DENOUNCE BUSH'S CAMPAIGN OF TERROR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN
Communist Voice Organization | 22.10.2001 04:26
DENOUNCE BUSH'S CAMPAIGN OF TERROR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN!
by Communist Voice Organization 7:39pm Wed Oct 17 '01
address: P.O. Box 13261, Harper Station, Detroit, MI 48213-0261
mail@communistvoice.org
A new anti-war leaflet analyzing current events and suggesting ways to move the movement forward.
Imperialist war only brings terror and repression---
DENOUNCE BUSH'S CAMPAIGN OF TERROR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN!
The Bush Administration is using the Sept. 11 terrorist atrocity as a pretext to step up attacks on the masses of people at home and abroad. For their part, the Democrats are giving these attacks their full backing.
At home: attacks on the living standards and democratic rights of the masses---
· Before the terrorist acts US capitalism was already going into a recession. Now the only question is how deep will it be. Before Sept. 11 the budget surplus had "disappeared". Now the bourgeoisie is talking of budget deficits. This means the government will further bleed the masses, gut social services still more, worsen health-care and education, further wreck the environment, etc. Why? So that more money can be funneled to the monopoly corporations for bailouts, more money can be thrown to the war industry, and so that the capitalists can go on reaping a bundle of money no matter how many people are laid off or what is done to the world's ecosystem.
· Before Sept. 11 the government had been building a police-state apparatus for years. Now draconian measures have been proposed to further increase government snooping and violate civil liberties. These are to be permanent. They have little to do with catching a few suspected terrorists and everything to do with repressing domestic opponents of the bipartisan program of the rich. And they're not just an aberrant desire of Bush's, the whole establishment is behind them. Already newspaper writers and T.V. personalities have been fired for mildly critical remarks about the "great leader" (Bush); the "Boondocks" comic strip for Oct. 4 was pulled by the corporate overlords for mentioning the fact that the Reagan- Bush administration funded bin Laden, and so on. Behind the Nazi- sounding "Office of Homeland Security" stands the growing fascism of the ruling class.
· Before Sept. 11 bestial racism was alive and well in the United States. Racial discrimination, racial profiling, and police murders of African Americans were everyday occurrences. Now Bush's war propagandists and the servile corporate media have helped incite racist violence and religious bigotry, including murder, against people of Middle Eastern and Indian ancestry., and against Moslems. When they set their sights on a new "enemy" it will be someone else. (And since Bush has already promised that his war on "terror" is going to go on and on, we can expect there will be many new "enemies".
Abroad: imperialist war---
The bi-partisan screams against terrorism are utterly hypocritical. If Bush really wanted to "smoke...terrorists out of their holes" he could begin by bombing the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, GA. There the US has trained terrorists responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of people in Latin America and elsewhere. He could continue on to bomb the CIA H.Q.---source of one military coup after another, one destabilization campaign after another, one terrorist manual after another. And if Bush was really against terrorism his administration wouldn't be working overtime to patch together an alliance "against" terrorism with such luminaries of terrorism as Israel's Sharon, the Kurd-killing Turk militarists, the feudal monarchs of the Middle East, etc.
Bush's hypocrisy, like that of the Democrats, is driven by the desire to keep the masses of people in the dark as to the viciousness of American capitalism's drive to dominate and plunder the labor and resources (including Middle Eastern oil) of the entire world. Imperialism and war are the logical products of modern (monopoly) capitalist economy. The drive to maximize profits forces this. But the ruling establishment doesn't want us to ponder this for it leads to revolutionary conclusions.
THE WAR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN
Were it just the American politicians and CEOs mixing it up with Taliban thugs and bin Laden's terrorists we would say "let them go at it". But of course this isn't what's transpiring. Millions of Afghanis are now facing the twin terrors of American bombs and starvation. And already hundreds have been killed by the terror from the skies. (But, not to worry, the US government may drop 30 thousand meals now and then...for cheap propaganda purposes of course.) Moreover, US. imperialism's game plan for the future of Afghanistan, what there is of it, will not end the suffering of the people. It will only bring more tyranny.
All progressive people would like to see the medieval anti-woman Taliban regime overthrown. We would like to see a democratic government come to power, something which would be a truly historic development in this backward country. But we realize that a democratic revolution has to be the work of the Afghani people themselves. Further, it is the opinion of Marxist-Leninists that for democracy to be anything but a charade the masses of workers and exploited peasants must rise in struggle for their class demands in the democratic revolution: they must put their stamp on it.
The perspective of US and British imperialism does not involve democracy for the people in the slightest however. The Northern Alliance, which the US can only carefully support because the US's Pakistani militarist allies hate it, is a basket-full of anti-democratic forces. It includes corrupt officials of the former government, forces following regional, ethnic and clan agendas, and anti-Taliban religious fundamentalists. This basket of crabs is riven by so many contradictions that the US has had to propose bringing back another relic from the past, the King, to try to bring some order to the chaos. Problem is that the King was not known for his abilities to even keep the Royal House in order when he had power. He also was no democrat. Banning of political parties, restrictions on the press (when it was even allowed to exist), murder of opponents, etc., were his forte.
After Afghanistan, the US "plan" is for a continuous state of war. Whether reactionary governments like that of Saddam Hussein are attacked, or progressive movements as in Palestine or Colombia are attacked, it will be the people who pay the bill and suffer. We must be prepared.
THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
The anti-war movement has come into being right in the face of the brutal slanders and intimidation tactics of the flag-waving establishment. It's been pointing out the hypocrisy of the administration in proclaiming itself "anti"-terrorist while it supports the Saudi monarchy, the Israeli state which is built on terrorism, and a long list of other terrorists. The movement has been pointing out that Washington has knowingly starved to death hundreds of thousands of Iraqis over the past decade through sanctions. It's been pointing out that wars such as that launched against Afghanistan only sow the seeds for more terrorism. Among the oppressed it's desperate social conditions aggravated by the neoliberal policies (including war) of the dominate imperialist powers which give rise to terrorist trends. Moreover, such trends gain more adherents than they otherwise would because of the disorganization and ideological confusion presently existing in the movements of the workers and other oppressed people. Reactionary bourgeois elements like bin Laden speculate on this to sweep desperate people into their fold. The agenda of such elements is thoroughly anti-people, just as is that of Bush.
The movement has been fighting on other grounds as well. A section of it is pointing out that the capitalism is the cause of imperialist wars, exploitation and ruination of the masses and their environment, etc., and that Bush merely acts in the interests of big capital, particularly in the interests of the US oil monopolies. We think this is crucial if the anti-war movement is to become more militant and also be able to sustain itself. But we also think that this section of activists has to go farther in its analysis and theoretical understanding if it is not to ultimately become a play-thing in the hands of the establishment. For example, very often capitalism is only defined as being the multi-national or monopoly corporations. This leaves the door open to Naderite dreaming about going back to a prettified pre-monopoly capitalism. The problem with this view is that the 18th and 19th centuries were also filled with wars, and very exploitative social relations existed. Moreover, capitalist competition of that era gave rise to monopoly and the multi- nationals. Break them up and the whole process would begin again. Another view that is often expressed sees imperialism as only a policy of evil men rather that something which is driven by the needs of capitalists to come out on top in their struggles with rivals. This opens the door to dreaming that the "true" liberal or Laborite politicians won't be imperialist when in power. The problem with this view is that the liberal Democrats supporting Bush's reactionary war are true liberals, and Prime Minister Tony Blair is a true Laborite. And Representative Barbara Lee, who made a show by casting the single vote against Bush's open-ended war program in Congress, assured the bourgeoisie of her overall loyalty by running up to congratulate their great leader after he gave his Sept. 20 war speech!
So these ideas in the movement work to direct us toward seeking futile reforms of the very system which has given rise to this war and which will give rise to more wars. Moreover, they lead us toward being voting-cattle for the liberal or Laborite politicians. Meanwhile, there are definite political trends in the movement which tell the truth that capitalism must be overthrown but present no liberating alternative. Anarchists dream of autonomous groups somehow bringing down the imperialist monster and somehow bringing into being a communist society. But they're at a loss when it comes to explaining how independently acting communes will not give rise to competition and "invisible" markets (which inevitably give rise to strife and wars). The revisers of Marxism-Leninism (CPUSA, Trotskyists, Guevarists, and Maoists) speak of overthrowing imperialism (the former very softly, some of the latter very loudly), but they too have no viable alternative. Even the CPUSA now has its criticisms of the state-capitalist Soviet Union from the time of Stalin until its collapse, and the Trotskyists, Guevarists and Maoists always had criticisms. But all of them propose some prettified version of this same state capitalism as being the liberating alternative to the monopoly-capitalism we're familiar with in the West. They vainly work to cover up its essence, because state capitalism enslaves the workers too, resorts to reactionary repression, and gives rise to imperialist wars in the same way. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which the CPUSA and many of the Trotskyists wholeheartedly supported) is a clear example of the latter.
Our conclusion from this is that alongside the struggles in the streets against Bush's war (as well as against repression, racist attacks, and the economic onslaught against the masses) a struggle must also be waged against the ideas enumerated. They hold back the movement. More, the ordinary activists have to stand up to wage this ideological battle for it is often the leaders of the movement, the speakers at rallies, etc., who promote the worst illusions about the establishment and thereby undermine the consciousness that a really militant movement must be organized. The flimsy politics which have dominated the anti-war movements which have arisen since the end of the Vietnam War must be overcome. And this requires that we, the activists in the streets, look more deeply into revolutionary theory (studying and discussing Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" is just one example). We need ideological clarity. This is what will lay the basis for an anti-war movement with confidence, one that has activists all over the place arguing and organizing, one that has the power to seriously contest the brutal challenge which Bush has thrown down.
Communist Voice Organization
October 16, 2001
Read Communist Voice,
Theoretical Journal of the Communist Voice Organization!
http://www.communistvoice.org
$2 for a single copy CV
$22 for a six-issue subscription P.O. Box 13261,
Harper Station
Detroit, MI 48213-0261
www.communistvoice.org
by Communist Voice Organization 7:39pm Wed Oct 17 '01
address: P.O. Box 13261, Harper Station, Detroit, MI 48213-0261
mail@communistvoice.org A new anti-war leaflet analyzing current events and suggesting ways to move the movement forward.
Imperialist war only brings terror and repression---
DENOUNCE BUSH'S CAMPAIGN OF TERROR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN!
The Bush Administration is using the Sept. 11 terrorist atrocity as a pretext to step up attacks on the masses of people at home and abroad. For their part, the Democrats are giving these attacks their full backing.
At home: attacks on the living standards and democratic rights of the masses---
· Before the terrorist acts US capitalism was already going into a recession. Now the only question is how deep will it be. Before Sept. 11 the budget surplus had "disappeared". Now the bourgeoisie is talking of budget deficits. This means the government will further bleed the masses, gut social services still more, worsen health-care and education, further wreck the environment, etc. Why? So that more money can be funneled to the monopoly corporations for bailouts, more money can be thrown to the war industry, and so that the capitalists can go on reaping a bundle of money no matter how many people are laid off or what is done to the world's ecosystem.
· Before Sept. 11 the government had been building a police-state apparatus for years. Now draconian measures have been proposed to further increase government snooping and violate civil liberties. These are to be permanent. They have little to do with catching a few suspected terrorists and everything to do with repressing domestic opponents of the bipartisan program of the rich. And they're not just an aberrant desire of Bush's, the whole establishment is behind them. Already newspaper writers and T.V. personalities have been fired for mildly critical remarks about the "great leader" (Bush); the "Boondocks" comic strip for Oct. 4 was pulled by the corporate overlords for mentioning the fact that the Reagan- Bush administration funded bin Laden, and so on. Behind the Nazi- sounding "Office of Homeland Security" stands the growing fascism of the ruling class.
· Before Sept. 11 bestial racism was alive and well in the United States. Racial discrimination, racial profiling, and police murders of African Americans were everyday occurrences. Now Bush's war propagandists and the servile corporate media have helped incite racist violence and religious bigotry, including murder, against people of Middle Eastern and Indian ancestry., and against Moslems. When they set their sights on a new "enemy" it will be someone else. (And since Bush has already promised that his war on "terror" is going to go on and on, we can expect there will be many new "enemies".
Abroad: imperialist war---
The bi-partisan screams against terrorism are utterly hypocritical. If Bush really wanted to "smoke...terrorists out of their holes" he could begin by bombing the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, GA. There the US has trained terrorists responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of people in Latin America and elsewhere. He could continue on to bomb the CIA H.Q.---source of one military coup after another, one destabilization campaign after another, one terrorist manual after another. And if Bush was really against terrorism his administration wouldn't be working overtime to patch together an alliance "against" terrorism with such luminaries of terrorism as Israel's Sharon, the Kurd-killing Turk militarists, the feudal monarchs of the Middle East, etc.
Bush's hypocrisy, like that of the Democrats, is driven by the desire to keep the masses of people in the dark as to the viciousness of American capitalism's drive to dominate and plunder the labor and resources (including Middle Eastern oil) of the entire world. Imperialism and war are the logical products of modern (monopoly) capitalist economy. The drive to maximize profits forces this. But the ruling establishment doesn't want us to ponder this for it leads to revolutionary conclusions.
THE WAR AGAINST AFGHANISTAN
Were it just the American politicians and CEOs mixing it up with Taliban thugs and bin Laden's terrorists we would say "let them go at it". But of course this isn't what's transpiring. Millions of Afghanis are now facing the twin terrors of American bombs and starvation. And already hundreds have been killed by the terror from the skies. (But, not to worry, the US government may drop 30 thousand meals now and then...for cheap propaganda purposes of course.) Moreover, US. imperialism's game plan for the future of Afghanistan, what there is of it, will not end the suffering of the people. It will only bring more tyranny.
All progressive people would like to see the medieval anti-woman Taliban regime overthrown. We would like to see a democratic government come to power, something which would be a truly historic development in this backward country. But we realize that a democratic revolution has to be the work of the Afghani people themselves. Further, it is the opinion of Marxist-Leninists that for democracy to be anything but a charade the masses of workers and exploited peasants must rise in struggle for their class demands in the democratic revolution: they must put their stamp on it.
The perspective of US and British imperialism does not involve democracy for the people in the slightest however. The Northern Alliance, which the US can only carefully support because the US's Pakistani militarist allies hate it, is a basket-full of anti-democratic forces. It includes corrupt officials of the former government, forces following regional, ethnic and clan agendas, and anti-Taliban religious fundamentalists. This basket of crabs is riven by so many contradictions that the US has had to propose bringing back another relic from the past, the King, to try to bring some order to the chaos. Problem is that the King was not known for his abilities to even keep the Royal House in order when he had power. He also was no democrat. Banning of political parties, restrictions on the press (when it was even allowed to exist), murder of opponents, etc., were his forte.
After Afghanistan, the US "plan" is for a continuous state of war. Whether reactionary governments like that of Saddam Hussein are attacked, or progressive movements as in Palestine or Colombia are attacked, it will be the people who pay the bill and suffer. We must be prepared.
THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
The anti-war movement has come into being right in the face of the brutal slanders and intimidation tactics of the flag-waving establishment. It's been pointing out the hypocrisy of the administration in proclaiming itself "anti"-terrorist while it supports the Saudi monarchy, the Israeli state which is built on terrorism, and a long list of other terrorists. The movement has been pointing out that Washington has knowingly starved to death hundreds of thousands of Iraqis over the past decade through sanctions. It's been pointing out that wars such as that launched against Afghanistan only sow the seeds for more terrorism. Among the oppressed it's desperate social conditions aggravated by the neoliberal policies (including war) of the dominate imperialist powers which give rise to terrorist trends. Moreover, such trends gain more adherents than they otherwise would because of the disorganization and ideological confusion presently existing in the movements of the workers and other oppressed people. Reactionary bourgeois elements like bin Laden speculate on this to sweep desperate people into their fold. The agenda of such elements is thoroughly anti-people, just as is that of Bush.
The movement has been fighting on other grounds as well. A section of it is pointing out that the capitalism is the cause of imperialist wars, exploitation and ruination of the masses and their environment, etc., and that Bush merely acts in the interests of big capital, particularly in the interests of the US oil monopolies. We think this is crucial if the anti-war movement is to become more militant and also be able to sustain itself. But we also think that this section of activists has to go farther in its analysis and theoretical understanding if it is not to ultimately become a play-thing in the hands of the establishment. For example, very often capitalism is only defined as being the multi-national or monopoly corporations. This leaves the door open to Naderite dreaming about going back to a prettified pre-monopoly capitalism. The problem with this view is that the 18th and 19th centuries were also filled with wars, and very exploitative social relations existed. Moreover, capitalist competition of that era gave rise to monopoly and the multi- nationals. Break them up and the whole process would begin again. Another view that is often expressed sees imperialism as only a policy of evil men rather that something which is driven by the needs of capitalists to come out on top in their struggles with rivals. This opens the door to dreaming that the "true" liberal or Laborite politicians won't be imperialist when in power. The problem with this view is that the liberal Democrats supporting Bush's reactionary war are true liberals, and Prime Minister Tony Blair is a true Laborite. And Representative Barbara Lee, who made a show by casting the single vote against Bush's open-ended war program in Congress, assured the bourgeoisie of her overall loyalty by running up to congratulate their great leader after he gave his Sept. 20 war speech!
So these ideas in the movement work to direct us toward seeking futile reforms of the very system which has given rise to this war and which will give rise to more wars. Moreover, they lead us toward being voting-cattle for the liberal or Laborite politicians. Meanwhile, there are definite political trends in the movement which tell the truth that capitalism must be overthrown but present no liberating alternative. Anarchists dream of autonomous groups somehow bringing down the imperialist monster and somehow bringing into being a communist society. But they're at a loss when it comes to explaining how independently acting communes will not give rise to competition and "invisible" markets (which inevitably give rise to strife and wars). The revisers of Marxism-Leninism (CPUSA, Trotskyists, Guevarists, and Maoists) speak of overthrowing imperialism (the former very softly, some of the latter very loudly), but they too have no viable alternative. Even the CPUSA now has its criticisms of the state-capitalist Soviet Union from the time of Stalin until its collapse, and the Trotskyists, Guevarists and Maoists always had criticisms. But all of them propose some prettified version of this same state capitalism as being the liberating alternative to the monopoly-capitalism we're familiar with in the West. They vainly work to cover up its essence, because state capitalism enslaves the workers too, resorts to reactionary repression, and gives rise to imperialist wars in the same way. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which the CPUSA and many of the Trotskyists wholeheartedly supported) is a clear example of the latter.
Our conclusion from this is that alongside the struggles in the streets against Bush's war (as well as against repression, racist attacks, and the economic onslaught against the masses) a struggle must also be waged against the ideas enumerated. They hold back the movement. More, the ordinary activists have to stand up to wage this ideological battle for it is often the leaders of the movement, the speakers at rallies, etc., who promote the worst illusions about the establishment and thereby undermine the consciousness that a really militant movement must be organized. The flimsy politics which have dominated the anti-war movements which have arisen since the end of the Vietnam War must be overcome. And this requires that we, the activists in the streets, look more deeply into revolutionary theory (studying and discussing Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" is just one example). We need ideological clarity. This is what will lay the basis for an anti-war movement with confidence, one that has activists all over the place arguing and organizing, one that has the power to seriously contest the brutal challenge which Bush has thrown down.
Communist Voice Organization
October 16, 2001
Read Communist Voice,
Theoretical Journal of the Communist Voice Organization!
http://www.communistvoice.org $2 for a single copy CV
$22 for a six-issue subscription P.O. Box 13261,
Harper Station
Detroit, MI 48213-0261
www.communistvoice.org
Communist Voice Organization
e-mail:
mail@communistvoice.org