[lit-ideas] Re: Iran (2), First Front

  • From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 22:32:47 -0500

I don't see the connection between Marxism and Liberal Democracy.  I'm still 
not sure I know what you mean by Liberal Democracy.  It's something to do with 
government taking care of its citizens.  That is not something we are in danger 
of in the U.S.  If you think Social Security is Marxist, then FDR was Marxist, 
and the majority of people, including red states, made it clear that SS is 
desirable.  Saying that Republicans care about social issues is wishful 
thinking, for example, Bush trying to get rid of SS; pharma looting Medicare.  
Privatizing SS has been discredited except to diehards, and Republicans gave 
away our treasury to the ultra rich leaving us broke.  Are tax breaks for the 
ultra wealthy the opposite of Marxist Liberal Democracy?  Likewise, German 
fascism was the ideological opposite of Communism.  What do you think of it and 
its methods?  The very idea that someone is called unpatriotic, un-American for 
criticizing the country and not toeing the administration's
  line is what happened in both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and for that 
matter, Islamism.

Regarding Iran, what may seem provocative to us is not going to seem 
provocative to them.  They no doubt see our behavior as equally provocative.  
At the end of the day, no matter how it's rationalized, attacking Iran is going 
to be good for them, bad for us.  At best it will be like hitting a hornet's 
nest with a baseball bat.  At worst it will rally them against the U.S. the way 
Japan's attack on us did.  I wouldn't be surprised if they're luring us into 
attacking them so they can have an excuse to heighten their belligerence and 
take the moral high ground at the same time.  


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Lawrence Helm 
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 2/3/2006 9:27:59 PM 
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iran (2), First Front


We wouldn?t be engaging in an unprovoked attack in the sense you imagine.  Iran 
has sponsored a number of attacks against the U.S. The 241 Marines killed and 
100 wounded in Beirut are an example.  Furthermore Iran has declared war 
against us.  Furthermore Iran is the major exporter of terrorist activity at 
the present time despite our saying that we were going to wage war against 
those who were waging war against us.  I've covered this more extensively in 
other notes.

Marxist ideals are not all bad.  Some of them are pretty good.  The Welfares 
State, made popular in Europe, is Liberal Democracy modified by Marxist-type 
entitlements. We have accepted this in principle even here in the United States 
-- even the Republicans have accepted it.  However, remembering that America is 
traditional chary of big government, the Republicans attempt to accomplish the 
Marxist entitlements without centralized control.  In other words, the 
Republicans have accepted many of the Marxist ideals but quibble about how to 
put them into effect.  Allowing individuals to invest their Social Security in 
the stock market is an example.  

A step closer to strict Marxism would be a centralized guarantee of 
Marxist-type entitlements.  An example of this is the French constitution which 
guarantees them.  The citizens of France have the right to have a job their 
constitution declares.  However, the French haven't been able to deliver on 
this right.  The French unemployment rate is higher than in the U.S.; so 
despite an ideal of wanting to care for each citizen from the "cradle to the 
grave," the French government has garnered bitterness for not giving the French 
citizens the entitlements they think they deserve.  

In America there wasn?t a huge interest in Marxist Socialism before the 30s if 
I recall correctly. The ?Muck Rakers? of an earlier period described some of 
the evils: Upton Sinclair wrote The Brass Check about the news industry (if 
memory serves me) and Frank Norris wrote The Octopus about the Railroad 
industry.  Someone wrote about the meat packing industry.  John Reed of Oregon 
was in Russia during their 1917 revolution and wrote Ten Days that Shook the 
World; which has become a Communist classic.  Jack London was conflicted about 
his politics, but his The Iron Heel was pure Marxist propaganda as well as 
being a terrible novel.  In the 30s an American form of Communism came into 
existence as the International Workers of the World and J. Edgar Hoover made a 
name for himself by crushing it.  The IWW leader, Big Bill Haywood, fled the 
country and ended his days in Russia.  

There was a love affair between American intellectuals and Marxist/Communist 
ideals.  ?From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs? 
sounded pretty good. It still does.  Unfortunately it didn?t work.  When it 
became clear that the epitome of Marxist practice, the Soviet Union, was 
diverging in an unpleasant direction, many recognized that the practice fell 
too short of the ideal and abandoned it.  Whittaker Chambers is an example of 
that (which he describes in Witness).  In the days when the Germans were trying 
out their new weapons in support of Spanish Fascism, the Communists organized 
the Lincoln Brigade and many American intellectuals joined to fight the good 
fight.  

Though many fell away from Marxism and Communism, not all did.  Even when 
Stalin signed a treaty with Hitler, they made excuses and supported him.  And 
when Hitler reneged on this treaty and invaded the USSR, many of these 
intellectuals were in highly placed positions in government and used their 
influence to gain support for the Soviet Union. Others in the scientific 
community sent them our secret information on how to manufacture atomic bombs.  
Also at this time intellectuals in the press and Hollywood praised the Soviet 
Union, ridiculed those who were critical of it, scoffed at the idea that the 
spies in government were really there, and thoroughly pulled the wool over our 
eyes.  We know in retrospect that the spies were there because of the Venona 
Papers (coded messages from the KGB that were decoded) and being given access 
to KGB files after the collapse of the USSR.  

The Communist propaganda machinery in the U.S. was excellent.  It went to work 
to prove that America and not the USSR was the bad guy during the Cold War.  It 
became fashionable to hold this view.  The Vietnam War became gold for these 
people.  ?Anti-War? which meant in Communist terms ?anti-America and pro-Viet 
Cong? became a tremendously influential viewpoint in the US.  Johnson though 
very much a Welfare-Socialist-Liberal Democrat was pilloried and refused a 
second term because his health had been ruined by the criticism.  His Secretary 
of State wrote a mea culpa many years later.  Nixon became paranoid about the 
criticism and made incriminating statements on tape spied on the opposition.

Many alive today remember those halcyon Anti (Vietnam) War days and without 
really investigating the nature of Islamism have made a Marxist leap of faith 
and assumed that fighting Islamism is identical to fighting Communism.  The 
Islamists are just some more Wretched of the Earth as Frantz Fanon wrote and as 
Edward Said and John Esposito believed.  Communist ideology doesn?t account for 
Religious belief except as an impediment, or an opiate, so it was difficult for 
them to credit the Islamists claim that they were intending to revolutionize 
the world for Allah and not for Marx.  Many are still having that difficulty.

Lawrence

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 4:49 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iran (2), First Front

Lawrence, can you please supply examples of what Marxist Liberal Democrats
are.  Can you supply some specifics?  I honestly don't know what you're
talking about.  Truly, I'm not being difficult.  

Also, I agree with you that Islamists are dangerous people.  But, starting
a war against them will only make them more dangerous and weaken us.  How
did the U.S. act when we were attacked by Japan?  Or when we were attacked
by OBL?  Attacking them will galvanize them, motivate them against us, get
their adrenaline flowing.  Does that not matter to you?  In addition to
which, maybe we'll knock out their plants and maybe we won't.  What we need
to do is become independent of their oil, and we're not doing that at all. 




> [Original Message]
> From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2/3/2006 3:26:56 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iran (2), First Front
> 
> But I have mentioned that Mike's America is something new.  It wasn't
there
> at the beginning.  Those who respect the beginning are now called
> Conservatives.  Those who honor our roots are the original
> Liberal-Democrats.  Marxism came along later and gave rise to a new way of
> thinking.  Strict Marxism was taken up in the USSR.  A modified form
called
> the Welfare State was taken up in Europe
> 
> Mike's America is either Russian or European, I can't tell which.
> 
> Also, the moral equivalence assertion that you voice is obviously
> anti-American.  It is so by definition.  Marxist radicalism is not
America.
> It is not an America that is passing away because it has never been
America.
> Without doubt we have had and still have a vocal Leftist presence in
> America, but it is only America in the sense that we allow it free speech.
> It isn't America.  
> 
> 
> Lawrence 
> 


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