understand he think he may not be an anti-semite. But questions as
> > he's poised as: "Who does Walters think is the major ethnicity of the
> > Oligarchs" is ONLY a question anti-semites make because only anti-
> > semites are concerned about the role of Jews in society.
>
> That's your best evidence? Surely you can think of many reasons why
> someone would be concerned about the role of Jews in society. But as I
> mention, if you cannot make sense of anti-Semitism, you will not be able
> to produce better reasons for thinking vngelis one.
By itself no, but by disputing the Holocaust, defending the Tehran
conference (supporting the likes of David Duke) and what he stated
above in the discussion on Putin, yeah, very much so. We'll have to
agree to disagree, I suspect.
David
srd
quoting vngelis's alleged Jew-baiting:
> "The bars behind which Khordhovsky is in and Berezovskys exile testify to
> that. I could argue that you defend the line that capitalism has
> returned to
> Russia due to the ethnicity of the oligarchs, but I wont as you probably
> dont
> even know their ethnicity..."
You're apparently a more astute reader than I, as I cannot make heads or
tails of the above meaning. I took it to be a joke I didn't get.
Assuming that I have inferred correctly that Khordhovsky and Berezovsky
are Jewish (although a google search on [(Khordohovsky or Berezovsky) and
Jewish] got zero hits), the one thing I think I can _exclude_ is that you
are being baited as a Jew.
Or is it that they are NOT Jews; you see, you're not the only Yank who
doesn't know this. What are they? Russians maybe? Then he would be
accusing you of bigotry against Russians. Actually, that makes sense, come
to think of it. Not that you have anti-Russian bigotry but that vngelis is
mocking your ad hominem argument against him. He's saying, "I could argue
that you are expressing anti-Russian bigotry by your belief that the
ascendency of Russians to the top layer has to be something dire. This is
vngelis humor. Sometimes funny, sometimes incomprehensible. What one
doesn't get can serve as a kind of inkblot.
srd
dusty
"Vngelis states Dusty:
"The bars behind which Khordhovsky is in and Berezovskys exile testify
to that. I could argue that you defend the line that capitalism has
returned to Russia due to the ethnicity of the oligarchs, but I wont
as you probably dont even know their ethnicity..."
browse_frm/thread/ af8b4bad0bf098c6/6d9abc2f23212da0?
lnk=gst&q=ethnicity&rnum=3#6d9abc2f23212da0]"
What the hell is this?
If you are saying that the majority of the "Oligarchs" were not Jews
or that this is irrelevant, think again. They were and every Russian
knows it - and their connection with Israel and powerful Jewish
interests in the west. And they hate them for it and applaud Putin for
his "counter measures".
So some punk like you does no service to the Jewish people by your
effeminate screaming. I disagree with Vngelis' view that enormous
wealth created with untold sacrifice by the Soviet people was handed
to a (majority) of Jews in case capitalist restoration failed (that's
how I remember his position). No, the truth is that Jews in Russia had
contacts with the very powerful Jewish bourgeoisie in the west (not
least in Israel if you could call that the west) and they used that
for mutual enrichment when the Soviet Union fell apart.
Your feeble effort to deny this is pathetic. I have talked to people
about this and the well off applaud this "initiative" because they
support capitalist restoration and the well - good on "the Jews" for
their initiative. Then there are those who view this with disgust.
Walters:
"Dusty, in the US...we would smash anyone, physically, who starts Jew-
baiting like this, in public. I don't know anyone who utters such
garbage who would not be ridden out on the rails. Personally, I'm not
into fighting fascists like some left groups tht would make a career
out it, as I stated it's more a destraction and draws too much
attention to such loons. But it almost always happens, because the
left and Black and Latino groups (and some Jewish groups) routinely
smash fascist meetings where bigotry like this is expressed. Thats a
very old tradition in the Workers movement, going back to the breaking
up the German-American Bund meetings, fighting the Silver Shirts and
the Nazis".
Listen Walters, you stand up as a representative of "Jewish
interests". But in fact you are a coarse child of the Jewish
bourgeoisie and its offspring, zionism, not the finest traditions of
the Jews that made so much of a contribution to western culture,
including Marxism . Up yours. Try heavy stuff with me and I'll return
it with interest, any way necessary asshole. Stern gang punk.
"He Vngelis posts articles from the capitalist press that nostaligize
about London's non-multi-cultural days as if this all-white period
represented superior once all the immigrants got there. Is that how
you talk about Sydney? Before the 1970s when all the European
immigrants started showing up opening up stores and restaruants?
Vngelis is neither brave nor a coward. His thoughts are simply
intellecual tripe, with no organizational manifestation, thanks the
gods. He is moving closer, almost daily, TO the positions of David
Irving, and others whose motivation IS anti-semitism. If you start
chasing Jews, too, you will find yourself in their company as well, no
doubt. The only people who chase Jews, starting counting Jewish names,
start questioning the 'ethnicity' of people are people who have a
bigoted reason behind it."
Are you so dumb that you cannot see that the "nostalgia" he alludes to
is for the period when the trade union movement rode high in all
regions of Britain?
"You are correct about Zionists who scream "holocaust" at very
opportunity. This is why Finklesteins book is so brilliant, so spot
on. I recommend eveyone get a copy and read it. It is the best expose
of the Zionist misuse of the Holocaust around. Also, because he
doesn't stupidly try to deny the holocaust happened or that it wasn't
aimed at Jews. I'm trying to figure out where his hatred of everyone
comes from. It certainly isn't politics Dusty. He IS an immigrant yet
he hates immigrants. You see his bind don't you? Thus wild speculation
on my part that his self-hatred stems from his own background. But
I've never talked to him (or, to be honest, anyone like him)."
Oh thanks but I, like plenty of others, can work this stuff out for
myself without the help of the typical yank "Finklestein".
"As for his "appeal" to workers. No doubt. He will appeal the most
backward, racist elements in society, EXACTLY like the crowed the BNP
orients too. They will be all white, you know. Not an immigrant among
them, of course. The people who scream "Paki" or "raghead' or "nigger"
are his crowd. Go for it because they will agree with everything
states. That is what national socialism leaders to.
And that is the "cultural marxists' undying view of the working class.
You are less than useless.
dave.w...@comcast.net
> On Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:31:54 -0800, nada <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote,
I don't think he was baiting *me*, he's not that vulger, but he was
making a political point. One I think we all know what it means. There
was no humor involved.
David
dave.w...@comcast.net
> David Walters:
> "Vngelis states Dusty:
> "The bars behind which Khordhovsky is in and Berezovskys exile testify
> to that. I could argue that you defend the line that capitalism has
> returned to Russia due to the ethnicity of the oligarchs, but I wont
> as you probably dont even know their ethnicity..."
> Full: [http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/
> browse_frm/thread/ af8b4bad0bf098c6/6d9abc2f23212da0?
> lnk=gst&q=ethnicity&rnum=3#6d9abc2f23212da0]"
But they are not "Jews" ethnically, are they? They are in fact
Russians.
> What the hell is this?
> If you are saying that the majority of the "Oligarchs" were not Jews
> or that this is irrelevant, think again. They were and every Russian
> knows it - and their connection with Israel and powerful Jewish
> interests in the west. And they hate them for it and applaud Putin for
> his "counter measures".
I don't know what the connections are...What "every Russian" knows is
akin to what ever German knew, don't you think? There is little
counter-discussion to this in the Russian press, little public
discourse. Moscow News had run some interesting pieces on this
"discussion". I believe that a large number of Russians in the
Oligarchy may of been of Jewish descent...but the put their money in
Swiss, not Israeli banks. It is also true that a large number of the
Russian mafia...the real mafia is in organized crime are of Jewish
descent. But "Jewish" in this context is anyone who that affixed to
their passports in the 1970s. It's still Jew counting.
> So some punk like you does no service to the Jewish people by your
> effeminate screaming.
What, pray tell, is "effeminate screaming".
> I disagree with Vngelis' view that enormous
> wealth created with untold sacrifice by the Soviet people was handed
> to a (majority) of Jews in case capitalist restoration failed (that's
> how I remember his position). No, the truth is that Jews in Russia had
> contacts with the very powerful Jewish bourgeoisie in the west (not
> least in Israel if you could call that the west) and they used that
> for mutual enrichment when the Soviet Union fell apart.
> Your feeble effort to deny this is pathetic.
You disagree or agree with this? It's hard to tell since in the
beginning you ascribe this to Vngelis that state you disagree with and
then attack me for disagreeing with it. Did any of this happen? Yes.
What's your point? And, yes, Israel is part of the"west".
> I have talked to people
> about this and the well off applaud this "initiative" because they
> support capitalist restoration and the well - good on "the Jews" for
> their initiative. Then there are those who view this with disgust.
Yet "the Jews" were like only a tip of an iceberg. It's like the
Germans screaming about Jewish capitalists. There were Jewish
capitalists, but most were German and most Jews were not Capitalists.
Again, counting Jews is dangerous because you are assuming, as most
Russian anti-Jewish bigots do, that the few dozen Jews at the top
represent the 2 million Jews at the bottom, which is, of course, the
same method all racists use when confronting minorities of any sort.
> Listen Walters, you stand up as a representative of "Jewish
> interests".
Whose quotation marks? I stand up against racists and bigots. For
example, when the Bolsheviks were accused of being a Jewish conspriacy
and the West pointed out the large number of Jews (1/3 of the Central
Committee) the Bolsheviks simply responded that they are
Revolutionaries first and Russians second. What are "Jewish interests"
Dusty? Do you think there is anything homogenious about "the Jews"
that would have you make such a statement? Please, tell us more? Also,
that I attack what I perceived to be Jew baiting is somehow defending
"Jewish Interests"? (Your quote marks, not mine).
> But in fact you are a coarse child of the Jewish
> bourgeoisie and its offspring, zionism, not the finest traditions of
> the Jews that made so much of a contribution to western culture,
> including Marxism .
See, V is having an effect on you. I am the offspring of the Jewish
working class tradition of Marxism, not the bourgeoisie. My parents
were part of the heart and soul of Jewish proletariat in the US in
it's heyday, when in fact it was an "ethnic group" here in the US.
What possible evidence is there to say that I'm NOT part of this
tradition? Most fascinating Dusty. You are either overstating your
case for polemical reasons (I'd like to think) or you've adopted
Vngelis' conspriacy views that sees everything through a mirror.
> Up yours. Try heavy stuff with me and I'll return
> it with interest, any way necessary asshole. Stern gang punk.
You don't even know what the Stern gang was, fool. At least look it up
in Wikepedia to give yourself an education. I'm sure my family's CP
would make this rather implausible. BTW...the Stern gang had very
little support in the West among Jews, mostly a very small minority
even among Jewish Zionists in Palestine.
> Are you so dumb that you cannot see that the "nostalgia" he alludes to
> is for the period when the trade union movement rode high in all
> regions of Britain?
But that's NOT what he was nostalgic about was it? It was the articles
being nostaligc of the non-multicultural "London" that he and other
"old timers" knew.
> Oh thanks but I, like plenty of others, can work this stuff out for
> myself without the help of the typical yank "Finklestein".
It doesn't seem you can. BTW...I think he's a Canadian, and they hate
being called "Yanks" for obvious reasons.
> And that is the "cultural marxists' undying view of the working class.
> You are less than useless.
What is a 'cultural Marxist'?
Hugs and kisses,
David
srd
> don't think he was baiting *me*, he's not that vulger, but he was
> making a political point. One I think we all know what it means.
I'm sorry; I don't.
srd
srd
> Depends how you view anti-Semitism. I don't think antisemitism was at
> the core of anything Stalin said or did. For him it was entirely
> tactical. As you say it "suited him" now and again. But used once for
> whatever reason, means accommodatin oneself to this form of bigotry is
> pretty damning as far as I'm concerned.
This is the essence of the matter. You refuse the slightest accommodation
to racism and anti-semitism. Some factions of self-styled Marxists have
refused the slightest accommodation with liberalism--the more common form
of sectarianism in this epoch.
In another paragraph you say that you adapt only in the transitional sense
to bring more of the masses into action. This is the crucial distinction
between a political and a pedagogical adaptation. Where to draw the line
should be discussed more expressly in general, but here I only want to
make the point that whereas political adaptation is opportunist, refusing
to make pedagogical adaptations on principle is sectarian. In fact, I
think this provides a precise if shallow definition of opportunism and
sectarianism.
However unfortunate accommodations can be, it is crucial to distinguish
between an accommodation and what is being accommodated. Vngelis and I
think you accommodate liberalism. I don't follow vngelis further in the
belief--if I'm accurate in attributing it--that you _are_ a liberal.
Unlike you, I don't think vngelis makes unprincipled accommodations to
racism and anti-Semitism. But I admit I am not entirely sure of that.
Drawing the line between a pedagogical adaptation and a political one,
between a transitional adaptation and an opportunist adaptation, can
require considerable analysis, as in Trotsky's labor party discussions
with the SWP. But it is completely clear to me, however debatable
vngelis's tactics, that in the worst possible case, he is at most adapting
to these trends and does not actually express them. That is not a
concession of fact, only of logical possibility.
Your unwillingness to countenance ANY adaptation to workers you deem
far-rightist--your position, in effect, that there is no transitional
approach to racism and anti-Semitism--is in my view _equally_ sectarian to
the classic ultra-leftism in which no pedagogical adaptation to liberal
and reformist workers is tolerated, that is, no direct but transitional
approach to their consciousness as it is. Of course, you reject this,
because you say elsewhere that it is psychotic to equate adaptation to
Democratic politicians with adaptation to "Holocaust deniers." Whereas I
think the inequality goes, if anything, the other way, where the
adaptation involves an establishment politician as opposed to a
marginalized pseudo-intellectual. But qualitatively, to me the rules are
the same.
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
These so-called anti-racist laws only can work against free speech for
the workers movement. In Britain, they had passed a law against
Mosely's fascists by banning the wearing of uniforms: the first person
arrested was a Stalinist wearing a red-arm ban. We should not call on
the state to ban facsists or racists...we should take care of them
ourselves.
David
Vngelis
> On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 06:00:13 -0800, <dave.walt...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > don't think he was baiting *me*, he's not that vulger, but he was
> > making a political point. One I think we all know what it means.
>
> I'm sorry; I don't.
>
> srd
My point was that Walters believes that restoration has occurred due
to the nationality of the oligarchs not that property relations on the
whole were overthrown.
The issue as to why a majority of the oligarchs happened to be of
'jewish' descent is probably that they were put forward in order then
to have premeditated scapegoats if all collapsed, which it finally
did.
Then they could all blame the... 'jews'.
In the USA they do the exact opposite to the ex-USSR.
Anyone who mentions the word 'jew' is branded an ...anti-semite, a
'holocaust denier' a nazi.
Walters is the exponent of that line.
dave.w...@comcast.net
V, I NEVER raised the issue of the nationality of the Oligarchs, you
did, when you suggest "Walters probably doesn't even know the
nationality of the Oligarchs".
I don't think the Jewish Oligarchs 'were put forward' but arose out of
connection they had with the West and their previous positions in the
bureaucracy. But you are correct as to exactly how it's used.
We mention Jewish politics all the time. The"Jewish vote", etc as part
of studies, polls (especially local ones). They are a sub-group, as
assimiliated as they are, like any white-ethnic group in the US
(Irish, Italians, Greeks, etc). In NYC politics this is an especially
important issue as there are like 2 million Jewish New Yorkers.
What is racist is the Jewish conspiracy theorists. People who believe
in belief that Jews are out to control the world *as a group*. Worst,
yet, is the a-political analysis that sees Zionism, not as the social-
democratic, neo-colonial settler movement but as some sort of
financial cabal that runs things behind everyones back. This is a
reactionary line.
David
srd
> My point was that Walters believes that restoration has occurred due
> to the nationality of the oligarchs not that property relations on the
> whole were overthrown
I don't follow how this reasoning would go. 'Capitalism has been restored
because the Oligarchs are Jewish. The Jewishness of the oligarchs tends to
show that capitalism has ben restored, because ________________. I simply
have no idea of how that blank would be filled in, whether by Walters, a
caricature of Walters, or by anyone else. What's the premise? What's the
connection?
srd
Vngelis
But they never had any connections with the West.
They were all relatively young. Its impossible at that age to be
anything other than front men. Hence they were put forward in a
coordianated plan and when it all went to pot, they were singled out
for being Jewish in Russia by the media and the CP.
In what way did the oligarchs of the Yeltsin era have connections with
the West prior ot Yeltsin?
America is not Russia. There are no sub-groups in Moscow. There are
only Russians. Seeing the world through the prism of the USA is fatal.
Hence the fact that the media in the USA plays up the 'jewish' card to
attack all and sundry leads others around the world to do the exact
opposite, to talk about a jewish cabal in finance.
You play the american game on these issues as can be seen by all your
comments the moment anyone even mentions the word 'jew'. Soon
thereafter they are branded 'racist' 'holocaust deniers' etc. Old dogs
never learn new tricks.
srd
> > My point was that Walters believes that restoration has occurred due
> > to the nationality of the oligarchs not that property relations on the
> > whole were overthrown.
OK, maybe I understand. If this is your point, it is a complex one. What
confused me is that David thinks the restoration came with Yeltsin. So
what does it have to do with anything about the oligarchs? I think this is
what you are saying: David Walters would ordinarily question the evidence
for restoration, given the measures Putin has taken against the
representatives of the biggest capital in Russia. You are saying, I think,
that he fails to do this, because he reflexively sees the movement against
the oligarchs as merely an expression of anti-Semitism. Therefore, he can
give it no weight in evaluating the class character of the Russian state.
If this is what you're saying, I personally have no idea whether this is
true of Walters.
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
Actually, at least, you expressed it in a coherent way, if this is
what he meant. Mostly this is correct, except I don't believe the move
against the Oligarchs was at all motivated by anti-Semitism. If I
stated this or implied this, then this is a mistake on my part (even
though if V thinks this is the case by me, then he's simply wrong and
throwing up another red herring). I think the moves against THOSE
oligarchs, the top of the line ones that already did the damage, is a
politcial move by Putin to build the national economy, with which his
supporters in the Duma (a capitalist instituation we should note) used
anti-Semitism there as a motivation to support this move and, numerous
anti-Semtic organizations such as the National Bolshevik Party uses
this a a method. I think any use of anti-Semitism by the gov't or
officials thereof, is the same kind of use that Stalin used against
Jews, as a political tacthic.
David
srd
> with which his supporters in the Duma (a capitalist instituation we
> should note)
Is it substantially different in structure than the Supreme Soviet under
the 1936 Soviet Constitution?
srd
nada
> On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 14:05:54 -0800, <dave.walt...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > with which his supporters in the Duma (a capitalist instituation we
> > should note)
>
> Is it substantially different in structure than the Supreme Soviet under
> the 1936 Soviet Constitution?
>
> srd
Good question. Actually, the question, maybe should be was it
substantially different from the Supreme soviet it replaced, which was
actually different than the 1936 one.
In the S. soviet it replaced, more power went to the Duma. The
political situation changed so that it was no longer the Chairman of
the S. Soviet but the President that ruled. Under the Soviet
Constitution of 1936, which inscribed the 'leading political role to
the CP', the "President" was a figure head. And this was true from
1918 onward as well when the USSR was formed, there was a
"President" (I think Kalinin was the first one) but it was figurehead
only, kind of like the "President" of Israel who holds no real power
compared to the Prime minster.
The S. Soviet of 1989 (and 1936) had many of it's members appointed,
rubber stamped decisions already carried out by the Central Committee
of the CP. It was not the main decission maker in the USSR.
Under capitalism, The Duma debated, then ratified motions by Yeltsin's
party to sell off major state enterprises, and did things other
capitalist *governments* do. It, and the ministries of state, became
the vehicle by which the bureaucracy became the kleptocracy which
developed into the Oligarchy (and now the nuvo rich...I forget the
Russian term for it).
The role of the Duma under Putin is no different than it was under
Yelstin, except for the politics (strongly nationalist bent).
David
dusty
What is a perfect "workers' state" anyway. Through all these debates
on this site no-one has defined this term. It is clearly only
definable in dialectical terms. And if you are a real Marxist you
don't start at the superstructure, but at the base.
It seems to me that the Soviet Union has never been anything like a
perfect workers' state. In fact there has been a vast "literature"
around the notion that under Lenin, things were fine, but the rot set
in under Stalin. As I see it, the reverse is the truth. It was under
"Stalin and his Heirs", that the real workers' state started to come
into focus, started to be a possibility. Before then life was brutal...
never mind "why", but it was, and this was no accident...
I think that all that I have said above is the logic of Trotsky's
analysis in the 1930's. The existence of a tyrannical bureaucracy is
not the issue. It is the historical trajectory implied by the economic
developments underway...the Five Year Plans, by nature, focused on
capital goods, and primitive accumulation based on the peasantry -
after all, England had its Enclosures... Were it not for the depression
and the war, the fascist interruptions which fell so hard on a state
governed by the economic laws of a planned economy, though it can be
the salvation of a capitalist economy under imperialism, the fruits in
terms of liberalisation of life and the "good things of life" would
have been quickly delivered, but never without strife and hardship.
To coin a "shallow" modern-day expression: "It's the economy stupid".
No offence meant.
Vngelis
You start a sentence off then conclude what I was saying all along.
1) You stated the 'jewish' oligarchs had connections in the west. How
and when?
Russia was a closed economy. There is no way Abramovich for instance
built any relationships in the west when Russia opened up. He was 21.
Berezovsky was aroun 28. How did they get all this personal wealth at
such a young age?
They were members of the youth of the Communist Party. Functionaries
who were put forward. Just as easily as they were put forward so
easily they were removed.
2) You view the world through the prism of sub-groups in the USA. You
always have you always will.
3) Adding the word capitalist or racist as epithets to any institution
is no indication they are just by using a word. One has to prove in
what way private property is entrenched when the Russian would be
Carnegies are all in exile. A voluntary phenomena or a forced one like
the Enclosures in Britain. On the one hand you assert their jewish
identity as evidence of 'capitalism' then the laws of capitalism are
suspended at the altar of ...anti-semitism.
4) You use static absolutist criteria to judge the restorationist
process. It has solidified partly because of the 'jewish' nature of
the oligarchs. The actual same position as the National Bolsheviks who
assert capitalism has restored as the ...jews are up to their necks
in ...capitalism. This is part of the heritage of Stalinism whereby
Trotsky was both an agent of the SS, and Britain and the reason was
because he was foreign to the body politc of Russia, a 'jew'.
dave.w...@mirant.com
It wasn't after Yeltsin came to power...the political basis for this
was the failure of political revolution and it's heist by wing of the
Stalinists, mainly the Yetlsin wing of the CP. The economy by 1993 was
wide open. Berezosky, in 1993, was 35 years old (this is second hand,
I can't cite the actual source for this). They set up lending
insitutions and joint stock companies with no assets at all (every
much like the way Private Equity firms in the UK function in the
beginning). They then went out and made promisary issues for the newly
arrived stock offerings that were being offered to workers in variour
enterprises.They wer also simply handed control of various industries
from which they then issued stock (this is how it was done in Poland,
for example) It was, very much, like the 1980s junk bond market in the
US, except on steroids, and for the entire economy. With stock
certificates, the "connection with the West" then became very obvious:
use the "assets" to borrow money from the Swiss and Germans to
collect, then, Duetch marks, Swiss francs and US dollars. Once
liquitity was established, it was easy then to apply for aid and if
necessary, further sell offs of industry to *other* oligarchs, etc.
There seems to be little evidence that Israel had anything to do with
this, the Russian mob still, early on, beginning to set up connections
between Tel Aviv and Moscow, but it had not matured yet.
The restoration into capitalism, floating currencies, the rise and
dollarzation of the economy, etc, all codified by the Duma by
Yetlsin's supporters, opposed by most of the CP(s). These CPs, the
descendants of which function today, are the 'out bureaucrats,
buruacrats who were not handed the factories and assets of the
national economy. Many of these Oligarchs were CP appointed
"Directors" of natonal industry who made fortunes when the 'went
public' and issued stock. Their money is now in Swiss or Carribean
banks. The opponents of this process are the folks that lost out on
the deal.
> They were members of the youth of the Communist Party. Functionaries
> who were put forward. Just as easily as they were put forward so
> easily they were removed.
Not true. They did some extra-legal work. They all had their money
shipped off. There are still many there, the 49% of the owners of
Gazprom, for example, are doing very nicely, shopping at their upscale
stores in Moscow, flying to Paris for the weekend. Life must be good
for them.
> 2) You view the world through the prism of sub-groups in the USA. You
> always have you always will.
In your quote...there is no mention or reference to US ethnic sub
groups. YOU reaised thei ssue of them being Jewish, remember?
> 3) Adding the word capitalist or racist as epithets to any institution
> is no indication they are just by using a word. One has to prove in
> what way private property is entrenched when the Russian would be
> Carnegies are all in exile. A voluntary phenomena or a forced one like
> the Enclosures in Britain. On the one hand you assert their jewish
> identity as evidence of 'capitalism' then the laws of capitalism are
> suspended at the altar of ...anti-semitism.
You are confused, YOU raised their identity of being Jewish, not me. I
think they are totally RUSSIAN. Also, the Russian politicians,
including the CPs, raise the issue of them being NOT-Russian. I think
it's irrelevant that some of them are of Jewish descent. Dusty thinks
it is important. You got him going real good on this.
> 4) You use static absolutist criteria to judge the restorationist
> process. It has solidified partly because of the 'jewish' nature of
> the oligarchs.
OK...so YOU think it IS important. Please stand in ONE place so we can
discuss this. You keep moving the goal post around.
> The actual same position as the National Bolsheviks who
> assert capitalism has restored as the ...jews are up to their necks
> in ...capitalism.
This is not your position? You just stated that "It has solidified
partly because of the 'jewish' nature of the oligarchs". Stay put!
David
Vngelis
My original argument before it gets lost was you believe that the
restoration process was solidified because of the jewish nature of the
oligarchs. Dusty called you a jewish cultural nationalist. I dont
believe the restorationist project either solidified or reversed the
property relations in Russia to the point of no return.
Everything you say about dollarisation where is it? Of the bureaucracy
being rich so they were rich prior to Yeltsin. They had their own
shops. All their goods were imported. They lived as west europeans in
the framework of Russian society. There is nothing new in that, nor in
what you say. Brezhnev had a collection of western cars. So? Having
wealth according to Trotsky wasn't the criterion of the class nature
of the Russian state, but being able to pass it on to future
generations and it being codified in law with courts willing to uphold
the sancrosanct right of private property. The exile and loss of
Oligarchs of the Yeltsin era testifies to the non-solidification of
the restorationist project, not that it wasn't embarked or did not
occur, but that they never squared the circle.
Berezovsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Berezovsky
according to this made his name in the early years of Perestroika
through the export of products. This is where they all made their
money. Living off those industries which could bring in foreign
currency. There were no exporters of Russian yohgurts or Russian
bread, there was no Russian Parmalat or Danone but there are Russian
producers of comparable size in the internal market.
Russian politicians promoted the 'outsiders' into positions of
authority so if it all went bellyup they could then turn round and
blame the ...'jewish' oligarchs. You do the same in reverse. Any
mention of the word 'jew' sends you into a fit of ...racism, holocaust
denial ad nauseum. In that sense you are the same as the National
bolsheviks. They believe property relations were overturned, they
believe in a global jewish cabal and conspiracy and they play the game
they have to play.
dave.w...@mirant.com
> My original argument before it gets lost was you believe that the
> restoration process was solidified because of the jewish nature of the
> oligarchs. Dusty called you a jewish cultural nationalist.
Yes he did after YOU raised the issue of the "Oligarchs ethnicity".
You raised it not me. You think it was part of the oligarch's
"solidifying their hold". I think it's basically irrelevant to the
restoration of cpaitlalism in Russia.
> I dont
> believe the restorationist project either solidified or reversed the
> property relations in Russia to the point of no return.
I don't agree but that's a fair basis of a discussion.
> Everything you say about dollarisation where is it?
Dollars are still accepted all over Russia and...the whole of the CIS
and...the whole of the old Warsaw Pact "workers states" that are not
anymore. Restrictions were placed *back on* by Putin as Russian
capitalists were bankrupting the economy. Good for him. It doesn't
make not capitalist, however.
> Of the bureaucracy
> being rich so they were rich prior to Yeltsin. They had their own
> shops. All their goods were imported. They lived as west europeans in
> the framework of Russian society. There is nothing new in that, nor in
> what you say. Brezhnev had a collection of western cars. So?
So...it is not *bureaucrats* but *capitlists* who were getting rich
(and still do) as part of the Russian economic collapse. The
bureaucracy enriched themselves as part of a parasitic caste on
collectivize property relations. The Russian capitalists (inlcuding
the Oligarchy) did so *as capitalists*, buying and selling companies,
breaking them up and laying off workers, bankrupting (who ever heard
of "bankruptcy" in a workers state???). This is no a few special,
hidden stores for the bueaucrats family, this was trade...food
distribution being totally privatized for example in all the major
cities, that people got rich, and still get rich. Fewer foriegners,
but the free circulation an accumulation of capital. Brezhnev never
had a Lexus car dealership in Moscow (accepts payments in Euros,BTW)
he snuck in his stuff on flights from Europe.
> Having wealth according to Trotsky wasn't the criterion of the class nature
> of the Russian state, but being able to pass it on to future
> generations and it being codified in law with courts willing to uphold
> the sancrosanct right of private property.
Private productive property exists in Russia, it did not before 1989.
This property, owned by small and big time capitalists, can be passed
on to their children. Yetlsin' inhertence and ownership laws were
NEVER overtuned by Putin (a socilist revolution would be need for
that) just tuned to make the state, as any good Bonapartist would do,
the key player. Not a workers state but a capitalist one run by a
nationalist.
> The exile and loss of
> Oligarchs of the Yeltsin era testifies to the non-solidification of
> the restorationist project, not that it wasn't embarked or did not
> occur, but that they never squared the circle.
Fair enough statement. I don't think the process either was
'consolidated', but it is still capitalist in that production
now...even for state owned industries, is for profit. You pretend that
the stocks on the Moscow stock exchange are 'fake'...though you could
never provide any evidence of this. The stocks are rated specifically
for Russian currency and *decide ownership* for companies. Real
estate, like in western cities, is now a *major industry* with rents
*unregulated* and selling and buying exactly like it is done in your
London, at the same insanely high prices. But...you say it's a
"workers state". I say the state exists to defend this capitalism, in
all it's petty and not-soopety corruption. It may not ever be like
Austria or Germany, but the State *wants it be* like that so long as
Russians are in control. Only a counter-revolution where the state
structures were bent, smashed, reformed could such an occurance
happen. This is why Putin exists, to hold back the counter-counter-
revolution and mollify the nation to prevent an upsurge. Just like any
bonapartist.
I will agre again with you on something: it may not of been a total
restoration, or counter-revolution, I just have a hard time thing any
state can exist in sort of pergatory of multi-class loyalty. Not at
all.
David
PS...I think you are much closer to National Bolshevik Policy from
what you stated about the Oligarchy. They deny the holocouast aimed at
Jews happend, so do you. They hate the immigrants from other parts of
the old Russian empire coming to Moscow, so do you. That they have a
view that capitalism has been restored is like saying they think the
sky is blue...agreeing with them is just stating the obvious. Most
communist parties there too think that capitalism has been
restored...doesn't mean I'm close to their politics just that we see
the obvious.
> Berezovskyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Berezovsky
> according to this made his name in the early years of Perestroika
> through the export of products. This is where they all made their
> money. Living off those industries which could bring in foreign
> currency. There were no exporters of Russian yohgurts or Russian
> bread, there was no Russian Parmalat or Danone but there are Russian
> producers of comparable size in the internal market.
>
> Russian politicians promoted the 'outsiders' into positions of
> authority so if it all went bellyup they could then turn round and
> blame the ...'jewish' oligarchs. You do the same in reverse. Any
> mention of the word 'jew' sends you into a fit of ...racism, holocaust
> denial ad nauseum. In that sense you are the same as the National
> bolsheviks. They believe property relations were overturned, they
> believe in a global jewish cabal and conspiracy and they play the game
> they have to play.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Vngelis
Firstly I dont think they are Jews in the sense of what jews are. They
may play a 'jewish card' as this is fashionable within western
business circles. The 'hunted jew' or the 'jew that escaped from the
Holocaust' is embedded within the American psyche (this is from Soros
who funds most of the 'leftist' media cartels) alongside the use of
the word 'holocaust denial' at every available opportunity which is
what they all concluded regarding the Conference in Iran.
Most of the money made was due to the exports of raw materials. The
biggest trading partner of Russia remains Germany. At the last count
Germans weren't jews, but I could be wrong.
The issue at stake isn't whether the Russian people were ripped off.
They were. The issue at stake is whether the ripping off continued by
the same Oligarchs of the Yeltsin era, if not why not and why is this
different from the 19th century robber baron era of the USA? If you
are arguing like Walters both from a different perspective but
essentially the same conclusion that capitalism is restored then one
has to explain why Putin was forced to re-nationalise private assets
and export the Oligarchs.
dave.w...@mirant.com
> Firstly I dont think they are Jews in the sense of what jews are. They
> may play a 'jewish card' as this is fashionable within western
> business circles. The 'hunted jew' or the 'jew that escaped from the
> Holocaust' is embedded within the American psyche (this is from Soros
> who funds most of the 'leftist' media cartels) alongside the use of
> the word 'holocaust denial' at every available opportunity which is
> what they all concluded regarding the Conference in Iran.
No, the "jewish card" is brought up mostly by Zionists whenever Israel
is questioned or criticized. You don't find Soros or his ilk as the
main raisers of this issue. This is just polemical nonsense because
you say anything to raise a red herring when you are wrong. The
"escaped Jew" is embedded in the worlds intellectual collective, it
not specific to the "west" or "businessmen" or "media cartels". The
only time holocouast denial is raised legitimtily is when some one
tries to raise the question itself, specifcially. This is when I
raised it in response to the threat, which I did not start, on the
Racists attending the Terhan conference. Get you fact straight. That
Zionists raise it all the time (they accuse Finklestine and Schoenman
of this all the time, falsly). I don't.
> Most of the money made was due to the exports of raw materials. The
> biggest trading partner of Russia remains Germany. At the last count
> Germans weren't jews, but I could be wrong.
Actually it was not. It was raised internally, inintially, as I
explained it previously, through stock manipulation, IMF loans, World
Bank loans, Russian gov't handouts and handovers, etc.
> The issue at stake isn't whether the Russian people were ripped off.
> They were. The issue at stake is whether the ripping off continued by
> the same Oligarchs of the Yeltsin era, if not why not and why is this
> different from the 19th century robber baron era of the USA? If you
> are arguing like Walters both from a different perspective but
> essentially the same conclusion that capitalism is restored then one
> has to explain why Putin was forced to re-nationalise private assets
> and export the Oligarchs.- Hide quoted text -
Putin was forced to renatioanlize SOME private assets, mostly in
energy, because the country was falling apart. Capitalism was
inflating prices on everything, value of the ruble was declining, the
death rate, only recently recovering (and not even close to what it
was when Russia was a workers state) was in the shitter...the
population was actually going down. To avoid total collapse and to
stem any potential rebellion, coup or revolutution, he took measures
like any good bonarpartst to save what national economy he could and
what private property still functioned.
David
srd
>
> srd wrote:
>> On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 14:05:54 -0800, <dave.w...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> > with which his supporters in the Duma (a capitalist instituation we
>> > should note)
>>
>> Is it substantially different in structure than the Supreme Soviet under
>> the 1936 Soviet Constitution?
>>
>> srd
>
> What is a perfect "workers' state" anyway. Through all these debates
> on this site no-one has defined this term. It is clearly only
> definable in dialectical terms. And if you are a real Marxist you
> don't start at the superstructure, but at the base.
>
> It seems to me that the Soviet Union has never been anything like a
> perfect workers' state. In fact there has been a vast "literature"
> around the notion that under Lenin, things were fine, but the rot set
> in under Stalin. As I see it, the reverse is the truth. It was under
> "Stalin and his Heirs", that the real workers' state started to come
> into focus, started to be a possibility. Before then life was brutal...
> never mind "why", but it was, and this was no accident...
Did I ever use the phrase "perfect workers state"? I have no idea of what
this would mean. A workers state is inherently imperfect, being a society
in transition from capitalism to socialism. I don't know what a "real"
workers state might be either. As opposed to what: an unreal workers state?
But as to when Russia showed the strongest approximation to the Marxist
ideals regarding the political system of a workers state, surely it was in
the immediate aftermath of October, when the soviets were functioning
energetically.
I did define "workers state," although it probably wasn't necessary. A
workers state is one where state power is directed to instituting or
defending economic institutions that correspond to the interests of the
workers. The relations between base and super-structure, the primacy of
the base over the super-structure, applies only over the longer run. WHEN
A REVOLUTION OCCURS, SUPERSTRUCTURE DETERMINES BASE. The Paris Commune was
a workers state in embryo, even though they failed to nationalized the
banks. The Russian Revolution produced a workers state in October 1917,
even though the Bolsheviks only got around to nationalizing industry in
1918. That is why saying the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew capitalism is
misleading. It overthrew the capitalist state. The natural policy of a
workers state is to nationalize industry and create a planned economy, but
even when it does, capitalism has not really been "abolished." The
division of the world into competing nation states continues, and the
nationalized industries of the workers state must produce for the
international market according to the law of value, ultimately bringing
the problems of capitalism into the socialized economy, even when it truly
is.
In the Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky was concerned to show the superiority
of nationalized property and what he thought was the continued working
class nature of the state. But to say simply that he looked to the economy
would be misleading, and on the finer points of method, the key work is
not the Revolution Betrayed but "In Defense of Marxism." Trotsky's
reasoning is there is that the nature of the Russian state must be
determined based on its development. The property forms that exist were
instituted by the October Revolution; there had been no
counter-revolution, no reversal of policy regarding basic questions of
property; hence, the property forms, as creations of a workers revolution,
are socialist property forms and the state that defends them is a workers
state. (In this context, Healy argued, I think correctly, that Cuba is NOT
a workers state, despite the property forms. I'd be interested to know
what you think about Cuba.)
In evaluating the nature of a state, in other words, it isn't "the
economy" that counts, but the inevitability of basic state policies on the
property question. This inevitablity comes from the class origins of the
basic core of the state, ultimately bodies of armed men. What property
forms must this apparatus, by its nature, defend and promote?
What Russia seems to teach is that it requires more than a century for a
national bourgeisie to recover from a socialist revolution. In the
process, it benefits as a class but not as individuals from a sytem
created by the workers but appropriated by proto-bourgeois usurpers, whose
privileges, justification, and legitimations develop glacially when the
existing forms better serve the development of capital.
David has almost conceded that there was no true counter-revolution under
Yeltsin or shortly before. As vngelis showed, the capitalists in Russia
were created and destroyed administratively rather than by market
mechanisms. But Russia continues to evolve capitalist institutions,
combining nationalized and private forms of property ownership. Although
there was no counter-revolution circe 1991, Russia was not now or at that
time a workers state. As David does point out, a workers state could not
continue under the multi-class contention that would have to be said to
characterize Russia if it were a workers state.
srd
srd
Supreme Soviet of 1936. Before that the ostensible forms corresponded
outwardly more to the model of a workers state. What makes the Supreme
Soviet of 1936 and the Duma BOTH capitalist institutions is elections by
universal suffrage with equal votes, direct election to national offices
rather than building on the hierarchy of class organizations, and the
absence of mechanisms of radical democracy, such as immediate recall of
representatives.
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
>
> David has almost conceded that there was no true counter-revolution under
> Yeltsin or shortly before. As vngelis showed, the capitalists in Russia
> were created and destroyed administratively rather than by market
> mechanisms. But Russia continues to evolve capitalist institutions,
> combining nationalized and private forms of property ownership. Although
> there was no counter-revolution circe 1991, Russia was not now or at that
> time a workers state. As David does point out, a workers state could not
> continue under the multi-class contention that would have to be said to
> characterize Russia if it were a workers state.
>
> srd- Hide quoted text -
>
Stephen, you know that if I think V made a good point, I'd concede it
(despite his own ability to do the same, which makes him, among other
things, very dishonest). But I have not "almost conceded" on the
Yeltsin's counter-revolution. I think his victory preciptated the
total capitalization of Russian society. Every statistic shows this.
The gosplan, as Trotsky stated was the "heart of a socialist economy"
was trashed. State owned industries were sold off or, as was and is
the case now, run at a profit-and-loss basis.
I explained, Stephen, in the previous post, why I think Putin has gone
'back', to a more centralized way of managing the economy. There is
still is no nation plan, a "5 year Plan" as the Stalinists used to
organize the economy. I read about 2 years ago that the Russian steel
industry doesn't even have accounting...they just produce, hope to
sell it to other factories or industries, and pray hard. They cutoff
supplies, regularly, as does Gasprom with natural gas, any "customer"
who doesn't pay up. It's Byzintine combined with mafia combised with
US 19th Century capitalism.
David
dusty
I don't get the bit about my position "ending up the same as Walters".
I have my own position on the SU which I have explained before. I came
at it in a different way to you. My view was and is - since say 1995 -
based on the experience of a close acquaintance who worked in Russia
as an economist, who was initially gung-ho about the transition to the
"market economy" but who later realised the huge difficulty (even
"impossibility") of setting up capitalism there because of the
economic culture of the people, the tradition of central planning and
the structure of Soviet industry. My position is stated on the APST
archive.
As to the components of a workers' state, the leadership element has
considerably degenerated since the times of Stalin and his Heirs. They
were subjectively planned economy men. They rode this tiger and
"caused" it to grow, and they defended it, if only because their
interests were bound up in its growth and survival. As I see it, Putin
is not in that brigade. The "subjective factor", the super-structural
element, is deficient today compared with the time of "Stalin and his
Heirs" in so far as the building of the peoples' property is
concerned. However, for the objective reasons I have outlined, and the
pressure of the Russian working people, under Putin there has been a
movement back to the centralisation of control of the economy. And
naturally the enormously rich oil reserves are at the centre of this.
This is truly remarkable in that it is against the trends in all other
countries today. But, in recognising this, we should not underestimate
the weakness in the subjective factor (Putin) when assessing the
character ("trajectory") of the state.
How this analysis puts me in the same camp as David Walters, I cannot
imagine.
As to the reason why a disproportion of the "oligarchs" were of a
Jewish background, I postulated their capacity to "hit the road
running" when the opportunity arose because of their western
connections - Israel is an obvious starter - there has long been
migration by Russian Jews there and there are obvious connections.
Also, I would cite the following as an example of what was happening
back in 2002:
Russia's Oil Czar Looks West,
Bloomberg Markets Magazine, July 2002
"With 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves, Priobskoye is a black gold
mine for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive and main shareholder of
AO Yukos Oil Co., Russia's second- largest oil producer ...
Khodorkovsky is one of the so-called oligarchs who took control of
state assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union and oversaw some
of Russia's worst violations of shareholder rights. Amid the country's
financial crisis in 1998 and 1999, Khodorkovsky transferred stakes in
Yukos subsidiaries to off-shore tax havens like the Isle of Man and
Cyprus."
At least three of the posted four Board Members of this organization
AO Yukos Oil Co. ...include... Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Dr. Henry A.
Kissinger, and Lord Jacob Rothschild.
It would be very difficult to gather evidence as to the depth of
planning engaged in by the nascent bourgeoisie with respect to the
role of foreign finance capital, but I would be surprised were it not
there. However, in all of this it is obviously true that capitalists
of Jewish origin would be very much in a minority.
You hypothesise that the reason for this disproportion of the Jews
amongst the "Oligarchs" was due to a set up job to discredit them
later, by using the anti-Semitism of wide sections of the Russian
people. I just cannot see that as being true. "Oligarchs" were created
under Yeltsin, the western choice to sell off the Russian economy. I
know Putin worked in the background on assisting the process of
privatisation, as did others, but I find so deep a conspiracy unlikely
and more likely this is convenient hypothesising post hoc.
srd
> I don't get the bit about my position "ending up the same as Walters".
The basic question for vngelis is whether Russia has integrated with
international capitalism. On my view, actually, denying such integration
is also critical, since I see the present Russian proto-bourgeoisie as not
imperialist. If the Oligarchs were products of their alleged
international ties, then their emergence presaged capitalist integration.
Also this seems a distorted view of the Russian Jewry. The Oligarchs were
initially Stalinist Nomenklutura (however it's spelled), not Zionist
sympathizers.
srd
Vngelis
Everything is relative of course. Putin has been forced to re-
centralise not simply due to the pressure from below. Capitalist
restoration would have entailed the break-up of the Russian state into
a nuclear powered splintered factions and fiefdoms. This would/could
have occurred theoretically if there was a mass movement in society
willing to defend the yesterdays stalinists who became todays spivs.
Why I follow the theory that the Khordovskys of this world and the
Berezovskys were put forward to represent many other interests is cos
I happened to have heard them speak first hand. I was associated with
the University that had 'special advisers' during the Yeltsin era, I
saw them in action whilst in Moscow and I only heard Berezovsky speak
last year. They are talentless, have no knowledge or culture beyond
grovelling to the west and its lifestyle and they have no knowledge in
my eyes of Russias history and its people. Their venom is equal to
their pro-westerness. Unleashed to an audience they sound to the right
of... nazis. Every time I have heard them in an audience which they
did not control, a fight or a scuffle of some sort has broken out.
They are without doubt the Butenko faction of global imperialism in
the ex-body politic of Russia.
If now you follow Putins speech at Munich it encompasses history, it
raises points, it aims to convince. This is the 'enlightened' wing of
the exiled Butenkos. This is the pressure of the factory commitees
inside soviet society which still exist in a distorted form in heavy
industry. Brezhnev never made a speech regarding the takeover of the
USA of the world nor did he have to. At the time 'peaceful
coexistence' was embedded in the Russian political class. Since
Yugoslavia though things have changed. Russia will not and cannot
accept becoming a doormat for the USA despite and against the wishes
of its leaders.
In that sense in my opinion the Russian question is still open and has
lots of room for conflict in ways we dont even know about.
Vngelis
The attempt was made as Dusty shows in his article.
I do not dispute that they tried to square the circle of capitalist
integration,
ie. selling off a majority of shares of the export-rich companies for
raw materials oil/gas in Russia. They tried this and it led to a
financial collapse. They were then forced to pull back from the abyss.
Take control of the levers of the state and re-nationalise the
companies without compensation. What the Oligarchs looted they looted.
No two ways about that. But the bureaucrats always siphoned money.
This time round they wanted to siphon off the money, live in Russia
and continue to siphon off the money. It was never to be.
Russia is still not part of the WTO. Despite the fact that according
to yourself it has been capitalist circa 1921, for David in 1992...
for Einde 1930's...
Funny WTO that it doesn't want Russia. What is it frightened of?
Russian bread exports?
srd
> Russia is still not part of the WTO. Despite the fact that according
> to yourself it has been capitalist circa 1921, for David in 1992...
> for Einde 1930's...
> Funny WTO that it doesn't want Russia. What is it frightened of?
> Russian bread exports?
Einde says 1928. What does the WTO fear in Russia? The continued spread of
the bourgeois democratic revolution in the Third World, mainly. Isn't that
what the West ALWAYS feared from the Soviet Union, ever since the West
stopped having reason to fear the spread of socialist revolution after
1921.
srd
dusty
> On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 08:49:06 -0800, dusty <track...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
> > I don't get the bit about my position "ending up the same as Walters".
> The basic question for vngelis is whether Russia has integrated with
> international capitalism.
That is not how he poses the question as I read him.
> On my view, actually, denying such integration
> is also critical, since I see the present Russian proto-bourgeoisie as not
> imperialist.
So to you its sort of like a highly industrialised Iraq but with the
whole state run by a capitalist class?
> If the Oligarchs were products of their alleged
> international ties, then their emergence presaged capitalist integration.
But you would agree with Vngelis that that is as far as it went - just
up to the point of "presaging"?
> Also this seems a distorted view of the Russian Jewry. The Oligarchs were
> initially Stalinist Nomenklutura (however it's spelled), not Zionist sympathizers.
> srd
The problem is to explain the disproportion in the Jewish composition
of the oligarchs. I have put forward the following possibilities:
1) An accident
2) Vngelis' theory that it was set up when they gained their property
under Yeltsin.
3) Western connections. I put this foreward as a possible hypothesis
because the other "two" possibilities are to my mind not likely to be
true.They were ready to go when the opportunity presented itself. They
had heaps of money to intervene in the media on Yeltsin's side and
therefore to make him beholden to them. The western connections do not
have to be zionist. There are plenty within the Jewish bourgeoisie who
would not take zionism nearly as seriously as making a killing say by
the alienation of Rusias vast raw materials. Israel is a convenient
centre which has strong links with Russia (migration etc).
Maybe you would explain the disproportion would be that the (proto)
oligarchs were dominant in the nomenclatura, or maybe in the
blackmarket industries even prior to Gorbachev. Or maybe that Jews
historical role internal to Russia was critical?
The "emergence (of the Oligarchs) presaged capitalist integration". Or
maybe you think there is nothing to explain.
The events in Russia were unexpected. The jewish ethnicity of most of
the oligarchs
is one such unexpectation.Whichever of the above views is correct is
important as it was/is widely noticed in Russia and around the world.
Bert Byfield
> Russian bread exports?
Russian mafia?
Vngelis
> srd wrote:
A 4th option?
The 'jews' were disproportionately represented in the CP of the ex-
USSR?
To what extent are they jews?
Isn't playing the 'jewish' card a way to get the mass media in the
west to look on you lightly despite the fact that a mafiosi is a
mafiosi is a mafiosi irrespective where they come from.
But it plays well in the western intelligentsia who have to accept
that capitalism is everywhere and it is winning everywhere otherwise
they have no raison d'etre.
srd
>> The basic question for vngelis is whether Russia has integrated with
>> international capitalism.
>
> That is not how he poses the question as I read him.
What do you say, vngelis. Is that a fair statement of the most essential
point?
>
>> On my view, actually, denying such integration
>> is also critical, since I see the present Russian proto-bourgeoisie as
>> not
>> imperialist.
>
> So to you its sort of like a highly industrialised Iraq but with the
> whole state run by a capitalist class?
I have addressed this, and I'll be glad to repeat my position, but I
wonder if you could help focus your objection by answering this question,
which I believe has the same answer for Russia: How does Cuba
fundamentally differ from Iraq? Is it just an Iraq with the whole state
run by a capitalist class? I'd also be interested in how vngelis describes
Cuba, which is even more anathema to the West than Russia. How is it that
on your line, vngelis, what is totally absurd for Russia becomes true for
Cuba?
>
>> If the Oligarchs were products of their alleged
>> international ties, then their emergence presaged capitalist
>> integration.
>
> But you would agree with Vngelis that that is as far as it went - just
> up to the point of "presaging"?
Actually, this is one of vngelis's "conspiracy theories" that I'm inclined
to believe.
Yes, it seems strange enough to be a plot, as vngelis alleges. Plots
involving Jews are an old Russian story.
srd
nada
It is funny that mafioso is now brought up. Not the "mafioso
capitalism" that best describes Russia to day or during and after
Yeltsin but actual organized crime...of which both New York and Tel
Aviv has received a huge increase in. THIS is a very large number of
Jews in it. Israel, before 1980, had only a small number of organized
crime problems, most stemming from Russian immigrants. Then it
exploded, overwhelming police services on this question. Same in
Brooklyn NY. It was like a repeat of the 1900s Black Hand organization
among Italian immigrants. At no point was ever either community
'dominated' by the mob, but the mob was part of these communities. In
Russia, today, the mob festers as rim of social outcasts, making
forays into the official sanctums of gov't.
In the US, the "Russian Mob", which as displaced much of Colombian and
Italian mob is almost universally of "jewish origin", Tel Aviv being
the subsidized stepping stone out of Russia and into the US. It is a
small "niche" inside the Russian immigrant community, barely
noticeable by the outsider.
The Russian Rich only bounce off these characters in the form of
payoffs, protection and graft. Rich Russians get their most protection
from the State itself, which defines their right to be rich by
providing protection and infrastructure for them...an interesting
topic unto itself.
Cuba has the most advanced socialist economy in the world. To say that
it was like Iraq under Hussein is foolish. In Iraq, private property
and even productive property existed, even if if the national
bourgeoisie was stymied from unhindered development by the Bonapartist
"Nasserite" like regime. Currency flowed freely, market were
unhindered, much of export/import was in private hands with heavy
taxes/pay offs to the state the norm.
Cuba has a socialized collectivized economy where production is
totally for use value (and State owned exports/imports) where the
people get their basic needs taken care of by the state as guaranteed
in the Cuban Constitution. Capital does not rule in Cuba.
David
dusty
I think that this is the truth in western countries too. Most "Jews"
are not much more so today than you or I, much the same with most
"Catholics" or "protestant Christians" of whatever sect. But all of
these groups use their "religion" for economic advancement.
Of course amongst all of these religious groups there is a priesthood
and a strident minority of believers to maintain the shibboleths, but
the whole show would fall apart if it were not for the fact that the
elect is a minority in society and they can "help" one another so that
collectively they are better off than the social average. This
phenomenon goes all the way down to the working class because getting
jobs is associated with "religion" - and in a society where there is a
serious shortage of decent jobs (and this before the coming fall),
this makes a considerable difference. And the more intense and
effective the action of one sect, the more pressure there is on others
to follow. This is, to a large degree, the material basis of
tribalism. But you generally don't find the clearing-houses for this
in the phone book.
Max Weber wrote about this kind of phenomenon to explain the
proliferation of protestant sects in the US of A in the nineteenth
century (Religion and the Rise of Protestantism from memory).
You have a similar phenomenon with immigrant groups grouped around
clubs and nationalist ideology. There is a strong temptation for
fellow nationals to join in as this is where the jobs are. In Italy I
am told the Mafias survive with support from the people because that
is where you get the jobs (particularly in the moribund chronically
unemployed South.
Of course there is another element that enters the picture when the
Soviet Union collapsed - the pretty well socially integrated Jewish
"ethnicity" tends to become less so as in such breakdowns "all the old
shit returns" (Marx). And not a few would be willing to "discover"
such ethnicity for their advantage. What I said about the role of
Israel as a clearing-house and haven between Russia and the west is
shown inter alia in this piece:
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Alison Weir is the Executive Director of If Americans Knew. She speaks
all around the country on media coverage of Israel and Palestine.
Alison Weir
CounterPunch
Friday, February 17, 2005
As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with
Israel, there's a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-
Israel connection even when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives
attended the "National Prayer Breakfast" held in Washington DC. The
day before that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor
at an hour-long meeting of the International Relations Committee on
Capitol Hill, invited by ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by
European police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill
and at events attended by the US president.
Yet, there was not a single AP story in the US on any of this. 1 Not a
single national network television or radio news program even
mentioned these facts. In fact, Google and LexisNexis searches four
days after these events took place turned up only three newspaper
articles on them anywhere in the entire country. 2
Who are these fugitives from the law, wanted by Interpol, who are
meeting at the highest levels of the US government? And why didn't we
learn of them?
Therein lies the story. These two men, it turns out, are just the tips
of a colossal iceberg. And this iceberg doesn't just have 90 percent
of its mass hidden under water; this iceberg is almost entirely
submerged.
They are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, Israeli-Russian partners
in the giant Russian oil company Yukos. They, along with a number of
their cronies, are wanted by Interpol for allegedly bilking Russian
citizens out of billions of dollars. To elude Russian prosecution,
these men have taken up residence in Israel. 3
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains: "In recent years Russian
authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major
stockholders, many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused
several of the managers to flee to Israel, and resulted in
Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin attack on Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-
shaking power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never
reports this connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP
story on this power struggle, "Report: Russia again charges
Berezovsky," 4 Moscow AP Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention
anywhere that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen, or of his many
connections to Israel.
Such omissions by AP and large swaths of the American media leave
Americans seriously disadvantaged in deciphering what is going on in
Russia, and its profound significance for the world.
In order to make sense of this Russian power struggle, and to
understand its importance to the rest of us, it is necessary to
understand the usually omitted Israeli subtext. When this is
understood, the friendship of such pro-Israel Congressional leaders as
Rep. Lantos to fugitive Russian oil tycoons begins to make sense.
To explore this background it is often useful to turn to the Israeli
press. In July a major Israeli publication, the Jerusalem Post,
carried an article headlined: "Boris Berezovsky: Putin's Russia
dangerous for Israel." Before describing what this contained, let us
first go into a little of the background.
The Oligarchs
Boris Berezovsky is one of seven "oligarchs," as they are known both
inside and outside Russia: massively rich, powerful manipulators who
through violence, theft and corruption acquired a mammoth percentage
(reports range from 70 to 85 percent) of Russia's resources, from its
oil to the auto industry to mass media outlets.
At the same time, the group steadily gained control over much of the
country's political apparatus. using extraordinary financial resources
and insider dealing, the oligarchs handpicked prime ministers and
governmental leaders and barely even bothered to do this behind the
scenes.
In 1997 Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the group and
Russia's sometimes richest man (several of the oligarchs trade the top
spot back and forth) told an interviewer before he was arrested and
imprisoned by Putin last year:
"If we rank all the fields of man's activity by profitability,
politics will be the most lucrative business. When we see a critical
situation in the government, we draw lots in order to pick out a
person from our milieu for work in power." 5
Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out, have significant ties to
Israel. In fact, Berezovsky himself has Israeli citizenship a fact
that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in Russia in 1996 when
it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. 6
DO BEREZOVSKY'S DUAL LOYALTIES REALLY MATTER? YES. IN THE REALM OF
GLOBAL DOMINANCE, ISRAEL'S INTERESTS AND RUSSIA'S ARE CONSIDERABLY
DIVERGENT. IT IS IN ISRAEL'S INTERESTS TO BRING TO POWER A REGIME IN
RUSSIA FRIENDLY TO ISRAEL, RATHER THAN THE CURRENT ONE UNDER PUTIN,
WHICH ISRAELI LEADERS FEEL IS SUPPORTIVE OF ITS ENEMIES. NOT LONG AGO,
FOR EXAMPLE, PUTIN MET WITH SYRIAN LEADERS AN ACTION HIGHLY DISTURBING
TO ISRAEL.
Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian
government is ideal, from Israel's point of view. In Berezovsky they
had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is
revealing. It describes Berezovsky as "the Godfather of the Oligarchs'
and Kingmaker of Russia's Politics'" and reports Berezovsky's
statement that "Putin's Russia is dangerous for Israel." Berezovsky
goes on to assert that Putin "supports terror" in the Middle East
through Russia's previous relations with Iraq and current relations
with Iran. 7
While Israelis may have been delighted at Berezovsky's position in
Russia, It is not surprising that Russian citizens were somewhat less
so. Finding that a powerful leader and member of the Russian Security
Council was an Israeli citizen was disconcerting, at best.
As a result of the media uproar over Berezovsky's Israeli citizenship
and other events, the Oligarchs' connections to Israel are widely
known in Russia and elsewhere. In Israel they are covered frequently,
often with adulation, including a recent hit Israeli TV series called
"The Oligarchs."
"Some of its episodes," according to Israeli writer Uri Avnery, "are
simply unbelievable or would have been, if they had not come straight
from the horses' mouths: the heroes of the story, who gleefully boast
about their despicable exploits. The series was produced by Israeli
immigrants from Russia."
Avnery writes that the oligarchs used "cheating, bribery and murder,"
as they "exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the
treasures of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of
billions of dollars. In order to safeguard the perpetuation of their
business, they took control of the state. Six out of the seven are
Jews." 8
According to a Washington Post story by David Hoffman, the group
bought and controlled Russian governmental officials at the highest
levels. After financing Yeltsin's election in 1996, Hoffman writes:
"The tycoons met and decided to insert one of their own into
government. They debated who and chose [Vladimir] Potanin, who became
deputy prime minister. One reason they chose Potanin was that he is
not Jewish, and most of the rest of them are, and feared a backlash
against the Jewish bankers." 9
In Russia, the oligarchs are deeply loathed, considered villains who
worked to bleed the country dry; during their reign many Russian
citizens saw their life savings disappear overnight. A new term was
coined for their dominance, "semibankirshchina" (the rule of the seven
bankers), and they were widely known to have wielded small, murderous
armies. There are rumors that Berezovsky, subject of the respectful AP
article, was even responsible for the gunning down of an American
journalist, Forbes Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov.
While no one has been charged with the murder of Klebnikov, who had
written a book on Berezovsky, many suspect a Berezovsky connection. As
a friend of Klebnikov wrote: "Experienced expatriates in Russia shared
an essential rule: Don't cross these brutal billionaires, ever, or
you're likely to go home in a box." 10
The Chechnya Connection
There is evidence that Berezovsky's responsibility for death and
tragedy may be vastly greater.
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya," Avnery
reports, "in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole
country devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a
prospective pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to
the peace agreement that gave the country some kind of independence.
The oligarchs dismissed and destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular
general who engineered the agreement, and the war has been going on
since then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a reaction: Vladimir Putin,
the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control
of the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in
prison, caused the others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir
Gusinsky is in Israel, another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be
hiding here.)"
Yet, apart from the Washington Post, American media report on almost
none of this. Instead, US coverage largely portrays Berezovsky and his
crowd as American-style entrepreneurs who are being hounded by a
Russian government whose actions are, to repeat the media's commonly
used phrase, "politically motivated."
US news stories, even when they occasionally do hint at questionable
practices, tend to use such phrases as "brash young capitalists" to
describe the oligarchs. 11 For example, a long series co-produced by
FRONTLINE and the New York Times referred to these men as "shrewd
businessmen," and asked "what it's like to be young, Russian and newly
affluent?" 12 Massive violence, dual loyalties, and control of
resources are rarely, if ever, part of the picture.
When AP Moscow bureau chief Ingram was asked for this article about
Berezovsky's Israeli citizenship, she claimed to know nothing about
it, a curious contention for someone who has been an AP news editor in
Moscow since 1999. When Ingram was queried further, she hung up the
phone.
An examination of Ingram's reporting on the Berezovsky story cited
above raises serious questions. Though she is located in Moscow,
Ingram interviewed only two people for her news story: Berezovsky, who
is in London, and Berezovsky associate Alex Goldfarb, in New York. One
wonders why she interviewed none of the Russians residing around her.
Similarly, one wonders why not a single AP story has identified
Berezovsky's considerable connection to Israel.
Further, nowhere does Ingram's article convey the ruthlessness of the
oligarchs' actions, or the significance of their holdings, including
control of its media. Unnoted in Ingram's report is the fact that her
subject and fellow oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky have been two of
Russia's most powerful media tycoons.
Before Putin's crackdown, according to the Washington Post, oligarchs
had succeeded in seizing "the reins of Russia's print and broadcast
media, vital to the evolution of the country's fledgling democracy and
growth of its nascent civil society." Berezovsky crony Gusinsky, who
is close friends with Rupert Murdoch and was about the launch a
satellite network, fled to Israel when it appeared he would be
arrested." 13
Somehow, AP's bureau chief seems to have missed all this.
Does this matter to Americans?
AP is the major news source for the thousands of news outlets around
the country who cannot afford to have their own foreign
correspondents. When AP chooses not to cover something, its omission
is felt throughout the nation. When national news networks and others
leave out the same facts, the cover-up is almost total.
Russia, despite its current turmoil, contains enormous power. Its
natural resources are gargantuan: it possesses the world's largest
natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves, and the eighth
largest oil reserves. It is the world's largest exporter of natural
gas, the second largest oil exporter, and the third largest energy
consumer.14 Russia's significance on the world stage now, as in the
past, is immense.
Similarly, the United States is currently the most powerful nation on
earth. It is therefore essential that its citizens be accurately
informed on issues of significance. Israeli citizens, Russian
citizens, and citizens of nations throughout the world know the
information detailed above. It is critical that American citizens be
no less well informed.
For years, the neocons' push for war against Iraq was largely
uncovered by the US media. For even longer, the neocons' close
connections to Israel have gone largely unmentioned in mainstream
American news reports. As a result, very few Americans know to what
degree many of those responsible for the tragic US invasion and
occupation of Iraq have been motivated by Israeli concerns.
The omission in coverage of Iraq has been profoundly disastrous, both
for the Middle East and for Americans. In fact, it is quite likely
that only history will show the true extent of this disaster. It is
deeply troubling to see the same kind of omission occurring on Russia.
End Notes
Interestingly, an AP report sent out only on its Worldstream wire
(i.e. to Europe; Britain; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India;
Asia; England, but not to US papers) contained information on this at
the end of the report.
Washington Post: "Prayer Breakfast Includes Russian
Fugitives" (overall, the Post has been an exception to the general
blackout on this subject); the Seattle Times, which ran the Post
story, and the New York Times, in a short story on page 12 on Sunday,
three days after the event. Interestingly, the NY Times story was
filed from Moscow (not Washington) and quotes a "spokesman" for the
two men, Charles Krause, who has worked as a correspondent in Israel
for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In the Times story Russian attempts
to prosecute these men are described as "politically motivated."
This is a wise move, since Israel is known for never extraditing
Jewish citizens, no matter what their crime. Even requests for such
cooperation by the US, which gives Israel over $10 million per day, go
unheeded by the Israeli government. Private citizens wanted for
committing murder in the US, for example, are not returned for trial.
Associated Press, Sept. 22, 2004
"Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia," By David Hoffman, Washington Post
Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01
"Media and Politics in Transition: Three Models," Post-Soviet Media
Law & Policy Newsletter, Issue 35, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law,
Feb. 27, 1997
"Boris Berezovsky: Putin's Russia dangerous for Israel.', Bret
Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2005
"The Oligarchs", Uri Avnery, CounterPunch, Aug. 3, 2004
"Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia," By David Hoffman, Washington Post
Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01,
"Same Old Ruthless Russia," by Michael R. Caputo, Washingtonpost.com
Washington Post, Aug 28, 1998
October 2003, Sabrina Tavernise,
"Powerful Few Rule Russian Mass Media," David Hoffman, Washington
Post, March 31, 1997;
nada
accurate. It's a good summation of the issues.
The debate "on the left", which you will find here in the US and in
Europe, more than where you live, is a debate among 'intellectuals'
over the *role* Jews play in US politics.
In my view, there is an purposeful identification with power Zionist
lobbies (which includes the AIPAC and ADL) with "American Jews". This
actually is the secondary issue. The real issue is over what influence
these lobbies play in deciding US foreign policy. If you read Jeff
Blanforts stuff on Counterpunch, along with James Petras views, you
will see this rather nonsensical view that US foreign policy is driven
by Israel. Most don't buy this. It's as if US imperialism is decided
by a small cabal of Zioniist symps and doesn't stand on it's own, in
fact, dominant over Israel's politics. This is one of the minor issues
infecting the Palestine solidarity movement here.
David
xnic...@hotmail.com
> In the US, the "Russian Mob", which as displaced much of Colombian and
> Italian mob is almost universally of "jewish origin", Tel Aviv being
> the subsidized stepping stone out of Russia and into the US. It is a
> small "niche" inside the Russian immigrant community, barely
> noticeable by the outsider.
There's seems to be a lot of impressionism in this thread, not
supported by real evidence, which is allowing Crusty to continue to
insert his semi-fascist insinuations.
Vangelis II - the brainier guy from Greece- not the drunken racist
homophobic moron usually given the job - is if anything, almost
becoming pc.
Diamond feedsback any conspircacy theory comment on cue.
The fringe wanabee capitalists who form the "mob" are attracted to the
major financial centres because that's where the exchanges necessary
to realise surplus value take place.
Pulling a fast one in New York or London is always going to be more
lucrative than doing it in an underdeveloped country. Then it can be
invested in more 'legitimate' forms of wealth.
Rather like the transition between Godfather 1 & Godfather 2.
In London for instance, a lot of money laundering takes place via the
drugs trade. Heroin is mostly controlled by Turkish gangs operating
in Haringey.
The 'mobsters' are basically intermediaries who exploit the local
growers and the users over here.
There's also a lot of money going through the buy to let property
market, the restaurant trade and through various kinds of banking
fraud and indentity theft.
This is a thoroughly 'multi-national' racket - plenty of Nigerians are
involved in it, for example.
The Banks are of course recipients of vast amounts of overseas capita
- and capital earned from common or garden extraction of a wage
labour, which they jump over each other to lend out as loans or
plastic, driving the whole merry go round.
Roman Abramovich, who is Putin's favourite 'Jew' (probably had no sort
of Jewish identity until Lubavich tapped him up), is in a different
league.
He's put over £400 million into Chelsea Football Club, basically money
that was made in the privatisation of oil.
He couldn't operate without high level support in both the Russian and
Western governments. But it's noteworthy that his political power is
confined to a tiny autonomous region in the Russian Far East.
This contrasts say, with someone like Chubais, who was deeply involved
in the loans for shares privatisation and also a co-leader of a
political party.
The Russian bureaucracy certainly don't want Zhids having political
power.
But then there's Laxmi Mittal - whose richer than Abramovich and the
Duke of Westminster and ......
srd
> Cuba has the most advanced socialist economy in the world. To say that
> it was like Iraq under Hussein is foolish.
I didn't say that. It was a question directed to a point of contrast. Of
course I would also deny the predicate question - that Russia is like
Iraq. These questions simply don't arise within your framework. You go
astray to interpret comments from your suppositions rather than the
questioner's.
srd
srd
> The Russian bureaucracy certainly don't want Zhids having political
> power.
A bureaucracy? Really? I would have thought you would leap to the
opportunity to pronounce Russia capitalist and proclaim any differences
with the SWP (GB)even more irrelevant than previously.
srd
dusty
> On 6 Mar, 22:26, "nada" <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In the US, the "Russian Mob", which as displaced much of Colombian and
> > Italian mob is almost universally of "jewish origin", Tel Aviv being
> > the subsidized stepping stone out of Russia and into the US. It is a
> > small "niche" inside the Russian immigrant community, barely
> > noticeable by the outsider.
>
> There's seems to be a lot of impressionism in this thread, not
> supported by real evidence, which is allowing Crusty to continue to
> insert his semi-fascist insinuations.
I seems to me XionistNickers (yeah, you the Jewish cultural
nationalist and nominal anti-Zionist) that when anyone starts to
penetrate deeper than the surface on the question of Jews, Israel and
Zionism, you throw about the rotten old defamation of "fascism" - and
now for Walters, who contributes a lot on these subjects: "self-hating
Jew" maybe.
I happen to support the dissolution of the theocratic state of
"Israel" and the establishment of a democratic secular a Palestine as
the only real solution to the eternal problems in that part of the
middle east. In such a state, the Jewish people would have a critical
role of lending their powerful constructive attributes to raising the
level of peoples in the region. In the meantime it will be necessary
to smash the politics of dishonest creatures like you. And part of
that process is to cut our way to the truths of a complex situation.
> Vangelis II - the brainier guy from Greece- not the drunken racist
> homophobic moron usually given the job - is if anything, almost
> becoming pc.
> Diamond feedsback any conspircacy theory comment on cue.
Vangelis "I and II" and "Diamond" can never be accused of not entering
into honest, unprejudiced discussion. On the other hand, this comment
by you "accidentally" exposes your role here: more about "a mission"
than seeking truth. And whilst I'm at it, you have an irritating
"superior" imperious Pommy style (you know, those bastards who keep
promising the revolution that never happens), combined with the nasty
self-righteousness of a Xionist.
See what I mean?
dave.w...@comcast.net
Hey, I think it's great to compare Russia to Iraq, or Cuba to both.
But my suppositon is that those that do so try to compare them for
their similiarty, not to draw out any differences between them. But
it's a worth while discussion, no doubt.
David
dave.w...@comcast.net
> I seems to me XionistNickers (yeah, you the Jewish cultural
> nationalist and nominal anti-Zionist) that when anyone starts to
> penetrate deeper than the surface on the question of Jews, Israel and
> Zionism, you throw about the rotten old defamation of "fascism" - and
> now for Walters, who contributes a lot on these subjects: "self-hating
> Jew" maybe.
>
> I happen to support the dissolution of the theocratic state of
> "Israel" and the establishment of a democratic secular a Palestine as
> the only real solution to the eternal problems in that part of the
> middle east. In such a state, the Jewish people would have a critical
> role of lending their powerful constructive attributes to raising the
> level of peoples in the region. In the meantime it will be necessary
> to smash the politics of dishonest creatures like you. And part of
> that process is to cut our way to the truths of a complex situation.
Yes, I have been accused of being a self-hating Jew all my poliical
life...this is what happens when one is brought up in a Zionist
household in a city that is full of Zionist activists, like NY. But we
persavere...
Zionism has been one of the biggest, most effective frauds perpatrated
by imperialism in history. Ideologically Zionism has been on the
defensive for some time, even though few cracks appear in the Zionist
entity, even after being driven out of Lebanon recently.
The key for Zionists is to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of
being anti-semtic. Of course, a broken clock is always correct twice-a-
day, so at times many/some/few of Zionisms critics are in fact anti-
Jewish bigots.
Part of this ploy is to use the real idiots who play into the Zionists
hands, like the President of Iraq, who wines and dines neo-Nazis and
KKKers as if they are experts on Holocuast. This is why I stated, and
will repeat, this conference did more for the cause of Zionism than
anything else recently. If I were part of the Zionist movement I would
go out my way to make sure this conference was a success.
So here the issue of anti-Semitism is real: when you have real anti-
Semite/Fascists like David Duke and the Euro-scum who inhabit such a
concerence as honored guests. Or, when you start the usual "jew-
counting" for editors of newspapers, or raise the import of the
"ethnicity" of Oligarchic Jews in Russia or deny the historical fact
of the holocaust which was *aimed at* European Jewry exclusively.
So, I'm all for being specific. If someone points out that Judah
Benjamin was Jefferson Davis' Sect'y of State in the Confederacy, it's
of interesting historical important. When one suggests that Jews
therefore favored slavery, then I will suggest the person raising this
is an anti-semite who wishes to tar a whole people with the same brush
as if it were wieled in unanimity.
David
dusty
I really must get around to answering srd's very reasonable question
revolving around the question of the "bourgeois nationalist regime" in
Russia today and...well...yesterday.
But I welcome your sense in this debate.
1. My instinct is to strongly support Iran (?) in the present
circumstances, warts and all, though Vngelis' final remarks on this
question about the position coming from there if the ideal situation
of a "marxist leadership" prevailed and a bit of what you say: "a
folly" helping the imperialist cause of "invasion" are true too.
2. I agree with you about those "historical exceptions" regarding
"some Jews and Slavery". As someone of Jewish background I think you
should welcome them. It all serves the cause of normalising attitudes
to Jews. Maybe like the smarter women (feminists) who when confronted
by accusations about the tyrannies of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meier, Mrs.
Bandaranaike, Margaret Thatcher responded not hysterically and
defensively, but simply replied that we can be bastards too. By the
way, people often raise such issues as a way, not just of taking down
strident, nasty feminists from their high horses but also to "reduce"
women to their own level - which at the time is a gain for women. And
I honestly don't see how anyone from the basis of facts regarding
Judah Benjamin's position in the Confederacy would present (the) Jews
as "lovers of slavery". There must be a way to these people. There is
a naive honesty in that. In any case, slavery then should be looked at
from the perspective of the times. And Jews are "notorious" for
serving as advisors for all and sundry empires and powerful groups.
This was a historical product, not to be judged "morally". There is
the phenomenon of the "court Jew" partly implied by Vngelis' view of
the explanation for the "Jewish" bias in the "ethnic" composition of
the Oligarchs.
3. Yes, one of the "cracks" you refer to expresses itself currently in
the form of letters to newspapers from a widish range of people of
Jewish background seeking wider discussions in the whole community on
middle eastern problems free from abusive remarks.
4. In which area I would say that, sure, Vngelis is at present
isolated, and this could not but affect his "style". As he says on the
KDE website
www.evangelos12btinternet.co.uk with no small amount of
understatement: marxist politics isn't everyones "cup of tea"". On
which subject, I wish to hell he would get someone to polish up the
interface - its a little rough (as in "as guts"), though to me the
content is interesting, original and deeply insightful, but, well we
might disagree on that...). I say that to you because I haven't got
the guts to say it to him...
But, though for you as with myself, on questions of "the other", well
we are not as pure as the driven snow...nor with him, or maybe even
srd. But we struggle. I think Vngelis fights for the truth and a
correct understanding. Sometimes he overstates. From the broad
perspective he has it is inevitable that he has to continually touch
on questions of ethnicity. And then you will have the modern day
"marxist" who has a different view on "the big issues" screaming that
vngelis' views on the "big" issue are just a cover for his..."racism".
Well it tells me nothing about Vngelis, but a lot about the decay of
either society or the left. The left apparently has been "educated"
since the 1930s,40s 50s and up to the mid 60s because that wasn't the
method then. And "racism" is worse today than in the 1930's?
5. I will address that position you elaborate on the role of
imperialism in proping up zionism (versus "zionists") later. In a
sense, as I see it, it's not a question at all. Basically I don't
think you can discount the historic and continuing role of the Jewish
bourgeoisie in constructing and proping up the Zionist state, but it
persists by courtesy of imperialism as a whole of which the later is
not an unimportant part.
6. You serve people who use and look at this site (well, granted there
are not as many as you would like, but with all its warts it is the
most open, intelligent and interesting marxist site around, not just a
chat between friends) when you give us your, at times, pretty close-to-
the-mark understandings on issues pertaining to the Jewish community.
dave.w...@comcast.net
>
> But I welcome your sense in this debate.
Thank you.
> 1. My instinct is to strongly support Iran (?) in the present
> circumstances, warts and all, though Vngelis' final remarks on this
> question about the position coming from there if the ideal situation
> of a "marxist leadership" prevailed and a bit of what you say: "a
> folly" helping the imperialist cause of "invasion" are true too.
Strongly defending Iran should be the case not just in case of
invasion, but their right to develop nuclear energy as well. They want
a 'close fuel' system, which is the only guarantee of a self-
sufficient fuel cycle, considering that the US wants to establish a
world-wide consortium (and US run) fuel distribution
network.Fortunatly, so far, a case in their favor is Putin, who has
gone ahead and agreed to sell the initial fuel assembly for their
Russian built reactor (and now won't sell, but this has to do with
Iran's inability to pay, another interesting question).
> 2. I agree with you about those "historical exceptions" regarding
> "some Jews and Slavery". <snip>
OK, when it arises, I can write more on it. I guess what I was
suggesting that the "jewish question" is a question Marxists always
dealth with, as you state, since Marx. How the "Jewish Question" is
asked, and for what reason, is of course my only issue. I can deal
with it as it arises.
> 3. Yes, one of the "cracks" you refer to expresses itself currently in
> the form of letters to newspapers from a widish range of people of
> Jewish background seeking wider discussions in the whole community on
> middle eastern problems free from abusive remarks.
Yes, his is univesally the case. I posted that article btw, which
someone from the IBT sent me as it happens, because I thought it
interesting that as a group, most Amercian Jews are opposed to the
imperialist war, but most Jewish organizations are for it. While
certainly the overwhelming majority of US Jews are pro-Zionists to
varying degrees, it would be interesting to see some manifestion of US
Jewish opposition to at least Israeli policy. So far it's been only
letters to the editor in the papers of record. Still, even these get
attacked by organized Zionists as "self-hating" Jews. I actually enjoy
this because it shows the desperation of the Zionist movement on this.
> 4. <snip> And then you will have the modern day
> "marxist" who has a different view on "the big issues" screaming that
> vngelis' views on the "big" issue are just a cover for his..."racism".
> Well it tells me nothing about Vngelis, but a lot about the decay of
> either society or the left. The left apparently has been "educated"
> since the 1930s,40s 50s and up to the mid 60s because that wasn't the
> method then. And "racism" is worse today than in the 1930's?
No, just different. I mean many rights were won, Jim Crow
(segragation) was made illegal, fair housing rights won in the 1960s
early 1970 and affirmative action evened out the hiring pool. Now it's
the clear economic racism that exists as many rights are rolled back.
Even the roll back of unions, with major industries closing such as
auto and steel, has pushed back the gains of the working class Black
community so that economics is now pushes Black to the bottom of the
heap (but above immigrants). Racism is evident everywhere still, which
can be seen by the rise of private schools, all-white shop floors (in
some cases) etc.
> 5. I will address that position you elaborate on the role of
> imperialism in proping up zionism (versus "zionists") later. In a
> sense, as I see it, it's not a question at all. Basically I don't
> think you can discount the historic and continuing role of the Jewish
> bourgeoisie in constructing and proping up the Zionist state, but it
> persists by courtesy of imperialism as a whole of which the later is
> not an unimportant part.
It's an interesting question. There are Jewish capitalists but no
Jewish 'boureoisie" in the sense that there is no distinct Jewish
ruling class. The same, BTW, with Blacks. Lots of rich black
capitalists, but Jews and Blacks are by and large excluded form the
*class* that rules. Some exceptions, of course, but still generally
true. But I probably overstated before about Zionism. It's *origin*
quickly made it a social-democratic settler organization. But it did
receive almost universal support among rich Jews (and most Jews for
that matter) once it was established. There was, prior to the
Holocaust, little support by any class of the Zionists. It was seen as
something a little kooky, utopian even. But leading American
politicians, like Roosevelt and Truman, for distinct religeious and
historical reasons, were actually very pro-Zionist...and anti-
Semitic...never inviting Jews to the White House for dinner, always
keepinga good WASP distance from the semetic hordes in New York. There
was actually the "Ameican Comittee for Jews to Palestine" set up by
New Enland Puritan types that was avidly pro-Zionist but didn't have a
Jew among them. Quite a hidden history there.
But Zionism got it's grip in US politics in 1947 using the reality of
the Holocuast to in part guilt bait Amercian politicians (very few
Jews among them then) and the truth that the new Israel would become
an out post for US imperialism, socialist pretensions internally
notwithstanding. Very ugly little history there. Shoenemans's "Hidden
History of Zionism" is a good expose of this.
> 6. You serve people who use and look at this site (well, granted there
> are not as many as you would like, but with all its warts it is the
> most open, intelligent and interesting marxist site around, not just a
> chat between friends) when you give us your, at times, pretty close-to-
> the-mark understandings on issues pertaining to the Jewish community.-
I'll do my best...
David
xnic...@hotmail.com
Unfortunately, other than David and sometimes Roger, there appear to
be very few people who could be described as having anything to do
with Trotsky's politics in it.
I'm sure they have better things to do elsewhere. It can be very time-
wasting to sift through the noise to find the signal.
The little bloc of Diamond, Vangelis & Crusty totally misrepresent
Trotskyist politics.
They open the door to rightism, stalinism and racism. Rather like
sections of the German KPD in the 20's who wanted to debate with the
S.A.
Just as this policy disarmed sections of the KPD in the fight against
fascism, so they are seeking to disarm workers today.
Crusty has only ever posted material from the rump Stalinist CPA & the
Vangelis sect.
If he is actually an Australian, then he lives in a 'colonial settler
state', which has decimated its native population.
Yet, rather than organising against cheap casualised labour, he seeks
to influence immigration policy of the capitalist state.
A pretty strange contradiction for someone on an 'anti-zionist'
mission.
The term "zionist" has simply become a meaningless term of abuse in
the hands of such people.
It has nothing to do with actual political affiliation.
It's either used as a racial slur or a political defence against
anyone who points out that the "socialism of fools" still exists.
Actually the level of debate has improved greatly since I dropped in
again.
Let's see how long that lasts.
Red + Brown = A deeper shade of Brown
dusty
> This newsgroup is about <<*Trotsky*>> and <<*Trotskyist*>> politics.
>
> Unfortunately, other than David and sometimes Roger, there appear to
> be very few people who could be described as having anything to do
> with Trotsky's politics in it.
> I'm sure they have better things to do elsewhere. It can be very time-
> wasting to sift through the noise to find the signal.
>
> The little bloc of Diamond, Vangelis & Crusty totally misrepresent
> Trotskyist politics.
> They open the door to rightism, stalinism and racism. Rather like
> sections of the German KPD in the 20's who wanted to debate with the
> S.A.
> Just as this policy disarmed sections of the KPD in the fight against
> fascism, so they are seeking to disarm workers today.
>
> Crusty has only ever posted material from the rump Stalinist CPA & the
> Vangelis sect.
> If he is actually an Australian, then he lives in a 'colonial settler
> state', which has decimated its native population.
> Yet, rather than organising against cheap casualised labour, he seeks
> to influence immigration policy of the capitalist state.
> A pretty strange contradiction for someone on an 'anti-zionist'
> mission.
Well, we are part of a pretty large group: any new Mexican citizen of
mixed ethnicity into the US of A is presumably a colonial settler,
both by virtue of his new citizenship and his old; all those residents
of Latin America of mixed ethnicity are the same. Not only that, but
even modern Greece was created through considerable population
transfers (ethnic cleansings?). The same for modern Turkey (promise
not to talk about zee ...well...you know who). And the Germans tried
to do the same to the whole of Europe not so long ago (Lebensraum).
And, well, the English and "their" Empire - say no more... And in
India, the Moguls. Then of course we have the Han Chinese, still at it
today. Need I continue?
And to you this is part of a pathetic ploy to legitimate the disgrace
of the Zionist goings on in Palestine, another peoples' country stolen
from them. There is not a village without a Palestinian name; large
numbers of houses once owned by Palestinians now owned and occupied by
Jews, the terrorism of the foundation gangs (some arising directly
from European fascist groups), now continued by the Israeli state. And
provocations followed by wars of territorial seizure. And it still
goes on - successive invasions of Lebanon with the loss of thousands
of lives ("one Jew to 10 Arabs"). Not only has the land been taken
from the Palestinian people but hundreds of thousands are denied the
right of return.
By the way, my postings were not just of the "rump" CPA, but of the
early CPA, which in spite of the tragedy of its Stalinism embraced the
cream of the Australian working class who fought hard and effectively
in the interests of working people and had a proud history of
internationalism. Concerning the "rump" CPA, I post from them because
they still have (considerably reduced) roots in the working class and
are forced to seriously write about problems confronted by working
people.
I get a sense that there is not much value in going on as you have
"heard it all before". Anyway I'm thirsty.
dusty
> Strongly defending Iran should be the case not just in case of
> invasion, but their right to develop nuclear energy as well. They want
> a 'close fuel' system, which is the only guarantee of a self-
> sufficient fuel cycle, considering that the US wants to establish a
> world-wide consortium (and US run) fuel distribution
> network.Fortunatly, so far, a case in their favor is Putin, who has
> gone ahead and agreed to sell the initial fuel assembly for their
> Russian built reactor (and now won't sell, but this has to do with
> Iran's inability to pay, another interesting question).
Agreed - but you don't mention the question of their right to nuclear
weapons, given Israels' holdings, not to mention those of the USA.
> > 2. I agree with you about those "historical exceptions" regarding
> > "some Jews and Slavery". <snip>
>
> OK, when it arises, I can write more on it. I guess what I was
> suggesting that the "jewish question" is a question Marxists always
> dealth with, as you state, since Marx. How the "Jewish Question" is
> asked, and for what reason, is of course my only issue. I can deal
> with it as it arises.
> > 3. Yes, one of the "cracks" you refer to expresses itself currently in
> > the form of letters to newspapers from a widish range of people of
> > Jewish background seeking wider discussions in the whole community on
> > middle eastern problems free from abusive remarks.
> Yes, his is univesally the case. I posted that article btw, which
> someone from the IBT sent me as it happens, because I thought it
> interesting that as a group, most Amercian Jews are opposed to the
> imperialist war, but most Jewish organizations are for it. While
> certainly the overwhelming majority of US Jews are pro-Zionists to
> varying degrees, it would be interesting to see some manifestion of US
> Jewish opposition to at least Israeli policy. So far it's been only
> letters to the editor in the papers of record. Still, even these get
> attacked by organized Zionists as "self-hating" Jews. I actually enjoy
> this because it shows the desperation of the Zionist movement on this.
I would not exclude the possibilty of a peaceful solution in Palestine/
Israel, but I think it unlikely. The great majority of US and
Australian Jews are still zionists and only a small proportion of them
could even be called "left" zionists all of which imply the status quo
or some kind of peaceful settlement. The proportion of Jews who would
support a democratic secular state in palestine implying the smashing
of the zionist state as a necessary beginning is unfortunately tiny.
No answers to that one.
> > 4. <snip> And then you will have the modern day
> > "marxist" who has a different view on "the big issues" screaming that
> > vngelis' views on the "big" issue are just a cover for his..."racism".
> > Well it tells me nothing about Vngelis, but a lot about the decay of
> > either society or the left. The left apparently has been "educated"
> > since the 1930s,40s 50s and up to the mid 60s because that wasn't the
> > method then. And "racism" is worse today than in the 1930's?
> > 5. I will address that position you elaborate on the role of
> > imperialism in proping up zionism (versus "zionists") later. In a
> > sense, as I see it, it's not a question at all. Basically I don't
> > think you can discount the historic and continuing role of the Jewish
> > bourgeoisie in constructing and proping up the Zionist state, but it
> > persists by courtesy of imperialism as a whole of which the later is
> > not an unimportant part.
> It's an interesting question. There are Jewish capitalists but no
> Jewish 'boureoisie" in the sense that there is no distinct Jewish
> ruling class.
Abram Leon's book The Jewish Question : A Marxist Interpretation
(available on the Marxist Internet Archive) provides an excellent
analysis of social classes within Jewry, their history within Europe
and the role of the Jewish bourgeoisie (yes he considers that such a
social category exists) as a supporter of Zionism, motivated by the
desire to remove the Jewish petty bourgeoisie, the source of growing
anti-semitism under imperialism.
"Zionism was born in the light of the incendiary fires of the Russian
pogroms of 1882 and in the tumult of the Dreyfus Affair-two events
which expressed the sharpness that the Jewish problem began to assume
at the end of the nineteenth century.
The rapid capitalist development of Russian economy after the reform
of 1863 made the situation of the Jewish masses in the small towns
untenable. In the West, the middle classes, shattered by capitalist
concentration, began to turn against the Jewish element whose
competition aggravated their situation. In Russia, the association of
the "Lovers of Zion" was founded. Leo Pinsker wrote Auto-emancipation,
in which he called for a return to Palestine as the sole possible
solution of the Jewish question. In Paris, Baron Rothschild, who like
all the Jewish magnates viewed with very little favor the mass arrival
of Jewish immigrants in the Western countries, became interested in
Jewish colonization in Palestine. To help "their unfortunate brothers"
to return to the land of their "ancestors," that is to say, to go as
far away as possible, contained nothing displeasing to the Jewish
bourgeoisie of the West, who with reason feared the rise of anti-
Semitism. A short while after the publication of Leo Pinsker's book, a
Jewish journalist of Budapest, Theodor Herzl, saw anti-Semitic
demonstrations at Paris provoked by the Dreyfus Affair. Soon he wrote
The Jewish State, which to this day remains the bible of the Zionist
movement. From its inception, Zionism appeared as a reaction of the
Jewish petty bourgeoisie (which still forms the core of Judaism), hard
hit by the mounting anti-Semitic wave, kicked from one country to
another, and striving to attain the Promised Land where it might find
shelter from the tempests sweeping the modern world.
Zionism is thus a very young movement; it is the youngest of the
European national movements. That does not prevent it from pretending,
even more than all other nationalism, that it draws its substance from
a far distant past. Whereas Zionism is in fact the product of the last
phase of capitalism, of capitalism beginning to decay, it pretends to
draw its origin from a past more than two thousand years old. Whereas
Zionism is essentially a reaction against the situation created for
Judaism by the combination of the destruction of feudalism and the
decay of capitalism, it affirms that it constitutes a reaction against
the state of things existing since the fall of Jerusalem in the year
70 of the Christian era. Its recent birth is naturally the best reply
to these pretensions. As a matter of fact, how cam one believe that
the remedy for an evil existing for two thousand years was discovered
only at the end of the nineteenth century? But like all nationalisms-
and even more intensely-Zionism views the historic past in the light
of the present. In this way, too, it distorts the present-day picture.
Just as France is represented to French children as existing since the
Gaul of Vercingetorix, just as the children of Provence are told that
the victories that the kings of Ile de France won over their ancestors
were their own successes, in the same way Zionism tries to create the
myth of an eternal Judaism, eternally the prey of the same
persecutions. Zionism sees in the fall of Jerusalem the cause of the
dispersion, and consequently, the fountainhead of all Jewish
misfortunes of the past, present, and future. "The source of all the
misfortunes of the Jewish people is the loss of its historic country
and its dispersion in all countries," declares the Marxist delegation
of the Poale-Zion to the Dutch-Scandinavian committee. After the
violent dispersion of the Jews by the Romans, their tragic history
continues. Driven out of their country, the Jews did not wish (oh
beauty of free will!) to assimilate. Imbued with their "national
cohesiveness," "with a superior ethical feeling," and with "an
indestructible belief in a single God" (see the article of Ben-Adir on
Anti-Semitism in the General Encyclopedia), they have resisted all
attempts at assimilation. Their sole hope during these somber days
which lasted two thousand years has been the vision of a return to
their ancient country.
Zionism has never seriously posed this question: Why, during these two
thousand years, have not the Jews really tried to return to this
country? Why was it necessary to wait until the end of the nineteenth
century for a Herzl to succeed in convincing them of this necessity?
Why were all the predecessors of Herzl, like the famous Sabbatai Zebi,
treated as false Messiahs? Why were the adherents of Sabbatai Zebi
fiercely persecuted by orthodox Judaism?"
> The same, BTW, with Blacks. Lots of rich black
> capitalists, but Jews and Blacks are by and large excluded form the
> *class* that rules. Some exceptions, of course, but still generally
> true. But I probably overstated before about Zionism. It's *origin*
> quickly made it a social-democratic settler organization. But it did
> receive almost universal support among rich Jews (and most Jews for
> that matter) once it was established. There was, prior to the
> Holocaust, little support by any class of the Zionists. It was seen as
> something a little kooky, utopian even. But leading American
> politicians, like Roosevelt and Truman, for distinct religeious and
> historical reasons, were actually very pro-Zionist...and anti-
> Semitic...never inviting Jews to the White House for dinner, always
> keepinga good WASP distance from the semetic hordes in New York. There
> was actually the "Ameican Comittee for Jews to Palestine" set up by
> New Enland Puritan types that was avidly pro-Zionist but didn't have a
> Jew among them. Quite a hidden history there.
> But Zionism got it's grip in US politics in 1947 using the reality of
> the Holocuast to in part guilt bait Amercian politicians (very few
> Jews among them then) and the truth that the new Israel would become
> an out post for US imperialism, socialist pretensions internally
> notwithstanding. Very ugly little history there. Shoenemans's "Hidden
> History of Zionism" is a good expose of this.
I've read it too. Good value.
srd
> It's either used as a racial slur or a political defence against
> anyone who points out that the "socialism of fools" still exists.
> Actually the level of debate has improved greatly since I dropped in
> again.
> Let's see how long that lasts.
Where, pray tell, does it "exist"? When were the ends of discussion
furthered by such vague and meaningless claims. And when did the KPD bloc,
to which you draw comparison, ever claim the non-existence of the Nazi
*movement*, if that's what you are trying to articulate. (And if this
block in Germany had nothing to do with Leninism, as you claim the present
"bloc" has none with Trotskyism, WHY WASN'T IT EXPELLED? The truth is that
the issue was purely tactical in the German KPD.
As to "debate," this is something in which *you* have NEVER participated.
You are too arrogant for that, too self-righteous, although it grows from
character and not Zionism in my opinion, pace Dusty (although it is no
doubt partially *correlated* with your _ethnicity_).
As to the "Trotskyist" Walters--I'll simply let his language, such as his
talk of Cuba's SOCIALIST economy, speak for itself with respect to his
position on Stalinism and socialism on one island.
No, the socialism of fools exists nowhere as in the 30s in Europe (though
plenty of foolish socialists like yourself continue to ... socialize). No
only does fascism exist nowhere, but it will not do so again, at least not
in our lifetimes. It is also true that Trotskyism cannot exist today as in
Trotsky's, because the world is different, not fundamentally different, to
be sure, but as different as imperialism was different from the previous
stage of capitalism, and in some important ways, today's world is actually
more similar to 19th century capitalism. Analogies should be sought
whenever they might be found, but those who see a present reality through
categories appropriate to a previous epoch have always tilt at windmills.
This is true in every endeavor, from philosophy to politics to work and to
love. (This neurotic tendency to try to repeat the past probably explains
why you lack even your own computer, after losing it a decade ago.)
Observed by various posters on apst, rank and file workers today in the
advanced countries do not chafe at the bit of their union leaderships,
with the masses visibly demanding action and facing constant constraint.
To give partial credit where it is due, Proyect has seen this factually,
but he and others have never explained it. Strangely, they display no
curiosity--even that degree of theoretical interest--as to why this might
be so. It is as if Trotsky made a mere observation that simply does not
apply today.
You cannot go on applying the old program, without first understanding the
features of the world to which it apparently does not apply. And you
cannot develop an appropriate program without understanding why the old
program is no longer applicable. When you get around to digesting the
changes, you might even observe that the fascist impulse under capitalism
rests on the same empirical foundation as the crisis of leadership of the
working class (the chafing at the bit aspect), something the most stalwart
Trotskyists repudiate in practice, but which they neither seek to
understand nor even admit their incomprehension.
srd
srd
> I have addressed this, and I'll be glad to repeat my position, but I
> wonder if you could help focus your objection by answering this
> question, which I believe has the same answer for Russia: How does Cuba
> fundamentally differ from Iraq? Is it just an Iraq with the whole state
> run by a capitalist class? I'd also be interested in how vngelis
> describes Cuba, which is even more anathema to the West than Russia. How
> is it that on your line, vngelis, what is totally absurd for Russia
> becomes true for Cuba?
I see this as a most critical question, and the lack of response as
stalling debate. Please let me know here, Dusty and vngelis, whether you
will be responding to this question.
srd
srd
> Part of this ploy is to use the real idiots who play into the Zionists
> hands, like the President of Iraq, who wines and dines neo-Nazis and
> KKKers as if they are experts on Holocuast. This is why I stated, and
> will repeat, this conference did more for the cause of Zionism than
> anything else recently. If I were part of the Zionist movement I would
> go out my way to make sure this conference was a success.
> So here the issue of anti-Semitism is real: when you have real anti-
> Semite/Fascists like David Duke and the Euro-scum who inhabit such a
> concerence as honored guests. Or, when you start the usual "jew-
> counting" for editors of newspapers, or raise the import of the
> "ethnicity" of Oligarchic Jews in Russia or deny the historical fact
> of the holocaust which was *aimed at* European Jewry exclusively.
Can you separate the questions of whether the conference objectively aided
Zionism from the question of whether those defend the conference are
"racist"?
I think your propaganda bloc habits skew your view of comments concerning
the conference. You look at it from the perspective of yourself as a
potential supporter. Then you say, "No way I'd support such a conference,"
and assume those who try to understand the Iranians conduct are themselves
taking political responsibility for the conference, as you might take
responsibility for an anti-war demonstration that you are running in
concert with Democratic politicians.
I could be wrong, but I assume that Dusty and vngelis, like me, oppose
propaganda blocs with the bourgeoisie.Mhat this conference should do does
not then even arise. Support of a conference an speeches *is* political
support. The efforts of the Iranian president are not our efforts.
Commentary on his acts is just that and not an endorsement for us, as it
would be for you.
srd
srd
> Agreed - but you don't mention the question of their right to nuclear
> weapons, given Israels' holdings, not to mention those of the USA.
Yes, a conspicuous absence in many left treatments. For example, an SWP
(GB) commentary was posted a couple of weeks ago. Something seemed wrong
with it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. The emphasis seemed wrong,
making mostly the point that imperialism had invented Iran's military
aspirations. I hesitate, however, to criticize over questions of emphasis.
In fact it took your post to remind me of the reason--I suppose--the SWP
chose that emphasis. It seems to be avoiding either supporting Iran's
gaining nuclear weapons, analyzing the question, or, of course, doing
either.
Rather astoundingly to me, I cannot recall ANY discussions classically or
contemperaneously of the foundational question: what is the correct
position toward the absolute strengthening of the military in an oppressed
country confronted by imperialism. If one could function as a socialist
within the Iranian parliament, in other words, would one vote for or
against war credits? This is a lacuna in Marxist analysis or in my
education.
My initial thoughts on this matter is that the proper vote is either
abstention or no, probably no. This goes contrary to my instinctive
reaction. Unfortunately, my instincts aren't good in politics.
The fact that the Iranian state is in conflict with imperialism does not
warrant support for its military institutions, only the victory of those
institutions when engaged in a just struggle. The basic position remains
that the bourgeoisie is not entrusted with any historic mission, including
the military defense of its independence.
With one exception. The transitional bourgeoisie in Russia and those
countries accomplishing bourgeis democratic revolutions with it aid
deserves a measure of political support, most importantly, support for its
military aggrandizement. This is because it represents for the moment a
historically progressive class, unintegrated with the imperialist
bourgeoisie. The proper position, it seems to me, is analogous to Marx's
position supporting the North in the U.S. Civil War. This went beyond mere
military support, at least as far as I can recall from reading.
srd
Vngelis
You have only posted material trying to show why a bonapartist colonel
from the Venezuelan elite is a conscious ...trotskyist.
Roger spent most of his adult life in the post-Thornett WRP up
bureaucrats asses.
You are up bourgeois nationalist ones. Its a form of progress. The
further away from where you are the better you feel that someone else
is playing the 'red-brown' card. After all Venezuela, Bolivia, even
Brazil play the nationalist card at every available opportunity. Its
funny why the nationalist card there is progressive but the Greek one
for instance isn't? But then again consistency was never your strong
point now was it?
Without the turn in Russia back to re-nationalisations Latin America
wouldn't have been able to do it either., but this is lost on you as
well.
Vngelis
It might be easier to start another thread as we dissapear from the
volume of posts.
My line on Cuba is that of Wolforth who I believe produced some of the
most original work in the USA, but Healy destroyed him as he did with
everyone else as the changing material conditions of London and his
love affair with the daily in then end meant he served the daily at
all costs without any principles.
I posted articles on Cuba in English
http://www.evangelos12.btinternet.co.uk/eyewitness_report.htm
Cuba is a small carbon copy of Russia but has no developed
infrastructure like Russia or any true independent weapon systems.
They are now dependent on three sources of income,, tourism, doctors
working abroad and money from Miami. Their indigenous production is
non-existent. Despite having sun for 300 odd days a year they are
still based on the oil economy ie dependent on dollars for their
existence. So unless the price of sugar dramatically increases they
are stuck in an a quandary.
srd
> My line on Cuba is that of Wolforth who I believe produced some of the
> most original work in the USA
I adhered to Wohlforth's analysis until rather recently. While Wohlforth's
analysis of Eastern Europe and China did not apply to Cuba, and Wohlforth
expressed the conclusion that Cuba was not a workers' state from its lack
of origin in workers revolution, Wohlforth never presented an analysis of
Cuba itself. It was very hard to get anyone to address this issue in
depth, and I even suspect that Wohlforth personally thought Cuba was a
workers state. Among ex-Healyites, the Cuba position is regarded often as
the most questionable, and they rapidly revert to a deformed workers state
theory, without of course any explanation of how it could materialize.
You describe Cuba as a carbon copy of Russia, but you seem to distinguish
them by the fact that pesos are freely convertible to the dollar. I don't
have any immediate opinion on the significance of this convertibility.
What I don't think Wohlforth or anyone else has explained is how *either*
a) a Cuban bourgeois state could have nationalized the means of
production; or b) what the absence of a workers revolution at its
inception affects the actual functioning of the state, to create a
meaningful difference from Russia, even though Cuba is admitted to be
mostly a clone of Russia. The inability to give a Marxist account of the
changes in Cuba tend to refute the theory of structural assimilation as
applied to Europe and Asia, because structural assimilation is only as
persuasive as alternative explanations can be excluded. If nationalized
property can arise by means other than structural assimilation in Cuba,
then it probably _could_ have arisen by other means in China and E.
Europe. Which means that structural assimilation in those places must be
backed up by more than logic presented in its defense.
On the same web page with your Cuba article, you argue that state
capitalism does not exist in Russia, because if Russia were capitalist, it
would integrate with imperialism. Not if the destruction of the bourgeois
state by a workers revolution that succeeded in nationalizing industry in
1918, followed by a capitalist counter-revolution, results in a different
form of capitalism, based not only on the elimination of intra-capital
competition which the bourgeoisie could not itself eliminate but also on
the expansion of the limits of capital development (NOT of course the
elimination of such obstacles for all time), because of the removal of
those obstacles.
State capitalist theories have previously been designed to avoid conflicts
with the requirements of patriotism. The theories have proclaimed state
capitalism at least as reactionary as imperialism; most at least imply it
is _more_ reactionary. The correct theory of Russian/Chinese/Cuban state
capitalism is that it is a new capitalist form, in conflict with
imperialism, and worthy of conditial support in direct conflict with
imperialism.
If such a theory seems contrived or far-fetched, perhaps the best analogy
is to the positions of Northern and Southern systems of capitalistm in the
pre-bellum U. S. The system of slavery was not the Ancient system found
in Greee and Rome milennia ago. It was a purely capitalist system of
slave; slaves were treated as capital, and they were of course acquired
and sold on a capitalist market. Slavery in the South was capitalism
adopted to specific regional needs, and rendering that part of the country
non-integratable with the North, politically or economically, despite the
ultimately capitalist foundations. But while it was an immature form of
capitalism, the transistional bourgeoisie represents the most advanced
form known today, co-existing with imperialist forms.
srd
dave.w...@comcast.net
For what's it worth, I also support Wolforths position as it is laid
out in "Communists Against Revolution" and I think Cuba was a workers
state. He once told me that he believed there was a workers
revolution in Cuba (this is after he and Nancy rejoined the SWP in
1974) albeit in a very skewed way.
What is interesting that among the Trotskyist left there is a
tremendous amount of ignorance about what went on in those first 3
years leading up to the nationalizations. This includes myself as it
only been the last few years that I've been reading up on it more,
finding out how the nationalizations took place...indeed...*massive*
working class occupations of the farms and factories, etc.
David
Vngelis
The KDE published Wohlforths book on Structural Assimilation in Greek
in the 1970's and wrote a forward for it regarding Cuba. Its never
been translated into English. But basically from what I can recall the
buy up of Cuban production ie sugar by the Soviets, the arrival of
Russian engineers, the Cuban Missile Crisis all meant Cuba became
structurally assimilated into the Soviet block. Castro became head of
the Cuban Communist Party overnight, the Bacardi family fled to Miami
and the Yanks lost their investments.
Are you implying none of these processes occurred?
dave.w...@comcast.net
No, of course. The key was August 1961 (or 1960, I'm very bad with
this sort of thing) was the key to when Fidel announced the
nationalizations of the economy as a whole which followed previous
nationalization of sugar, ITT, etc. But the Cuban Missle Crisis
followed the establishment of Cuba as a worker state by almost 2
years, Bacardi fled early in 1959 or 1960. The Cuban CP really didn't
form or become what it is today until 1965. Prior to this it went
through several perumunations trying to balance out the July 26th
revolutionaries from the PSP Stalinists. Carlos Franqui in his "Family
Portrait of Fidel" details this exactly.
In my opinion, while the relationship of Cuba with the USSR was
important to Cuba's survival, it had little to do with the course of
the revolution in the early years, especially as the PSPers now
flooding into the July 26th Movement as the USSR's local-Stalinists-on-
the-scene tried to hold back the land occupations and factory
occupations that were occuring everywhere.
This is why I think Wolforth was wrong in that part of the Structural
Assimilation theory. BTW...it was Thornets group that published it in
the UK when I saw it. John Lister's book on Cuba is also good on all
this. I think the SA was good because it makes more sense and I think
generally corresponds to the reality of Eastern Europe a lot better
than what Mandel, Hansen, Dobbs, Maitan said about the region. The
first time I read it I agreed with SA immediatly.
It's just that on Cuba Wolforth simply didn't know what he was talking
about (which I think he admitted later on) both cronologically and
factually; the actual relationship in those early years with Russia,
the actual forces at place in Cuba, etc, etc. above all the role of
the working class which was a lot more prominent than any one outside
of Cuba suspected.
I will try to make it a project of mine to reacquire the book and scan
it in for the ETOL.
David
srd
> The KDE published Wohlforths book on Structural Assimilation in Greek
> in the 1970's and wrote a forward for it regarding Cuba. Its never
> been translated into English. But basically from what I can recall the
> buy up of Cuban production ie sugar by the Soviets, the arrival of
> Russian engineers, the Cuban Missile Crisis all meant Cuba became
> structurally assimilated into the Soviet block. Castro became head of
> the Cuban Communist Party overnight, the Bacardi family fled to Miami
> and the Yanks lost their investments.
> Are you implying none of these processes occurred?
No, I'm implying that these things COULD NOT happen IF this structural
assimilation transformed Cuba into a workers state, because trade and
economic integration cannot destroy the power of a dominant class.
I understand the KDE line to be that Cuba is not a workers state. So this
terminology seems ambiguous. Countries shouldn't be said to become workers
states through structural assimilation, and others to simply give the
appearance of workers states by such a process. At least not if structural
assimilation is supposed to explain how Eastern Europe and perhaps China
became workers states (assuming they are).
On my line at present, however, structural assimilation doesn't produce
any workers states. Rather integration with the Soviet economy was a
result. Here's the test. Certain countries in Eastern Europe have
immediately been assimilated into capitalism. (Do you agree?) Take for
instance Czechoslovakia. In general I think the prerequisites for the
formation of a transitional bourgeoisie are:
1. A bourgeois democratic revolution assisted to substantial completion by
a workers state or a prior workers revolution; - the absence excludes the
Baathist Syria; and
2. A low level of economic development, such that a simple nationalized
command economy without extensive controls by the workers is favorable to
the development of the forces of production. - excluding most of the
non-colonial countries today.- the absence of this factor excluding
countrties like Czechoslovakia, despite their having been "structuarally
assimilated."
If these factors empirically delimit the class of countries that made
lasting transitions, I think it supports the analysis that the influence
of Russia allowed the bourgeois democratic revolutions to go much farther
than previously possible.
srd
Vngelis
You use the word trade and economic integration. When the Soviets took
over Poland on the eve of WW2 Trotsky did argue that inevitably the
system which created the Russian Revolution would be forced to change
property relations.
The Cuban situation happened after 20 odd years later did it not?
According to the theory created by Wohlforth structural assimilation
led to some form of worker states ie the bourgeoisie lost its power.
Now you are using what your interpretation of todays events are to go
backwards. When the Russians bought up Cubas sugar and provided them
with a nuclear shield what happened to the local bourgeoisie? We have
lists of names ownership of farms, ownership of factories. They all
fled or were taken over by the state. The state in turn was taken over
by the price of exports, etc. Cuba was based on Russian technology,
Russian engineers, Russian everything.
Its not that big. A small island was a luxury the Soviets could do
without but in the end they bought it. Its not an imperialist state.
Are you implying the bourgeoisie cannot be overthrown in a single city
or flee a city if there is an insurrection and a bigger more powerful
non-bourgeois state take over? I dont personally see where the problem
is.
Going back to today. I dont think the issue of Eastern Europe is
resolved. Your theory so far has stated another 30 odd years of
gradual imperialist development. You do not see the events of 9/11 or
the terror wars as a turning point in imperialist decline. You see
them as a continuation of the past. As such I dont have such a view so
I dont view what has happened in E Europe as a solidified phenomenon.
Those countries will be obliged to recreate trading relationships with
the ex-USSR whether they like it or not. Their whole infrastructure is
Russian. I have seen the trains in Bulgaria, their metro systems, most
of their factories, their energy ie nuclear power, most of their
military infrastructure, agricultural equipment etc. Unless de-
Russianisation occurs to the level of de-Baathisation occurred in Iraq
and is ALL replaced by western infrastructure for free as the
countries have no money purchasing them the process of integrating
with the West isn't totally complete.
Most of Poland is living on $150 a month. A large section of its
population have become its new coolies going abroad to survive
lowering wage rates and conditions in the rest of the European union.
This is leading to a downward spiral as you dont create development,
ie the change of infrastructure for the whole of Eastern Europe but a
gradual collapse of everything, power outages and breakdowns. All of
them are becoming dependent more on the ex-USSR than you imagine.
There is no indigenous bourgeoisie in E Europe. There are joint
ventures with western corporations but they are all operating with
the body (infrastructure) of Russia and the outward clothes
(appearance) of the western market.
The West is trying to propose a change in everything. Forcing E Europe
to dump its Russian infrastructure and put in place western ones. To
what extent? one can close the nuclear power plants of Bulgaria but
you still need energy. Where will you get it from? Will the rest of W
Europe subsidise the whole of the energy sector of E Europe? So why
are they buying a lot of their energy from Russia?
srd
> Its not that big. A small island was a luxury the Soviets could do
> without but in the end they bought it. Its not an imperialist state.
> Are you implying the bourgeoisie cannot be overthrown in a single city
> or flee a city if there is an insurrection and a bigger more powerful
> non-bourgeois state take over? I dont personally see where the problem
> is.
Who did they buy it from? If Cuba was a bourgeois state before this
unusual property acquisition, the island was owned by the bourgeoisie.
The difference with Poland, of course, is that Russia went in with tank,
not just rubles. If Castro represented the bourgeoisie, he certainly would
not have "sold" Cuba to the Russians. It's a question of how the working
class got control over the Cuban state.
My answer and Healy's is that it didn't. In that case, the story you tell
about Cuba becomes consistent, because there was no change of class rule
at the most fundamental level.
But I thought you denied Cuba was a workers state?
srd
Vngelis
We dont deny it was a workers state but that it was assimilated to
the Soviet block.
A revolution occurred which would have led to near total civil war.
They fled the country to Miami. The bourgeoisie bottled it.