Syria Is a Pseudo-Struggle

[Rafiq]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/06/syria-pseudo-struggle-egypt




By Slavoj Zizek

All that was false in the idea and practice of humanitarian interventions exploded in a condensed form apropos Syria. OK, there is a bad dictator who is (allegedly) using poisonous gas against the population of his own state – but who is opposing his regime? It seems that whatever remained of the democratic-secular resistance is now more or less drowned in the mess of fundamentalist Islamist groups supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with a strong presence of al-Qaida in the shadows.

As to Bashar al-Assad, his Syria at least pretended to be a secular state, so no wonder Christian and other minorities now tend to take his side against the Sunni rebels. In short, we are dealing with an obscure conflict, vaguely resembling the Libyan revolt against Colonel Gaddafi – there are no clear political stakes, no signs of a broad emancipatory-democratic coalition, just a complex network of religious and ethnic alliances overdetermined by the influence of superpowers (US and western Europe on the one side, Russia and China on the other). In such conditions, any direct military intervention means political madness with incalculable risks – say, what if radical Islamists take over after Assad's fall? So will the US repeat their Afghanistan mistake of arming the future al-Qaida and Taliban cadres?

In such a messy situation, military intervention can only be justified by a short-term self-destructive opportunism. The moral outrage evoked to provide a rational cover for the compulsion-to-intervene ("We cannot allow the use of poisonous gas on civil population!") is fake. Faced with a weird ethics that justifies taking the side of one fundamentalist-criminal group against another, one cannot but sympathise with Ron Paul's reaction to John McCain's advocacy of strong intervention: "With politicians like these, who needs terrorists?"

The situation in Syria should be compared with the one in Egypt. Now that the Egyptian army has decided to break the stalemate and cleanse the public space of the Islamist protesters, and the result is hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead, one should take a step back and focus on the absent third party in the ongoing conflict: where are the agents of the Tahrir Square protests from two years ago? Is their role now not weirdly similar to the role of Muslim Brotherhood back then – that of the surprised impassive observers? With the military coup in Egypt, it seems as if the circle has somehow closed: the protesters who toppled Mubarak, demanding democracy, passively supported a military coup d'etat which abolished democracy … what is going on?

The most common reading was proposed, among others, by Francis Fukuyama: the protest movement that toppled Mubarak was predominantly the revolt of the educated middle class, with the poor workers and farmers reduced to the role of (sympathetic) observers. But once the gates of democracy were open, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose social base is the poor majority, won democratic elections and formed a government dominated by Muslim fundamentalists, so that, understandably, the original core of secular protesters turned against them and was ready to endorse even a military coup as a way to stop them.

But such a simplified vision ignores a key feature of the protest movement: the explosion of heterogeneous organisations (of students, women and workers) in which civil society began to articulate its interests outside the scope of state and religious institutions. This vast network of new social units, much more than the overthrow of Mubarak, is the principal gain of the Arab spring; it is an ongoing process, independent of big political changes like the coup; it goes deeper than the religious/liberal divide.

Even in the case of clearly fundamentalist movements, one should be careful not to miss their social component. The Taliban are regularly presented as a fundamentalist Islamist group enforcing with terror its rule – however, when, in the spring of 2009, they took over the Swat valley in Pakistan, the New York Times reported that they engineered "a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants". If, however, by "taking advantage" of the farmers' plight, the Taliban "[raised] alarm about the risks to Pakistan, which remains largely feudal", what prevented liberal democrats in Pakistan as well as the US from similarly "taking advantage" of this plight and trying to help the landless farmers? The sad implication of this omission is that the feudal forces in Pakistan are the "natural ally" of the liberal democracy … The only way for the civil-democratic protesters to avoid being sidestepped by religious fundamentalists is thus to adopt a much more radical agenda of social and economic emancipation.

And this brings us back to Syria: the ongoing struggle there is ultimately a false one. The only thing to keep in mind is that this pseudo-struggle thrives because of the absent third, a strong radical-emancipatory opposition whose elements were clearly perceptible in Egypt. As we used to say almost half a century ago, one doesn't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows in Syria: towards Afghanistan. Even if Assad somehow wins and stabilises the situation, his victory will probably breed an explosion similar to the Taliban revolution which will sweep over Syria in a couple of years. What can save us from this prospect is only the radicalisation of the struggle for freedom and democracy into a struggle for social and economic justice.

So what is happening in Syria these days? Nothing really special, except that China is one step closer to becoming the world's new superpower while its competitors are eagerly weakening each other.

[khad]

Even in the case of clearly fundamentalist movements, one should be careful not to miss their social component. The Taliban are regularly presented as a fundamentalist Islamist group enforcing with terror its rule – however, when, in the spring of 2009, they took over the Swat valley in Pakistan, the New York Times reported that they engineered "a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants". If, however, by "taking advantage" of the farmers' plight, the Taliban "[raised] alarm about the risks to Pakistan, which remains largely feudal", what prevented liberal democrats in Pakistan as well as the US from similarly "taking advantage" of this plight and trying to help the landless farmers? The sad implication of this omission is that the feudal forces in Pakistan are the "natural ally" of the liberal democracy … Zizek is a jackass again. Does this need its own thread?

If I wanted to read another exegesis on the explosion (literally) of civil society in yet another humpty dump autocratic society/culture, I would turn to the million and one liberal think tank fluff pieces on the subject.

The only way for the civil-democratic protesters to avoid being sidestepped by religious fundamentalists is thus to adopt a much more radical agenda of social and economic emancipation.The only way to survive this is to not get shot by the various men with guns. Or arm yourself and hope for the best. I guess because Zizek considers these things pseudo-struggles, what only matters to him is the struggle over intellectual discourse and not the real bullets ripping real holes in real bodies.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

I thought Lenin told us the only Marxist line in the world labor movement was that war allowed us to see who are social-chauvinists and opportunists.



The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.

Glad the Slovenian Nationalist Freudian cleared that up for us.

[Rafiq]

I guess because Zizek considers these things pseudo-struggles, what only matters to him is the struggle over intellectual discourse and not the real bullets ripping real holes in real bodies.

There is no doubt of the incredibly violent magnitudes of the civil war, by calling the uprising a pseudo-struggle, it is not to say that not enough blood has been spilled, rather, it is a psuedo-struggle within the context of your typical third world struggle against a repressive state, because in this regard, the rebels are directly financed and supported by states like Saudi Arabia, etc. I think the problem is that you hold Zizek on a political level to standards that are too high. I don't regard Zizek as a good Marxist or an archetype for a modern communist, I just think it's important to understand that Zizek's philosophical insights lay the groundwork for politics that are much more radical and revolutionary then that of which he holds himself, like Hegel.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

I also thought Lenin told us civil war is the highest expression of class struggle.


Secondly, civil war is just as much a war as any other. He who accepts the class struggle cannot fail to accept civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and under certain conditions inevitable, continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle. That has been confirmed by every great revolution. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, is to fall into extreme opportunism and renounce the socialist revolution.

Has Zizek fallen into extreme opportunism? lmao

[Rafiq]

Lenins understanding of a civil war is one that was developed long before developments in the world capitalist order, and the nature of capitalist politics occurred that render it untrue. For example, several modern religiously sectarian civil wars, the war in Yugoslavia, civil wars in several African states like Liberia and the congo. These are not struggles between a revolutionary class and it's enemy.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

For example, several modern religiously sectarian civil wars, the war in Yugoslavia, civil wars in several African states like Liberia and the congo.

You mean the conflict in Yugoslavia had nothing to do with class struggle? The Congo (forget Che)?

lmao

[Rafiq]

The Congo (forget Che)?

lmao

You dare laugh at my post, you stupid piece of worthless shit? Explain to me what Che Guevara has to do with the ongoing conflict in the Congo. Explain to me how the Yugoslav war was a class struggle between the proletariat and it's class enemies. Fucking explain, moron. You sit here and mock me and yet you're a complete, and utterly worthless dipshit.

[Teacher]

Zizek is such gasbag

[Per Levy]

You mean the conflict in Yugoslavia had nothing to do with class struggle? The Congo (forget Che)?

lmao

dont anger rafiq, and espeically dont throw anything idealistic his way or he'll eat you alive.

[khad]

This article is the epitome of idealistic jackassery. Are we going to keep deluding ourselves that there's a radical third option in Egypt? This flimsy fiction has been exposed for all its worthlessness in Syria, which gives rise to this latest bout of Zizek's windbaggery, but to suggest that an inchoate flowering of civil society after the events of Tahrir square is going to rescue Egypt with radical social and economic emancipation is wishful thinking at best.

It should come as no shock that the groups with a coherent ideological program AND weapons are dictating the shape of political events.

[Rafiq]

It is idealist only insofar that it disregards any form of a class analysis and replaces it with stressing the need for a "radical emancipatory position". None the less, there is a radical third option in Egypt, whether it is likely to succeed in it's aims is another story altogether. The groups that are shaping political events today do not do so because they have a coherent ideological program, they do so because they, one way or another represent the regional interests of a strong imperialist power.

Zizek's position may be wishful thinking, but then again, the existence of a conscious proletariat in Syria is wishful thinking. It is so incredibly unlikely, and yet it is the only option we could ever hope to exist or support. But that's the problem itself, isn't it? Our support is irrelevant. Which is why the only hope for countries like Syria, or even Egypt coincides with our struggle for power here, in the first world, which at the moment isn't looking to good (or even existent).

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

You dare laugh at my post, you stupid piece of worthless shit? Explain to me what Che Guevara has to do with the ongoing conflict in the Congo. Explain to me how the Yugoslav war was a class struggle between the proletariat and it's class enemies. Fucking explain, moron. You sit here and mock me and yet you're a complete, and utterly worthless dipshit.

U mad bro?

lmao

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

Which is why the only hope for countries like Syria, or even Egypt coincides with our struggle for power here, in the first world, which at the moment isn't looking to good (or even existent).

Hilarious!

So the few thousand self-described "socialists" "anarchists" "Trotskyists" and "Marxists" here are the only hope for those "unconscious" Arabs?

They're pretty fucked then, I'd say. lmao

Social-chauvinism and opportunism knows no bounds, it seems.

[Rafiq]

You have the nerve to talk of social chauvinism and opportunism when you sit here and support a side of an inter imperialist proxy war? How ironic is that?

The proletariat of the first world does not amount to what remains of a dead left. Revolutionary consciousness is not an ideological imposition, but a natural result of capitalisms contradictions, an unveiling of their conscious interests by the revolutionary intelligentsia.

[Thirsty Crow]

I just think it's important to understand that Zizek's philosophical insights lay the groundwork for politics that are much more radical and revolutionary then that of which he holds himself, like Hegel.
If only it were clear how exactly Žižek's philosophical mumbo jumbo lay the groundwork for this obviously non-philosophical piece, it'd be great.


Revolutionary consciousness is not an ideological imposition, but a natural result of capitalisms contradictions, an unveiling of their conscious interests by the revolutionary intelligentsia.So the intelligentsia is a class on its own and has interests which need to be unveiled? Interesting. How does this class stand in relation to the working class?

Oh yeah, I think that the notion of historically embedded deep class interests (presumably veiled with...what, false consciousness?) obviously belongs to the dustbin of the history of ideas.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

You have the nerve to talk of social chauvinism and opportunism when you sit here and support a side of an inter imperialist proxy war?Why not take sides?

Marx took a side in the Amerikan Civil War. The new waves of European immigrants were busy stealing land from the indigenous people, and fought a war with Mexico to take a huge amount of their territory. The Republican Party was created out of its "Free Soil" 'mass-line' program.



At the same time, under Buchanan's government the severer law on the surrendering of fugitive slaves enacted in 1850 was ruthlessly carried out in the states of the North. To play the part of slave-catchers for the Southern slaveholders appeared to be the constitutional calling of the North. On the other hand, in order to hinder as far as possible the colonisation of the Territories by free settlers, the slaveholders' party frustrated all the so-called free-soil measures, i.e., measures which were to secure for the settlers a definite amount of uncultivated state land free of charge.

The Republican Party put forward its first platform for the presidential election in 1856. Although its candidate, John Fremont, was not victorious, the huge number of votes cast for him at any rate proved the rapid growth of the Party, particularly in the North-west. At their second National Convention for the presidential election (May 17, 1860), the Republicans again put forward their platform of 1856, only enriched by some additions. Its principal contents were the following: Not a foot of fresh territory is further conceded to slavery. The filibustering policy abroad must cease. The reopening of the slave trade is stigmatised. Finally, free-soil laws are to be enacted for the furtherance of free colonisation.

The Republican Party would be like those in Israel today, calling for a Greater Israel. If Israel is ever going to ween itself off Amerikan taxpayer money, it needs a lot of people it can dominate and exploit.

Yet Marx still sided with one set of murderous European conquerers against another.

In the case of Syria, it looks more like siding with indigenous natives against a murderous settler expansion. Or maybe siding with Mexico against the Republic of Texas, lmao.

[Thirsty Crow]

Why not take sides?

Is your only rationale behind this "Marx did it lmao"?

[synthesis]

Social-chauvinism and opportunism knows no bounds, it seems.

Not sure if you actually know what these words mean.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

Is your only rationale behind this "Marx did it lmao"?

With Marx it actually seems a bit more dicey to take a side in the Amerikan Civil War. The Republican Party clearly didn't give a damn about slavery. It only wanted to keep its social-base (the new hordes of European immigrants dreaming of killing some native for his land) happy. Which meant keeping Africans out of the newly stolen territories.

With Syria, it seems much more clean cut. The whole "revolution" is nothing but a fraud, supported by Amerikan imperialism, Israel, and the most reactionary fascist puppet regimes in the Arab world. The Syrian government actually sees itself as socialist too, which one would think would make it easier to defend than even Republican Spain (though I guess there are plenty of 'radicals' who take a pox-on-both-your-houses approach to that seminal conflict as well, lmao).

The so-called "rebels" seem about as progressive as Dominion Theologists here. The idea of 'leftists' here cheering on a horde of murderous Bible-thumping Christians hopped up on Pat Robertson sermons about gays wearing special rings to infect people with AIDS seems bizarre, but that is what it looks like they're doing in Syria! lmao

[Thirsty Crow]

With Syria, it seems much more clean cut. The whole "revolution" is nothing but a fraud, supported by Amerikan imperialism, Israel, and the most reactionary fascist puppet regimes in the Arab world. The Syrian government actually sees itself as socialist too, which one would think would make it easier to defend than even Republican Spain (though I guess there are plenty of 'radicals' who take a pox-on-both-your-houses approach to that seminal conflict as well, lmao).

So, to sum up the argument:

1) Marx did it lmao

2) the Syrian government calls itself socialist

3) opposition to both sides clearly implies cheering for Amerikkka and fundamentalists.

Boy. It's too late and I don't have the strength to deal with this crap.

[G4b3n]

You dare laugh at my post, you stupid piece of worthless shit? Explain to me what Che Guevara has to do with the ongoing conflict in the Congo. Explain to me how the Yugoslav war was a class struggle between the proletariat and it's class enemies. Fucking explain, moron. You sit here and mock me and yet you're a complete, and utterly worthless dipshit.

Well that was a bit rude. :glare:
I must say, elitist assholes are the bane of the socialist movement.

[Decolonize The Left]

Well that was a bit rude. :glare:

Indeed. But he is getting trolled pretty hard by lmao Comrade Sun Wukong lmao Amerika.

[blake 3:17]

I think Zizek is right on this one.

[blake 3:17]

You dare laugh at my post, you stupid piece of worthless shit? Explain to me what Che Guevara has to do with the ongoing conflict in the Congo. Explain to me how the Yugoslav war was a class struggle between the proletariat and it's class enemies. Fucking explain, moron. You sit here and mock me and yet you're a complete, and utterly worthless dipshit.

Super Not Cool. Don't use this kind of abusive language here. Do not refer to other posters as 'worthless' or 'shit'. Got it?

[#FF0000]

tbh even though i like the cut of his job cmrde sun wukong oughta be warned too lol

[synthesis]

Super Not Cool. Don't use this kind of abusive language here. Do not refer to other posters as 'worthless' or 'shit'. Got it?

To be fair, Rafiq's post made me laugh much harder than any of the Comrade's posts, and the only purpose of a troll is to be funny, so it seems like Mr. Wukong has been bested in that respect. (Not saying Rafiq is a troll - he's not - just that Wukong is both a troll and not funny, which really negates any reason for him to be here.)

[Devrim]

I think that this is the first piece that I have ever read by Žižek. To be honest I wish I hadn't bothered. What do people see in him?

Devrim

[Devrim]

To be fair, Rafiq's post made me laugh much harder than any of the Comrade's posts

But were you laughing with him or at him?

Devrim

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Amerikan imperialism


Amerikan


Amerika

:rolleyes:

Here we go again with this shit.

Comparing Assad with republican Spain? Is this guy daft?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Re: Comrade Sun Wukong (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=106765)

That's some whack "anti-imperialism" you have going on, supporting Russian/Chinese capital and the Assad crony-capitalist clique. Obviously, for communists in the West, resisting U$-and-friends imperialism is paramount, but that doesn't mean going to bat for the Baathists. I'm sure you're familiar with proletarian internationalism, conceptually speaking? You know, where we side with the workers against capitalists of all stripes
I hardly see why we need to ape Marx in his own worst moments of failing to analyze the relationship between white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and American capital. In this case, you're failing to see the primary contradiction between the Syrian masses and inter-imperialist (proxy) war. The Baathists are about as authentic an expression of proletarian class interests as "socialism with Chinese characteristics".

[blake 3:17]

Zizek's Less Than Nothing is a masterpiece.

His talk at OWS blew my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu9BWlcRwPQ

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

Obviously, for communists in the West, resisting U$-and-friends imperialism is paramount, but that doesn't mean going to bat for the Baathists.

To quote Trotsky:



I will take the most simple and obvious example. In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat. Truly, one must have an empty head to reduce world antagonisms and military conflicts to the struggle between fascism and democracy. Under all masks one must know how to distinguish exploiters, slave-owners, and robbers!

To quote Stalin:



The same must be said of the revolutionary character of national movements in general. The unquestionably revolutionary character of the vast majority of national movements is as relative and peculiar as is the possible revolutionary character of certain particular national movements. The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such "desperate" democrats and "Socialists," "revolutionaries" and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its results was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism. For the same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British "Labour" Government is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they are "for" socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other, larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a revolutionary step.

But Amerikan "Leftists" have much more in common with their own imperialists than anything else. The Amerikan "Left" is just a bunch of Bernstein's waiting in the wings.


I'm sure you're familiar with proletarian internationalism, conceptually speaking? You know, where we side with the workers against capitalists of all stripesThe Labor Aristocratic "workers" don't give a shit about fighting their own imperialists, and are more than happy to help them enslave workers in other nations.


I hardly see why we need to ape Marx in his own worst moments of failing to analyze the relationship between white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and American capital.Marxists take sides in all civil wars, because all civil wars are the height of class struggle. Civil war is revolution, in its most powerful expression. To not take a side is an opportunist and social-chauvinist lie; it means letting the imperialists do whatever they want.


In this case, you're failing to see the primary contradiction between the Syrian masses and inter-imperialist (proxy) war.The primary contradiction is always between US imperialism and the rest of the world. This is a fact acknowledged by everyone, except the opportunist and social-chauvinist "Left."


The Baathists are about as authentic an expression of proletarian class interests as "socialism with Chinese characteristics".Socialism with Chinese characteristics is still more authentic than almost the entirety of the so-called "Left" in Amerika and the West, who cheerlead every single imperialist invasion, and use all sorts of worthless phrase-mongering gibberish to justify their disgusting Euro-chauvinism (aka racism).

[Ann Egg]

Over a hundred thousand dead is not a struggle? stupid idiot zizek should get bent

[Tim Redd]

I also thought Lenin told us civil war is the highest expression of class struggle.



Has Zizek fallen into extreme opportunism? lmao Anyone who writes as Zizek recently did that that the nature of a program for a proposed communist party is neither fascism or communism is an idiot.

[Rafiq]

If only it were clear how exactly Žižek's philosophical mumbo jumbo lay the groundwork for this obviously non-philosophical piece, it'd be great.

Well, if you initially dismiss it as mumbo jumbo, then you're not going to see much in it anyway, and I think the same goes for philosophy in general. As a philosopher, Zizek has stated he doesn't have answers, just the ability to compel us to ask the right questions. When you understand his work in this way, it's different. Secondly, I don't think Zizek's "philosophical mumbo jumbo" has much at all to do with this simple, political piece which anyone could have written. That doesn't mean it's not worth sharing.


So the intelligentsia is a class on its own and has interests which need to be unveiled? Interesting. How does this class stand in relation to the working class?

Oh yeah, I think that the notion of historically embedded deep class interests (presumably veiled with...what, false consciousness?) obviously belongs to the dustbin of the history of ideas.


I wouldn't consider the intelligentsia as a class on it's own. Kautsky and Lenin categorized them, in many cases as more advanced members of the proletarian class, intellectuals. They also saw the potential for non-proletarian intellectuals to take the role of the revolutionary intelligentsia, as obviously both of them were not of proletarian background (actually, I am quite unsure of Kautsky's background before his ascension to politics).

I have no idea of what you mean to say by "historically embedded" class interests. The existence of class interests is not something that was planted into each class before, it is an active process that coincides with the dynamics of social relations. So long as the proletarian remains a class, within the capitalist mode of production, it will have it's own class interest that is able to form organically. But the problem resides with two facts, one, the proletariat has absolutely no potential for laying the social framework of a new order within the capitalist mode of production, like the bourgeoisie did, as a means of pursuing it's class interests, and two, it can only ever organically form a trade-union consciousness which has historically been proven ineffective in bringing about a revolution. The interests of the proletariat as a class are very real, the problem is that they don't have a social interest within the framework of the capitalist mode of production and therefore require sophisticated and disciplined organization in order to overthrow the state. The bourgeoisie didn't need to build such organization because they as a class had solidified their interests within the confines of Feudalism, changing the mode of production itself and then moving forward to a political revolution. I'm not an expert, though, and there's still a lot for us to learn.

[Rafiq]

Over a hundred thousand dead is not a struggle? stupid idiot zizek should get bent

Not within the context of a struggle worth fighting for, no. That's what he means.

[servusmoderni]

I don't think Syria's a pseudo-struggle. It's the main connection between Iran, Iraq and the Mediterranean. General Wesley Clark predicted it however. Here we go again for some Iraq-style propaganda. :glare:

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I was just unfrozen from cryo-sleep, and haven't figured out that the cold war is over.

A proxy war between imperialists isn't an anti-imperialist struggle. "Actually existing socialism" is over. The difference between selling oil to the PR¢ and selling oil to the U$A is nada.

Yeah, American Communists need to be fighting hard against American intervention, and calling for their defeat in the event an intervention occurs. That doesn't mean pretending Assad is anything but a comprador stooge. As for "letting the Imperialists do what they want" - hardly!

Let's back away from the MIM-rehash politics for a second and look at this in concrete terms: What can American communists do oppose American imperialism? Lots. The fact is, Americans are well placed, geopolitically, to oppose American imperialism (whether or not they can be made to get off their asses and do so is, I confess, another matter). What can American communists do to support Assad? For all intents and purposes, nothing. They could send their whole shitty paychecks to the Ba'ath party and it'd be a drop in the ocean. At best they could spout nonsense like what you're spouting now . . . but, if anything, acting as propaganda mouthpieces tailing lackeys of Russian and Chinese capital will do more to set back any real struggle than push it forward.

It's like, shit yo, I know that the bulk of the proletariat is increasingly "third-world" (problematic terminology - whatever) women. I know that many or most of the white workers in the first world are bought off with the superprofits of imperialism. Like, you don't need to get all "I make Butch Lee look like the CPU$A" at me. The thing is, none of this (not even the quotes you dredged up from Tweedledum and and Tweedledee) leads to the stupid conclusion you're drawing that supporting Assad is anti-imperialist any more than Ayatollah Khomeini was an a hero of the international working class (sorry Foucault, you goofed that one).

[blake 3:17]

@TGDU- Ernest Mandel made the same mistake on Iran. Also worth remembering that Foucault was a Zionist.

[ckaihatsu]

Lenins understanding of a civil war is one that was developed long before developments in the world capitalist order, and the nature of capitalist politics occurred that render it untrue.


*Or* -- perhaps there's simply a distinction to be made between Lenin's 'civil war' (the class-revolutionary one), and the intra-capitalist factional type (U.S. civil war, etc.).





For example, several modern religiously sectarian civil wars, the war in Yugoslavia, civil wars in several African states like Liberia and the congo. These are not struggles between a revolutionary class and it's enemy.

[ckaihatsu]

If only it were clear how exactly Žižek's philosophical mumbo jumbo lay the groundwork for this obviously non-philosophical piece, it'd be great.




So the intelligentsia is a class on its own and has interests which need to be unveiled? Interesting. How does this class stand in relation to the working class?


No, those workers who can best articulate class conscious interests are the proletariat's intelligensia, in the best sense of the word -- there's no separation or other distinction aside from its political white-collar-ness, so to speak.





Oh yeah, I think that the notion of historically embedded deep class interests (presumably veiled with...what, false consciousness?) obviously belongs to the dustbin of the history of ideas.


I'm frankly surprised to hear this from you, LR -- don't people have objective class interests based on their relationship to the means of mass production -- ? (And, yes, 'false consciousness' is common, wherever people who work for wages identify not with the proletariat but with segments of bourgeois interests.)

[ckaihatsu]

Why not take sides?

Marx took a side in the Amerikan Civil War.


Good point.





The new waves of European immigrants were busy stealing land from the indigenous people, and fought a war with Mexico to take a huge amount of their territory. The Republican Party was created out of its "Free Soil" 'mass-line' program.




The Republican Party would be like those in Israel today, calling for a Greater Israel. If Israel is ever going to ween itself off Amerikan taxpayer money, it needs a lot of people it can dominate and exploit.

Yet Marx still sided with one set of murderous European conquerers against another.




In the case of Syria, it looks more like siding with indigenous natives against a murderous settler expansion. Or maybe siding with Mexico against the Republic of Texas, lmao.


In the case of Syria, the most *imminent* and *largest* threats should be dealt with first, and that means keeping all Western, NATO types the fuck out. LCCs in Syria, while 'grassroots' and commendable, seem to have their priorities misaligned right now -- I've seen reports that some LCCs welcome U.S. intervention and think that the country will be doing them 'a solid' just because the U.S. has the same colors as Superman. (In other words, I don't know why -- one LCC spokesperson couldn't shift her focus away from Assad, despite the now-changed geopolitical circumstances.)

[ckaihatsu]

With Marx it actually seems a bit more dicey to take a side in the Amerikan Civil War. The Republican Party clearly didn't give a damn about slavery. It only wanted to keep its social-base (the new hordes of European immigrants dreaming of killing some native for his land) happy. Which meant keeping Africans out of the newly stolen territories.





I hardly see why we need to ape Marx in his own worst moments of failing to analyze the relationship between white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and American capital.


No *empirical* disagreements here, but CSW's theoretical point about having to take a side in *some* inter-imperialist conflicts still stands -- so, in the U.S. Civil War, revolutionaries would see the North as more historically progressive due to its superseding of the slavery mode of production, and its relatively advanced industrialization.

[Rafiq]

*Or* -- perhaps there's simply a distinction to be made between Lenin's 'civil war' (the class-revolutionary one), and the intra-capitalist factional type (U.S. civil war, etc.).

The U.S. civil war was between that of the slaveowning and industrial capitalist class. Two different classes.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

No *empirical* disagreements here, but CSW's theoretical point about having to take a side in *some* inter-imperialist conflicts still stands -- so, in the U.S. Civil War, revolutionaries would see the North as more historically progressive due to its superseding of the slavery mode of production, and its relatively advanced industrialization.

Ugh - I hate this reductionist version of the civil war that erases black struggle from the narrative entirely. A black guerrilla was seriously emerging, even before the war, in the Underground Railroad, slave insurrections, maroon colonies, etc. Ultimately, of course, most of the black nation throws its lot in with the North, making victory decisive, but that doesn't mean we should conflate the two. Case in point, after the war though, we get black reconstruction which is ultimately smashed by the so-called Redeemers, with the complicity of the North. So, who were the "progressive" forces in the civil war? Do we go with the bourgeois white supremacist historians who say "Well, the Union fought for the liberation of the slaves"? Of course not! The black nation fought for its own liberation, and erasing this history is good old fashioned liberalism.

This is the same way in which CSW's analysis falls flat on its face. In CSW's rush to pick one of two sides, the working class is erased; faux-anti-imperialism picks one imperialist camp over the other at the cost of the working class.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

A proxy war between imperialists isn't an anti-imperialist struggle. "Actually existing socialism" is over. The difference between selling oil to the PR¢ and selling oil to the U$A is nada.Russia is a Third-World country, not an imperialist power. Social-chauvinist and opportunist sections of the Western "Left" will say anything to give their own imperialists political cover.


Yeah, American Communists need to be fighting hard against American intervention, and calling for their defeat in the event an intervention occurs. That doesn't mean pretending Assad is anything but a comprador stooge. As for "letting the Imperialists do what they want" - hardly!The idea that Assad is a "comprador stooge" coming from the Labor Aristocratic "Left" is laughable, considering the Syrian government is actually fighting US imperialism.


What can American communists do oppose American imperialism? Lots.Except Amerikans won't do anything. Especially not the Labor Aristocratic "Left," the only thing they're doing is going to anti-war rallies and telling the masses how evil Assad is. They do this in order to give cover for their own imperialists. And they do this to cover for Zionism.


I know that many or most of the white workers in the first world are bought off with the superprofits of imperialism.lol, you "know" this like a Christian preacher who doesn't believe in God, surely.


leads to the stupid conclusion you're drawing that supporting Assad is anti-imperialist any more than Ayatollah Khomeini was an a hero of the international working classAssad is an anti-imperialist, an anti-Zionist, and a socialist. The Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" is none of these. They're just hired thugs of the imperialists, doing their dirty work for them in the mass movements. Like slave-drivers on a plantation.

[Thirsty Crow]

I'm frankly surprised to hear this from you, LR -- don't people have objective class interests based on their relationship to the means of mass production -- ? (And, yes, 'false consciousness' is common, wherever people who work for wages identify not with the proletariat but with segments of bourgeois interests.)
I'm not disputing the claim that common social position, arising from the dispossession of the means of production (class monopoly), gives rise to the possibility of common class interest.

But to claim that there are objective interests above and apart from how workers relate to capital necessarily includes the false solution to real problems (workers' passivity, rejection of communist ideas, and so on) - the notion of false consciousness. This seems to me an all encompassing tool which does at least two things:

1) wave away real relations and attribute everything to bad ideas, resulting in

2) the implicitly substitutionist positioning of radical minorities in relation to the class, by implying that true interests are not historically, dynamically formed through struggle and the input of communists, but that those need to be revealed to the mass of workers as a higher truth.

Of course, this does not mean that I reject the need for communist intervention, or the need for clarification on issues such as racism, sexism and so on, or even the recognition that the dominant ideology is a real phenomenon with consequences of its own. But I don't think that the twin notions of objective class interest and false consciousness can help in dealing with this, quite the contrary.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Russia is a Third-World country, not an imperialist power. Social-chauvinist and opportunist sections of the Western "Left" will say anything to give their own imperialists political cover.

LOL. You're kidding, right? Russia has one of the ten largest economies in the world. Russia has staggering inequality, and its development is uneven, but the ruthless successes of the Russian capitalist elites is hardly a basis for calling a country third-world. Pray tell, who are the foreign investors pulling the strings?


The idea that Assad is a "comprador stooge" coming from the Labor Aristocratic "Left" is laughable, considering the Syrian government is actually fighting US imperialism.

Oh? Care to elaborate on that?
Other than the current civil war, what have the Ba'athists done to fight US imperialism this side of the Yom Kippur War?


Except Amerikans won't do anything. Especially not the Labor Aristocratic "Left," the only thing they're doing is going to anti-war rallies and telling the masses how evil Assad is. They do this in order to give cover for their own imperialists. And they do this to cover for Zionism.

Ah, and now comes the wacky conspiracy theory! The American left - stooges of Jewish power-mongers! Brilliant materialism, buddy. I suppose they used their kabbalist magic to conjure the historical conditions of settler-colonialism? That the labour aristocracy not only has a class position, but a definite (Zionist) programmatic political perspective? It's some wonderful magical thinking. It's too bad that class doesn't actually work that way or, you know, all proletarians would be explicit communists.

And, for curiosity sake, where exactly do you live? What is your class position, comrade?


lol, you "know" this like a Christian preacher who doesn't believe in God, surely.

As surely as you know you have a Jim Jones quality monopoly on the Truth. "Just drink the MIMaide!"


Assad is an anti-imperialist, an anti-Zionist, and a socialist. The Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" is none of these. They're just hired thugs of the imperialists, doing their dirty work for them in the mass movements. Like slave-drivers on a plantation.

A critique of the U$ left doesn't make Assad an anti-imperialist or a socialist, and whereas the primary contradiction in the world isn't between Zionism and anti-Zionism, it's hardly a good basis for deciding who our political allies are (though I do like the hats worn by Ultra-Orthodox anti-zionist Jews). So, like, unless you've got a concrete case for Syrian socialism and anti-imperialism, I think you need to chill the fuck out.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm not disputing the claim that common social position, arising from the dispossession of the means of production (class monopoly), gives rise to the possibility of common class interest.


*Only* the 'possibility' -- ??

If common class interest *doesn't* necessarily follow from one's being dispossessed from any control over the means of mass production, then what other criteria are you including -- ?





But to claim that there are objective interests above and apart from how workers relate to capital


No, you're misunderstanding -- I'm saying that how workers relate to capital is *one and the same thing* as their objective interests.





necessarily includes the false solution to real problems (workers' passivity, rejection of communist ideas, and so on) - the notion of false consciousness. This seems to me an all encompassing tool which does at least two things:

1) wave away real relations and attribute everything to bad ideas, resulting in

2) the implicitly substitutionist positioning of radical minorities in relation to the class, by implying that true interests are not historically, dynamically formed through struggle and the input of communists, but that those need to be revealed to the mass of workers as a higher truth.

Of course, this does not mean that I reject the need for communist intervention, or the need for clarification on issues such as racism, sexism and so on, or even the recognition that the dominant ideology is a real phenomenon with consequences of its own.


Agreed.





But I don't think that the twin notions of objective class interest and false consciousness can help in dealing with this, quite the contrary.


Okay, *whatever* -- you can feel free to put forth your case for this, but it's an academic tangent to the main idea here, anyway.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

LOL. You're kidding, right?

The average monthly wage of a Russian male worker in 2002 was $237 a month. The average standard of living for workers in the Russian Federation is much lower than in the West.


Russia has one of the ten largest economies in the world.Lots of poor countries have "large" economies. Lots of very rich countries have "small" economies.


Russia has staggering inequality, and its development is uneven, but the ruthless successes of the Russian capitalist elites is hardly a basis for calling a country third-world.The basis of comparison is the standard of living compared to other Third-World countries.


Pray tell, who are the foreign investors pulling the strings?Many Third-World countries are not dominated by Western imperialism. The Russian Federation is one of them.


Oh? Care to elaborate on that?
Other than the current civil war, what have the Ba'athists done to fight US imperialism this side of the Yom Kippur War?The "Civil War" is almost completely an invasion by foreign powers, complete with foreign fighters. Much like the Spanish Civil War, there would actually be no "civil war" if fascist foreign powers like Amerika, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, weren't shipping in arms and Salafi fanatics. In Spain, the Italian fascists literally sent 70,000 troops into the country, and the fascist uprising was basically dead after a week, with only Nazi Junkers airlifting Moroccans saving Franco's fascist "revolution."


Ah, and now comes the wacky conspiracy theory!Yes, the Amerikan "Left" thinks basic Leninism is a "conspiracy theory." That much is completely evident.


The American left - stooges of Jewish power-mongers! Brilliant materialism, buddy. I suppose they used their kabbalist magic to conjure the historical conditions of settler-colonialism? That the labour aristocracy not only has a class position, but a definite (Zionist) programmatic political perspective? It's some wonderful magical thinking. It's too bad that class doesn't actually work that way or, you know, all proletarians would be explicit communists.Moronic blathering. The "Left" in Amerika has always been explicitly pro-imperialist. There is extensive literature on the Labor Lieutenants (Engels' term) of imperialism in Amerika, dating back decades (check out communist-turned-Labor-Aristocrat Jay Lovestone's The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism (http://archive.org/details/TheLaborLieutenantsOfAmericanImperialism), or the more modern AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hirsch130810.html)). This has been known for a long time. Explicit support for all murderous bombing campaigns by the US military has been the position of the Labor Aristocracy for over a century, predating the Bolshevik Revolution.

This Labor Aristocracy's support of the Zionist-settler project is no more controversial than was its explicit support of the murderous genocide carried out against the Vietnamese. There is no "conspiracy." The Labor Aristocracy is a sociological fact. Modern capitalism simply can not function without it. The Labor Aristocracy is the instrument of the bourgeoisie's influence on the working class. This is all straight out of Lenin, who I'm sure the vast majority of the Labor Aristocratic "Left" would indeed like to write-off as a "conspiracy theory."


A critique of the U$ left doesn't make Assad an anti-imperialist or a socialistCutting through the lies of the Amerikan "Left" is vital to see the world as it actually is. Bashar al-Assad's government is no different than Maduro's. The National Progressive Front of Syria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Progressive_Front_%28Syria%29) is equivalent in every way to Venezuela's ruling PSUV. Only the Amerikan "Left" pretends otherwise, though most of them hate Chavez and Maduro just as much as they hate Assad and every other leader who ever mounted an effective socialist challenge to imperialist governments of Amerika and Europe.


and whereas the primary contradiction in the world isn't between Zionism and anti-ZionismIt is in Syria. This whole conflict exposes nearly the entire Amerikan "Left" as nothing but shills for the Zionist Euro-Settler project.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The average monthly wage of a Russian male worker in 2002 was $237 a month. The average standard of living for workers in the Russian Federation is much lower than in the West.

Lots of poor countries have "large" economies. Lots of very rich countries have "small" economies.

The basis of comparison is the standard of living compared to other Third-World countries.

Many Third-World countries are not dominated by Western imperialism. The Russian Federation is one of them.


The difference between first and third world has to do with the levels of production, not income distribution. The US has many workers who are paid very poorly, but it is still a first world country, and some third world countries have very low income inequality because the means of production are limited.

Russia is an Imperialist country and has a very productive economy. It is true that the workers in Russia are very poorly paid, but it has the infrastructure and industry necessary to make it first world. It also depends on the production of foreign nations to maintain this level of productivity, and exploits other nations for this purpose, making it Imperialistic. To say that Russia is some poor 3rd world country which does not have Imperialist policies is a very ignorant position which minimizes the negative impact of the Russian state on various populations in the former Soviet bloc which are in effect Russia's colonies.


Moronic blathering. The "Left" in Amerika has always been explicitly pro-imperialist. There is extensive literature on the Labor Lieutenants (Engels' term) of imperialism in Amerika, dating back decades (check out communist-turned-Labor-Aristocrat Jay Lovestone's The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism (http://archive.org/details/TheLaborLieutenantsOfAmericanImperialism), or the more modern AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hirsch130810.html)). This has been known for a long time. Explicit support for all murderous bombing campaigns by the US military has been the position of the Labor Aristocracy for over a century, predating the Bolshevik Revolution.The fact that you reduce the "American Left" to the AFL-CIO shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

Do workers often support Imperialism in 3rd world countries because it is in their economic benefit? In a sense, though they often don't know it. Does that make the whole left pro-Imperialist? Hardly. Perhaps you're not aware of the large anti-war movements which emerged during, say, Vietnam?


Cutting through the lies of the Amerikan "Left" is vital to see the world as it actually is. Bashar al-Assad's government is no different than Maduro's. The National Progressive Front of Syria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Progressive_Front_%28Syria%29) is equivalent in every way to Venezuela's ruling PSUV. Only the Amerikan "Left" pretends otherwise, though most of them hate Chavez and Maduro just as much as they hate Assad and every other leader who ever mounted an effective socialist challenge to imperialist governments of Amerika and Europe.
Except the PSUV doesn't need to use its army to kill protesters to maintain power. The so-called "popular front" of the Syrian government is just a set of parties cajoled into joining the Baathist block because there is no opportunity to operate as a legitimate opposition party. The Baath party itself is not a "socially progressive" party but a party of military and economic elites who have not used popular means historically to hold on to power.


It is in Syria. This whole conflict exposes nearly the entire Amerikan "Left" as nothing but shills for the Zionist Euro-Settler project. Uhm not really ... it is a struggle between the Baathist state, the military/economic elite and non-Sunni minorities on one side with some secular Sunnis thrown in, and a broad array of anti-regime activists on the other, many of whom are just as if not more vehemently anti-Israel than the State.

Reducing any struggle in the Middle East to one between Zionism and anti-Zionism is just closet antisemitism. Is Zionism a problem for the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and the refugee population? Sure. Does that make every middle eastern conflict one between zionists and anti-zionists? No.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

The difference between first and third world has to do with the levels of production, not income distribution.Nonsense. First-World "workers" produce almost nothing at all. What they do is consume the commodities made by the productive labor of Third-World workers.

In terms of consumption of the commodities produced globally, Russian workers live a lifestyle more in accordance with workers of the Third-World than the non-productive "workers" of the First-World.



Russia is an Imperialist country and has a very productive economy.Russia is not an imperialist country. The economy of the Russian Federation is not sustained by extracting super-profit from other countries, nor do Russian workers earn a super-wage, unlike Amerika. The Russian Federation has no colonies to extract surplus value from.


The fact that you reduce the "American Left" to the AFL-CIO shows that you don't know what you're talking about.The Amerikan "Left" is nothing more than an appendage of the labor movement. This is obvious to anyone who has any experience with the labor movement in Amerika. Most "Left" groups in Amerika advertise their union membership as a way to attract recruits, and most of them see their activity as primarily union based. Sure, there are some tiny seclets that only organize protests in Second-Life, but most of them concentrate their activity within the labor movement, and have done so historically.


Does that make the whole left pro-Imperialist? Hardly.Except one only need to read what they actually write, and follow the history of these organizations to realize exactly the opposite is the case. Only a handful of "Left" organizations in Amerika have ever taken principled stands against Amerikan imperialism.


Perhaps you're not aware of the large anti-war movements which emerged during, say, Vietnam?The protests in 2003-2004 were much larger. Hundreds of thousands of people came out to oppose the war. The whole anti-war movement was completely orchestrated by the Demokratic Party. This is extensively documentated (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mheaney/Partisan_Dynamics_of_Contention.pdf). And yes, this anti-war "movement" served the purpose of justifying bourgeois narratives. Just as does the "Left" today, through it's mealy-mouthed pseudo anti-imperialism and open support for Salafi Fascists.


Except the PSUV doesn't need to use its army to kill protesters to maintain power.As anyone who watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id--ZFtjR5c) knows, this is not the case at all. Venezuela could easily be the target of a Syrian-style "revolution." There are plenty of would-be Contras waiting in the wings, most of them undoubtedly would come from Colombia, like The Black Eagles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Eagles) in Colombia.


The so-called "popular front" of the Syrian government is just a set of parties cajoled into joining the Baathist block because there is no opportunity to operate as a legitimate opposition party. The Baath party itself is not a "socially progressive" party but a party of military and economic elites who have not used popular means historically to hold on to power.The Arab Socialist Baath Party is overwhelmingly popular. Hundreds of thousands of people (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7zFUaDOPCE) come out in the street to support Assad, against the murderous terrorist forces being sent to Syria by Amerika, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It has shown just how popular it is by resisting this force for two years. It is more popular than any "Left" group has ever been in Amerika or Western Europe.


Uhm not reallyYes, really. The vast majority of the Salafi-terrorists in Syria are of foreign origin. They are flooding in from all over the world, including from places like Saudi prisons (http://www.globalresearch.ca/saudi-arabia-death-row-inmates-sent-to-fight-assad-in-syria/5349416). That you want to pretend otherwise shows just how much of the bourgeois narrative of events you're willing to propagate. The "Left" in Amerika wants desperately people to believe this is some sort of "revolutionary" struggle against a "dictator," when it is nothing more than a invasion by hordes of Western-financed fascists against a secular, progressive, socialist government. It is as if the Amerikan "Left" had went back in time and started telling people to support Franco's "revolution" against the "dictators" in Republican Spain.



Reducing any struggle in the Middle East to one between Zionism and anti-Zionism is just closet antisemitism."Anti-semitism" doesn't mean anything when applied to the Euro-Settlers in Israel. The majority of Jews in Israel are neither Semites, nor religious.


Is Zionism a problem for the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and the refugee population? Sure. Does that make every middle eastern conflict one between zionists and anti-zionists? NoThat Israel is deeply involved in this conflict and pushing it forward is obvious to anyone paying attention. Only the Labor Aristocratic "Left" wants people to believe otherwise, because ultimately, their real solidarity extends to their Euro-Settler brethren.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The average monthly wage of a Russian male worker in 2002 was $237 a month. The average standard of living for workers in the Russian Federation is much lower than in the West.

According to wikipedia, the average monthly wage in Russia is 27,153 RUB (or just over $825/month) - over three times what you claim. Other sources I was able to find put the monthly wage even somewhat higher than that. What is your source?


Lots of poor countries have "large" economies. Lots of very rich countries have "small" economies.

Sure, but Russia also has significant capital for export, a developed industrial economy, a banking sector, a significant middle class, etc., etc. Hell, even if you stretch the logic of "third worldism" or world systems analysis it's "second world" or "semi-peripheral" (by which logic, so is fucking Canada, which is, on the face of it, stupid).


The basis of comparison is the standard of living compared to other Third-World countries.

Many Third-World countries are not dominated by Western imperialism. The Russian Federation is one of them.

Standard of living of whom? Under what circumstances? Using what markers?
There are communities throughout the "first world" living in "third world" conditions - it doesn't make those countries third world. The fact is, Russia isn't a colonized country. Its working class, on the whole, isn't super-exploited by global capital. You're grasping at straws to prop up crass American-exceptionalism.

You also seem to lack a coherent or consistent theoretical basis for what constitutes the "third world".


The "Civil War" is almost completely an invasion by foreign powers, complete with foreign fighters. Much like the Spanish Civil War, there would actually be no "civil war" if fascist foreign powers like Amerika, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, weren't shipping in arms and Salafi fanatics. In Spain, the Italian fascists literally sent 70,000 troops into the country, and the fascist uprising was basically dead after a week, with only Nazi Junkers airlifting Moroccans saving Franco's fascist "revolution."

OK, for one, in the case of the Spanish Civil War, would it have been correct to toe the Comintern line on war first, then revolution? To rally to the Republic, even once it was arresting anarchists and communists? Just for point of historical record, how did that pan out? (Hint: Poorly)

In any case, you avoided answering my question: What has Syria done to stand up to Imperialism this side of the Yom Kippur war?


Yes, the Amerikan "Left" thinks basic Leninism is a "conspiracy theory." That much is completely evident.

Leninism is not rooted in accusing the labour aristocracy of being part of ZOG.


Moronic blathering. The "Left" in Amerika has always been explicitly pro-imperialist. There is extensive literature on the Labor Lieutenants (Engels' term) of imperialism in Amerika, dating back decades (check out communist-turned-Labor-Aristocrat Jay Lovestone's The Labor Lieutenants of American Imperialism (http://archive.org/details/TheLaborLieutenantsOfAmericanImperialism), or the more modern AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hirsch130810.html)). This has been known for a long time. Explicit support for all murderous bombing campaigns by the US military has been the position of the Labor Aristocracy for over a century, predating the Bolshevik Revolution.

So, again, this proves Assad is worthy of our support . . . how?


This Labor Aristocracy's support of the Zionist-settler project is no more controversial than was its explicit support of the murderous genocide carried out against the Vietnamese. There is no "conspiracy." The Labor Aristocracy is a sociological fact. Modern capitalism simply can not function without it. The Labor Aristocracy is the instrument of the bourgeoisie's influence on the working class. This is all straight out of Lenin, who I'm sure the vast majority of the Labor Aristocratic "Left" would indeed like to write-off as a "conspiracy theory."

Yeah, yeah, I don't need a lecture: you're not actually grappling with my point.


Cutting through the lies of the Amerikan "Left" is vital to see the world as it actually is. Bashar al-Assad's government is no different than Maduro's. The National Progressive Front of Syria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Progressive_Front_%28Syria%29) is equivalent in every way to Venezuela's ruling PSUV.

Ah, yes, Syria's Ba'athist Bolivarian councils. The experiments in direct neighbourhood democracy. The Ba'ath party's mass base in the struggles of the most oppressed sections of the Syrian People. How could I have forgotten? :rolleyes:


Only the Amerikan "Left" pretends otherwise, though most of them hate Chavez and Maduro just as much as they hate Assad and every other leader who ever mounted an effective socialist challenge to imperialist governments of Amerika and Europe.

THEM! THEM! THEM!
Comrade, you still haven't told us about where you're from or your class background. I find this suspicious.

Anyway, you still have yet to say anything that establishes Assad's socialist pedigree.


It is in Syria. This whole conflict exposes nearly the entire Amerikan "Left" as nothing but shills for the Zionist Euro-Settler project.

Wait, really?
I just want to get this straight:
You believe the primary contradiction in Syria is between Zionism and Anti-Zionism?

Nothin' like liquidating the class into the nation.

[Rafiq]

It would be a mistake to describe the ba'ath party as it exists to be left wing even in the bourgeois nationalist sense. Syria is not the carcass of a left wing state like Cuba or north Korea. The Ba'ath government is incredibly reactionary, opportunist and anti Semitic in the modernist sense. The Syrian state hosted David Duke with open arms. How do you justify that? David Fucking Duke. As soon as the Eastern Bloc fell, the Syrians did everything they could to align with American Imperialist interests. It was only after they were rejected that they started their bullshit 'anti imperialist' sentiment.

The Soviets were right not to trust the Syrian state, especially after the Al Assad coup. Syria is a bastion of neoliberalism and international imperialism, the only mistake the state made was aligning with the wrong imperialist bloc. As for it's anti Islamism, one only need look at Iran, one of the most reactionary states in the middle east, and the continued support for Islamist groups like Hezbollah and before Hamas. "But what of all the progressive leftist groups incorporated in the Ba'ath dominated alliance"? Yes, ever heard of the Damascus spring? The still self declared communist parties have long opposed Assad's government, and one even ran against the national alliance as the main opposition party (Peoples will) and unsurprisingly lost. The national alliance is a joke, all members and all parties included have declared that the Ba'ath are the rightful rulers of Syria and their only purpose is to, I don't know, help out. The opposition includes mainly the Peoples Will party and the far right, crypto fascist SSNP. So there's the fucked up politics of Syria for you. And then, as a third, external force who everyone can agree they despise, are the Muslim brothers, barbarians and Islamist thugs.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Nonsense. First-World "workers" produce almost nothing at all. What they do is consume the commodities made by the productive labor of Third-World workers.


Uhm are you on crack? First world workers are constantly producing - everything from agricultural commodities to educated youth to services.



In terms of consumption of the commodities produced globally, Russian workers live a lifestyle more in accordance with workers of the Third-World than the non-productive "workers" of the First-World.
That doesn't make the country third world, and certainly not non-Imperialist. Countries might have areas with third world living conditions, but the country overall has the wealth and productive power to create a liveable society for most. Russia has a post-soviet nuveau riche inequality problem, not a "third world" problem. As for Imperialism, the existence of poverty in a country doesn't make it not Imperialist. Under the Tsars of Russia, most Russians lived a painfully poor existence that would make the lives of modern people in China look relatively comfortable, yet Tsarist Russia was one of the prototypical empires of their time.



Russia is not an imperialist country. The economy of the Russian Federation is not sustained by extracting super-profit from other countries, nor do Russian workers earn a super-wage, unlike Amerika. The Russian Federation has no colonies to extract surplus value from.
Russia exploits a number of countries economically, particularly in the CIS, and itself covers territory which was forcefully incorporated into Russia as colonies and exploited economically, such as Siberia and the Caucuses. Russia is as imperialistic today as it was in 1914.

Also Imperialism is more subtle in the post-WWII era, moreso since the end of



The Amerikan "Left" is nothing more than an appendage of the labor movement. This is obvious to anyone who has any experience with the labor movement in Amerika. Most "Left" groups in Amerika advertise their union membership as a way to attract recruits, and most of them see their activity as primarily union based. Sure, there are some tiny seclets that only organize protests in Second-Life, but most of them concentrate their activity within the labor movement, and have done so historically.

Except one only need to read what they actually write, and follow the history of these organizations to realize exactly the opposite is the case. Only a handful of "Left" organizations in Amerika have ever taken principled stands against Amerikan imperialism.
Why the fuck do you say America with a "k"? For real.



The protests in 2003-2004 were much larger. Hundreds of thousands of people came out to oppose the war. The whole anti-war movement was completely orchestrated by the Demokratic Party. This is extensively documentated (http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Emheaney/Partisan_Dynamics_of_Contention.pdf). And yes, this anti-war "movement" served the purpose of justifying bourgeois narratives. Just as does the "Left" today, through it's mealy-mouthed pseudo anti-imperialism and open support for Salafi Fascists.
I'm sorry I just have a hard time taking someone who say's "Demokratic" seriously ... :laugh:

Tell the Longshoremen in California who went on strike against war that they were being "orchestrated" by the Democrats.



As anyone who watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id--ZFtjR5c) knows, this is not the case at all. Venezuela could easily be the target of a Syrian-style "revolution." There are plenty of would-be Contras waiting in the wings, most of them undoubtedly would come from Colombia, like The Black Eagles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Eagles) in Colombia.How is the uprising in Syria at all comparable to the 2003 military coup in Venezuela?



The Arab Socialist Baath Party is overwhelmingly popular. Hundreds of thousands of people (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7zFUaDOPCE) come out in the street to support Assad, against the murderous terrorist forces being sent to Syria by Amerika, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It has shown just how popular it is by resisting this force for two years. It is more popular than any "Left" group has ever been in Amerika or Western Europe.
I don't think having a big rally proves he's "popular", it just means he has enough supporters to have a big rally. Yeah, Assad has a lot of supporters ... he has a lot of people who are legitimately angry at the regime. A picture of a rally is not as useful as say, a poll or objective public opinion



Yes, really. The vast majority of the Salafi-terrorists in Syria are of foreign origin. They are flooding in from all over the world, including from places like Saudi prisons (http://www.globalresearch.ca/saudi-arabia-death-row-inmates-sent-to-fight-assad-in-syria/5349416). That you want to pretend otherwise shows just how much of the bourgeois narrative of events you're willing to propagate. The "Left" in Amerika wants desperately people to believe this is some sort of "revolutionary" struggle against a "dictator," when it is nothing more than a invasion by hordes of Western-financed fascists against a secular, progressive, socialist government. It is as if the Amerikan "Left" had went back in time and started telling people to support Franco's "revolution" against the "dictators" in Republican Spain.
Hahaha "progressive, socialist" ... there is the exploitation of wage labor in Syria and those who exploit labor for their own wealth are those with political power. The standard of what makes a "socialist country" has gotten even worse since the fall of the USSR ... the anarchists and socialists in Spain were not the rich capitalists.



"Anti-semitism" doesn't mean anything when applied to the Euro-Settlers in Israel. The majority of Jews in Israel are neither Semites, nor religious.
Jews are Semites and have suffered terrible persecution because of their ethnic origins and ethnic otherness. Not to mention the numerous (very zionist) Arab Jews who live in Israel ...



That Israel is deeply involved in this conflict and pushing it forward is obvious to anyone paying attention. Only the Labor Aristocratic "Left" wants people to believe otherwise, because ultimately, their real solidarity extends to their Euro-Settler brethren.Obviously Israel is involved, but to attribute all the problems to Israel is (1) wrong and (2) plays into an absurd narrative of all-powerful conspiratorial super-Jews

Also :laugh: at your attempt to whitewash antisemitism.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Also it should be noted that Syria has historically supported Shi'a extremists in Hezbollah and antisemitic Sunni extremists in Hamas - hardly "progressive" and "socialist" movements.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Yes, really. The vast majority of the Salafi-terrorists in Syria are of foreign origin. They are flooding in from all over the world, including from places like Saudi prisons (http://www.globalresearch.ca/saudi-arabia-death-row-inmates-sent-to-fight-assad-in-syria/5349416). That you want to pretend otherwise shows just how much of the bourgeois narrative of events you're willing to propagate. The "Left" in Amerika wants desperately people to believe this is some sort of "revolutionary" struggle against a "dictator," when it is nothing more than a invasion by hordes of Western-financed fascists against a secular, progressive, socialist government. It is as if the Amerikan "Left" had went back in time and started telling people to support Franco's "revolution" against the "dictators" in Republican Spain. Was it wrong of Paris to allow former Polish officers a place in the ranks of the commune
Is a man from a prison a bad person

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

According to wikipedia, the average monthly wage in Russia is 27,153 RUB (or just over $825/month) - over three times what you claim. Other sources I was able to find put the monthly wage even somewhat higher than that. What is your source?

Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism (http://onkwehonwerising.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/zak-cope-divided-world-divided-class-2012.pdf), page 316. Cope's calculations come from two sources; the National Bureua of Economic Research, and www.worldsalaries.org (http://www.worldsalaries.org) (their stats come from the IMF, the Russian Federal State Statistics Office, and the International Labour Organization).


Sure...(by which logic, so is fucking Canada, which is, on the face of it, stupid)Kanadian "workers" have some of the highest living standards in the world. This is due to Western imperialism. Russian workers do not benefit imperialism, and are actually exploited, unlike Kanadian workers.


Standard of living of whom? Under what circumstances? Using what markers?Their share of global consumption.


There are communities throughout the "first world" living in "third world" conditions - it doesn't make those countries third world.This isn't true. The Amerikan "Left" always exaggerate how the "poor" live in Amerika. The bottom 20% in Amerika live lifestyles comparable to the upper-middle portion of workers in Third-World countries.


The fact is, Russia isn't a colonized country.That is true. Not all Third-World countries are colonies of Western imperialism. Libya wasn't, Syria isn't. Every country that is able to get out under the yolk of Western imperialism is a blow to the imperialists and their Labor Aristocracy lackeys.


You're grasping at straws to prop up crass American-exceptionalism.The only thing that is "exceptional" about Amerika is that it is a country founded on genocidal conquest and slavery. This makes it "exceptional" in that Amerikans have always lived a hyper-privileged existence in comparison to everywhere else on the planet.


OK, for one, in the case of the Spanish Civil War, would it have been correct to toe the Comintern line on war first, then revolution? To rally to the Republic, even once it was arresting anarchists and communists? Just for point of historical record, how did that pan out? (Hint: Poorly)How the Amerikan "Left" perceives the Spanish Civil War (what the Spanish communists call the National Revolutionary War) is a good indication of their extreme opportunism on Syria. The Syrian conflict mirrors it almost in every conceivable way, right down to the massive influx of aid, weapons and troops by the Fascist powers of the day. Like the Amerikan "Left's" imaginary-history of the Spanish Civil War, the Amerikan "Left" today roots for a non-existent imaginary "revolutionary" element it can get behind, as a way to get around the having to rally people to fight fascism.

The only difference is today, most of the "Left" in Amerika would be looking for this "revolutionary" element amongst Franco's forces.


In any case, you avoided answering my question: What has Syria done to stand up to Imperialism this side of the Yom Kippur war?Ask Hezbollah that question, see what your answer is.


Leninism is not rooted in accusing the labour aristocracy of being part of ZOG.The Amerikan government controls Israel, not vice versa (though it can be an easy mistake to make). That the Amerikan "Left" hates Leninism would remain unchanged in either case though.


So, again, this proves Assad is worthy of our support . . . how?Exposing the social-chauvinists and opportunists is the only Marxist line in the world labor movement. There can never be a revolution here in Amerika without waging a relentless struggle against the Amerikan "Left," which is in total collaboration with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Exposing the Amerikan "Left" as the bunch of opportunist liars they are is absolutely essential to any potential revolutionary project.


Yeah, yeah, I don't need a lecture: you're not actually grappling with my point.You have no "point." Your only "point" is to signal to the reader that something your opponent is saying must be discounted because it is deemed a "conspiracy theory." Basic Leninism is a "conspiracy theory" to the Labor Aristocratic "Left," which desperately wants to maintain its status and privilege, and will go to any lengths to deny its own existence, to better serve its imperialist masters.


Comrade, you still haven't told us about where you're from or your class background. I find this suspicious.Why would I do something like that on a public forum? Why would you want to know this information?


Anyway, you still have yet to say anything that establishes Assad's socialist pedigree.It is far more established than the "socialist pedigree" of any "Left" group in the West.


You believe the primary contradiction in Syria is between Zionism and Anti-Zionism?Yes. This is obvious to anyone paying attention to anything going on in that region since 1948. That the Amerikan "Left" pretends otherwise just exposes their extreme chauvinism.


Nothin' like liquidating the class into the nation.The Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" long ago liquidated class into nation in actual fact. Only in rhetoric is the Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" concerned about "class."

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Comrade Wukong still fails to see reason. Is there a lot of poverty in Russia? Yes. Does that make Russia third world? No. Does that make Russia a non-Imperialist country? No.

(1) First world, second world, third world originally referred to "Western" "Soviet" and "non-aligned" and later came to mean countries with concentrated means of production and countries with nothing but cheap labor and natural resources. Russia is one of the most industrialized nations on earth, ergo it is a first world country. It DOES have a lot of income inequality, but that is because it has a shitty government. If you look at its GDP per capita, it is actually quite modest ... it is not as wealthy as the US or Western Europe but it is hardly a "third world country". Russia could have a much higher living standard among its workers if it wanted to, it just doesn't because billionaire oligarchs take up too much of the wealth.

(2) Most Imperialist countries in history have had massive poverty that would make most Russian laborers today very jealous. The UK, Germany and France in the 1800s, Tzarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Japan, China all had extreme levels of poverty yet were still some of the primary Imperialist entities of their era.

(3) Russia absolutely does have Imperialist interests involving oil transport and economic relations with former states in the USSR, particularly in the energy trade, and has its own colonies within its borders such as Chechnya and Siberia. Russia is merely a much weaker imperialist entity than the US, but it is still an imperialist state.

(4) The Syrian government supports explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic religious extremist organizations in Hamas and Hezbollah. Do you know that Hamas still accepts the protocols of the elders of zion as real, despite being one of the worst antisemitic slanders in history (and incidentally one created by the Russian Imperialist state among other things to discredit communists)?

(5) Right now, Russia itself is passing homophobic laws and so itself is suspect as any agent of "liberation" for 3rd world workers ... unless you don't think that there are gay workers who needs rights too.


Exposing the social-chauvinists and opportunists is the only Marxist line in the world labor movement. There can never be a revolution here in Amerika without waging a relentless struggle against the Amerikan "Left," which is in total collaboration with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Exposing the Amerikan "Left" as the bunch of opportunist liars they are is absolutely essential to any potential revolutionary project.Yeaaaah bro that's why Karl Marx wrote letters to Abe Lincoln ... not to tell him that the whole effort to win the civil war was a good thing, but to tell him that the "Amerikan republikans and abolitionists are krazy bad"


Kanadian "workers" have some of the highest living standards in the world. This is due to Western imperialism. Russian workers do not benefit imperialism, and are actually exploited, unlike Kanadian workers.

Is your "c" key broken or something? Or are you just a troll?


Yes. This is obvious to anyone paying attention to anything going on in that region since 1948. That the Amerikan "Left" pretends otherwise just exposes their extreme chauvinism.Are you saying that the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda are Zionist organizations? :laugh:

[Devrim]

Also it should be noted that Syria has historically supported Shi'a extremists in Hezbollah and antisemitic Sunni extremists in Hamas - hardly "progressive" and "socialist" movements.


It would also be noted that most of the 'left' has historically supported these organisations.

Devrim

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

(1)Russia could have a much higher living standard among its workers if it wanted to, it just doesn't because billionaire oligarchs take up too much of the wealth.

Here SCM is forced to admit that Russian workers do not have a high standing of living. The vast majority of Russian workers live lifestyles comparable to other Third-World workers. Their share of global production is far lower than their Western European and Amerikan counterparts, putting their material interests against Amerikan imperialism.

On the other hand, the material interests of the non-productive Amerikan "workforce" is completely bound up with imperialism. The whole Amerikan way of life is dependent upon it, and the reactionary lies of the Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" is just a particularly sickening manifestation of this.


Most Imperialist countries in history have had massive poverty that would make most Russian laborers today very jealous. The UK, Germany and France in the 1800s, Tzarist Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Japan, China all had extreme levels of poverty yet were still some of the primary Imperialist entities of their era.More hilarity. In the period SMC is talking about, China was literally a colony of the West. From 1850-1949 is considered the "100 Years of Shame" by China. That SMC would say something like this should signal to the reader the nature Euro-"Marxist" chauvinism.


(3) Russia absolutely does have Imperialist interests involving oil transport and economic relations with former states in the USSR, particularly in the energy trade, and has its own colonies within its borders such as Chechnya and Siberia. Russia is merely a much weaker imperialist entity than the US, but it is still an imperialist state.Here SMC is signaling his complete agreement with the most reactionary elements of Western imperialism, in their support of murderous reactionary Chechen Islamists (who are rejected by the vast majority of Chechens, just as their brethren are in Syria and Egypt).

SMC would like to talk about nations within the borders of the Russian Federation, but surely would never do so in Amerika. "Marxists" like SMC want to help balkanize the Russian Federation in the name of fascist reactionary Islamism, but would never consider Africans in the Black Belt South to be an internal colony, or Aztlan in the Southwest, or the First-Nation peoples in Kanada.


(4) The Syrian government supports explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic religious extremist organizations in Hamas and Hezbollah.All real Marxists support resistance against Amerikan imperialism and the Zionist Euro-Settler project that is Israel, no matter who is leading it. "Marxists" like SMC absolutely hate groups like Hezbollah, not because they are "racist" or "homophobic," but because their real solidarity always aligns itself to their Euro-Settler kith and kin.

"Marxists" like SMC pretends to hate Hezbollah for "racism" "sexism" and "homophobia," but are more than willing to provide whatever political cover for the reactionary terrorist Salafi deathsquads, even going so far as to pretend they're fellow "revolutionaries." The only 'principle' involved in their opposition to Hezbollah and support for Salafi terrorists in Syria is what serves Israel and Amerikan imperialism. That is the function of the Labor Aristocracy "Left."


Do you know that Hamas still accepts the protocols of the elders of zion as real, despite being one of the worst antisemitic slanders in history (and incidentally one created by the Russian Imperialist state among other things to discredit communists)?Again, the reader should pay close attention to SMC's 'moral outrage' directed at Hamas. The Labor Aristocratic "Left" will find any excuse to not side with those resisting their extermination at the hands of their fellow Euro-Settlers.


(5) Right now, Russia itself is passing homophobic laws and so itself is suspect as any agent of "liberation" for 3rd world workers ... unless you don't think that there are gay workers who needs rights too.This one is a new development. Amerikan imperialism will, in the future, begin to use "Gay Rights" as a pretext for "Humanitarian Intervention" and RP2 garbage. Rather than doing anything to protect LGBTQ people, they are seeking to more fully integrate them into the imperialist project, thus further opening them up to real danger, both in Amerika and all those countries on Earth resisting imperialist domination.


Yeaaaah bro that's why Karl Marx wrote letters to Abe Lincoln ... not to tell him that the whole effort to win the civil war was a good thing, but to tell him that the "Amerikan republikans and abolitionists are krazy bad"Here SMC shows he either doesn't know or doesn't care (most likely both) what Lenin has to say on the subject. To quote Lenin:



Neither we nor anyone else can calculate precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.



The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm


Are you saying that the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda are Zionist organizations? :laugh:That al-Qaeda is an Amerikan creation isn't even controversial. The official representative of the Amerikan government openly say this in public, in front of TV cameras! Either SMC here is intentionally playing ignorant, or is actually ignorant of this fact. Either case shows the hollowness of this user's pretensions to be a "Marxist."

WnLvzV9xAHA

[Thirsty Crow]

*Only* the 'possibility' -- ??Yes, "only" possibility. There is nothing about the contemporary working class, its struggle, actions, positioning vis-a-vis capital that enables us to talk of an objective class interest, implying communism.

We can also posit the necessity of the historical formation of common class interest if mankind is to avoid outright barbarism. But this necessity isn't anything like inevitability arising from historical predetermination (teleology).


If common class interest *doesn't* necessarily follow from one's being dispossessed from any control over the means of mass production, then what other criteria are you including -- ?Struggle, historical formation of the global working class as a class-for-itself.


No, you're misunderstanding -- I'm saying that how workers relate to capital is *one and the same thing* as their objective interests.
Then you'd be forced to conclude that the content of this objective interest isn't communism.


Okay, *whatever* -- you can feel free to put forth your case for this, but it's an academic tangent to the main idea here, anyway.It's not an academic tangent. As I argued, and you didn't refute this, the complex of objective class interest-false consciousness compels radicals to conceptualize their action and purpose in a substitutionist way.

[Devrim]

Comrade Sun Wokong, just out of interest are you yourself American?

Devrim

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Here SCM is forced to admit that Russian workers do not have a high standing of living. The vast majority of Russian workers live lifestyles comparable to other Third-World workers. Their share of global production is far lower than their Western European and Amerikan counterparts, putting their material interests against Amerikan imperialism.


Uhm I wasn't "Forced to admit" anything. Everyone admits Russian workers have low living standards. Their standard of living is much better, however, than third world workers in places like Bangladesh, but it is lower than Europe. But that, again, has to do with INCOME INEQUALITY, not because Russia is not an Imperialist power. You haven't addressed the reality of income inequality in Russia since the fall of the USSR, the rise of the Russian bourgeoisie and the existence of a moderately large Russian middle class.


On the other hand, the material interests of the non-productive Amerikan "workforce" is completely bound up with imperialism. The whole Amerikan way of life is dependent upon it, and the reactionary lies of the Amerikan Labor Aristocratic "Left" is just a particularly sickening manifestation of this."non productive worker" is a contradiction. I guess I should tell the hardowrking teachers, farmworkers and port workers I know that they aren't "productive". Consuming a lot of goods does not make someone "unproductive".


More hilarity. In the period SMC is talking about, China was literally a colony of the West. From 1850-1949 is considered the "100 Years of Shame" by China. That SMC would say something like this should signal to the reader the nature Euro-"Marxist" chauvinism.China was not a literal colony of the West, it was a dying empire that was unable to defend itself. It still had colonial interests in Korea, Vietnam, Central Asia, Mongolia and Tibet. That's why there was, you know, a SINO-JAPANESE WAR ... the Japanese were seizing the colonial realm of China because the Chinese state by the end of the 19th century was no longer able to defend itself, but it was still an empire. It couldn't stand up to British opium dealers but it was still an empire.


Here SMC is signaling his complete agreement with the most reactionary elements of Western imperialism, in their support of murderous reactionary Chechen Islamists (who are rejected by the vast majority of Chechens, just as their brethren are in Syria and Egypt).What? How am I supporting Chechen Islamists? Just because I think Chechnya is a colony, it doesn't mean I think that Salafi nationalism is the right solution. Do you not understand the difference? The issue is that Chechnya and the rest of the Caucasus mountains were added to Russia by force, and they, as well as many ex-Soviet states in places like Central Asia, Ukraine and Belorussia are (to varying degrees) within the sphere of Russian economic, political and military hegemony. That doesn't mean that the anti-Russian forces in those areas are preferable. You seem to believe that everything in the world is some kind of simplistic dichotomy between the evil Imperialists and the brave anti-Imperialists ... nothing is that simple.



SMC would like to talk about nations within the borders of the Russian Federation, but surely would never do so in Amerika. "Marxists" like SMC want to help balkanize the Russian Federation in the name of fascist reactionary Islamism, but would never consider Africans in the Black Belt South to be an internal colony, or Aztlan in the Southwest, or the First-Nation peoples in Kanada.You can stick your assumptions up your ass. Where do I support American Imperialism? Being critical of Russia, Hamas and Syria doesn't make someone in favor of American imperialism you ignorant asshat.

The American southwest was not known by its inhabitants as "Aztlan". It was only ever known as that by weird Mexican nationalists who think that pushing for Mexican Imperialism is somehow a good response to American Imperialism. Also, how is the American occupation of the American west coast ANY DIFFERENT from the Russian occupation of Siberia??? You haven't explained why America is an Empire while Russia isn't - they are BOTH empires.


All real Marxists support resistance against Amerikan imperialism and the Zionist Euro-Settler project that is Israel, no matter who is leading it. "Marxists" like SMC absolutely hate groups like Hezbollah, not because they are "racist" or "homophobic," but because their real solidarity always aligns itself to their Euro-Settler kith and kin.
How idiotic ... I don't even know where to begin, except by saying that the only legitimate opposition to Imperialism is that which is not reactionary, because a reactionary response is based on the exact same kind of domination and exploitation. I don't support Hamas because I don't think that Palestinian men exploiting Palestinian women is preferable to Israelis exploiting Palestinians.


This one is a new development. Amerikan imperialism will, in the future, begin to use "Gay Rights" as a pretext for "Humanitarian Intervention" and RP2 garbage. Rather than doing anything to protect LGBTQ people, they are seeking to more fully integrate them into the imperialist project, thus further opening them up to real danger, both in Amerika and all those countries on Earth resisting imperialist domination.This has nothing to do with an Imperialist project, it has to do with actually having solidarity with homosexuals who are abused by the Russian state ... something you evidently lack.


Here SMC shows he either doesn't know or doesn't care (most likely both) what Lenin has to say on the subject. To quote Lenin:That quote by Lenin just shows what I am saying about social chauvinist and opportunist groups like Hamas playing the "anti Imperialist" card while committing themselves to patriarchy, capitalism and, in time, their own forms of Imperialism.

Also "... but but Lenin said so ..." is a logical fallacy.


That al-Qaeda is an Amerikan creation isn't even controversial. The official representative of the Amerikan government openly say this in public, in front of TV cameras! Either SMC here is intentionally playing ignorant, or is actually ignorant of this fact. Either case shows the hollowness of this user's pretensions to be a "Marxist."Uhh you can't prove that al-Qaeda is a zionist organization just because the US used to fund al-Qaeda. Everyone knows al-Qaeda was funded by the US, but that doesn't make them "zionist" or some nonsense like that. Quite the opposite - the US supported them for opportunistic reasons, not ideological ones, and their conflict emerged once those common interests went away.


It would also be noted that most of the 'left' has historically supported these organisations.

Devrim

Yeah, and I think that's a very problematic position for leftists to take.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Why would I do something like that on a public forum? Why would you want to know this information?


Well, it's not like I'm asking your legal name and address - being open and honest about your class position is hardly revealing sensitive information.

I'd want you to clarify because you keep insisting that those within the labour aristocracy are incapable of developing correct political analysis, that U$ "workers" necessarily have a false consciousness, etc.

At the same time, the line you're putting forward is basically indistinguishable from the line of MIM - a group coming primarily out of the U$ middle class (university students and profs), and not really upheld, as far as I know, by Marxists anywhere in the third world.

It begs the question: Are you part of the class that you claim is beyond rectification? What is your own peculiar relationship to class and consciousness that allows you to do the "impossible" where the rest of the Euro-Amerikkkan left fails? I think this raises important strategic questions (w/r/t class consciousness and the U$ left).

Also, if you're not part of the class in question, why are you so reticent to say so?

Or is class irrelevant in the global Amerika-and-the-Jews-vs-heroic-nationalism contradiction?

[Fakeblock]

Exposing the social-chauvinists and opportunists is the only Marxist line in the world labor movement. There can never be a revolution here in Amerika without waging a relentless struggle against the Amerikan "Left," which is in total collaboration with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Exposing the Amerikan "Left" as the bunch of opportunist liars they are is absolutely essential to any potential revolutionary project.


Isn't it contradictory to claim that on the one hand American and European workers aren't exploited, live fantastic lifestyles and produce next to nothing and that on the other there should be a revolution in America. You would think that struggles in the West can only be opportunist, Zionist, dishonest and social-chauvinist as Western workers rely on third world labour for their "super-wages".

[Rafiq]

It would also be noted that most of the 'left' has historically supported these organisations.

Devrim

Pre 1990's, though? In the civil war, the Hezbollah and most secular left groups engaged in open battle. I think the point is, is that Syria's state is not something that can be categorized as leftist even in the bourgeois sense

[ckaihatsu]

Yes, "only" possibility. There is nothing about the contemporary working class, its struggle, actions, positioning vis-a-vis capital that enables us to talk of an objective class interest, implying communism.


Well, I heartily disagree with your contention here -- the working class' interest in class struggle is *categorical*, regardless of its actual (historical) details, whatever those may be.





We can also posit the necessity of the historical formation of common class interest if mankind is to avoid outright barbarism.


Yes, this would be a consciously *partisan* political conclusion based on real-world facts.





But this necessity isn't anything like inevitability arising from historical predetermination (teleology).





If common class interest *doesn't* necessarily follow from one's being dispossessed from any control over the means of mass production, then what other criteria are you including -- ?





Struggle, historical formation of the global working class as a class-for-itself.


Okay, the 'subjective' factor -- understood. But I'll maintain that *objective* common class interest remains as long as there's a class division in society.





No, you're misunderstanding -- I'm saying that how workers relate to capital is *one and the same thing* as their objective interests.





Then you'd be forced to conclude that the content of this objective interest isn't communism.


I'll part ways with you on this one as well -- feel free to explain this assertion of yours if you like.





I [do not] reject the need for communist intervention, or the need for clarification on issues such as racism, sexism and so on, or even the recognition that the dominant ideology is a real phenomenon with consequences of its own. But I don't think that the twin notions of objective class interest and false consciousness can help in dealing with this, quite the contrary.





Okay, *whatever* -- you can feel free to put forth your case for this, but it's an academic tangent to the main idea here, anyway.





It's not an academic tangent. As I argued, and you didn't refute this, the complex of objective class interest-false consciousness compels radicals to conceptualize their action and purpose in a substitutionist way.


Again, feel free to propound, and I'll see if there's anything that's refutation-worthy.

[L.A.P.]

off topic


It is idealist only insofar that it disregards any form of a class analysis and replaces it with stressing the need for a "radical emancipatory position"

I think it should be noted that Zizek is very self-aware of his audience when writing articles for The Guardian. It wasn't some deep philosophical reflection or anything, it was just the basic revolutionary/radical leftist position on civil wars like Syria ("both sides are different factions of the ruling class, we support the excluded 'third side': the working class") trying to persuade a liberal audience. I can see how some Marxists would find the article not profound or to be like "no shit", but definitely not disagreeable. People try way too hard to find reasons to hate Zizek.

[Comrade Sun Wukong]

"non productive worker" is a contradiction. Here SMC demonstrates that he does not grasp the LTV. Marx makes a crucial distinction between productive and unproductive labor, and specially notes that unproductive workers are parasitic on productive workers.



The only use value, therefore, which can form the opposite pole to capital is labour (to be exact, value-creating, productive labour. This marginal remark is an anticipation; must first be developed, by and by. Labour as mere performance of services for the satisfaction of immediate needs has nothing whatever to do with capital, since that is not capital's concern. If a capitalist hires a woodcutter to chop wood to roast his mutton over, then not only does the wood-cutter relate to the capitalist, but also the capitalist to the wood-cutter, in the relation of simple exchange. The woodcutter gives him his service, a use value, which does not increase capital; rather, capital consumes itself in it; and the capitalist gives him another commodity for it in the form of money. The same relation holds for all services which workers exchange directly for the money of other persons, and which are consumed by these persons. This is consumption of revenue, which, as such, always falls within simple circulation; it is not consumption of capital. Since one of the contracting parties does not confront the other as a capitalist, this performance of a service cannot fall under the category of productive labour. From whore to pope, there is a mass of such rabble. But the honest and 'working' lumpenproletariat belongs here as well; e.g. the great mob of porters etc. who render service in seaport cities etc. He who represents money in this relation demands the service only for its use value, which immediately vanishes for him; but the porter demands money, and since the party with money is concerned with the commodity and the party with the commodity, with money, it follows that they represent to one another no more than the two sides of simple circulation; goes without saying that the porter, as the party concerned with money, hence directly with the general form of wealth, tries to enrich himself at the expense of his improvised friend, thus injuring the latter's self-esteem, all the more so because he, a hard calculator, has need of the service not qua capitalist but as a result of his ordinary human frailty. A. Smith was essentially correct with his productive and unproductive labour, correct from the standpoint of bourgeois economy. What the other economists advance against it is either horse-piss (for instance Storch, Senior even lousier etc.), namely that every action after all acts upon something, thus confusion of the product in its natural and in its economic sense; so that the pickpocket becomes a productive worker too, since he indirectly produces books on criminal law (this reasoning at least as correct as calling a judge a productive worker because he protects from theft). Or the modern economists have turned themselves into such sycophants of the bourgeois that they want to demonstrate to the latter that it is productive labour when somebody picks the lice out of his hair, or strokes his tail, because for example the latter activity will make his fat head -- blockhead -- clearer the next day in the office.


Just because I think Chechnya is a colony...
The American southwest was not known by its inhabitants as "Aztlan". It was only ever known as that by weird Mexican nationalists who think that pushing for Mexican Imperialism is somehow a good response to American Imperialism. Here the reader can see SMC says exactly what I predicted: he supports the idea that Chechnya is a “colony” of the Russian Federation, while denying that the Southwest of Amerika is stolen territory, with a majority of Chicano inhabitants. SMC thinks murderous Salafi fascists have a right to force Chechnya to secede from Russia, but thinks Aztlan is just a “weird Mexican nationalist” idea. The only consistent principle of pseudo-Marxists like SMC is their subservience to Western imperialism. They uphold reactionary separatist nationalism of minorities in enemy-states of Amerika and the European Union, while belittling the progressive anti-imperialist nationalism of colonized people within Amerika's borders.


How idiotic ... Except there is nothing “idiotic” about the nature of the Labor Aristocratic “Left” at all in their support for their Zionist brethren. The rhetoric of the “Left” lackeys of imperialism may at times border on the idiotic, but it always serves their imperialist masters. Opposition to Hezbollah for allegedly being “reactionary” while support for Salafi-fascist terrorists in Syria is nothing but sheer opportunism in the service of Zionism.


That quote by Lenin just shows what I am saying about social chauvinist and opportunist groups like Hamas Here SMC demonstrates his willingness to make a mockery of Lenin, and to spout gibberish with absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever. The only question the careful reader should consider is if whether SMC is conscious of his fakery or not. It is my opinion that SMC is very conscious of it (with the full implications for what that means in terms of “racist” support for his Euro-Settler brethren), but those with more faith in the human capacity for self-deception might differ.


Also "... but but Lenin said so ..." is a logical fallacy. The only thing that is being logically demonstrated is the absolute hatred the Labor Aristocratic “Left” has for the words and ideas of Lenin, even if they falsely claim to uphold him as a revolutionary thinker.

Of course someone like SMC doesn't give the slightest shit for Leninism. They actually hate Lenin and Leninism, because Leninism exposes them for the total “Left” frauds they are.


Uhh you can't prove that al-Qaeda is a zionist organization just because the US used to fund al-Qaeda. Here one has to wonder if SMC is interacting with the text as he is reading it, or is responding to some imaginary dialogue in his head. I never said anything about al-Qaeda being a creation of the Zionist Euro-Settler project. This is something SMC is trying to inject into the conversation, because SMC doesn't want to deal with having to justify his support for the murderous genocidal Zionist Euro-Settler project.


Isn't it contradictory to claim that on the one hand American and European workers aren't exploited, live fantastic lifestyles and produce next to nothing and that on the other there should be a revolution in America. You would think that struggles in the West can only be opportunist, Zionist, dishonest and social-chauvinist as Western workers rely on third world labour for their "super-wages".

There is nothing contradictory in pointing out that almost the entirety of the Labor Aristocratic “Left” in Amerika doesn't do anything Lenin instructed all revolutionaries to do, but in fact are social-chauvinist opportunist servants of imperialism. Pointing this out, is in actual fact helping the real masses to realize their objective interests in fighting for their liberation from imperialism.

[Fakeblock]

There is nothing contradictory in pointing out that almost the entirety of the Labor Aristocratic “Left” in Amerika doesn't do anything Lenin instructed all revolutionaries to do, but in fact are social-chauvinist opportunist servants of imperialism. Pointing this out, is in actual fact helping the real masses to realize their objective interests in fighting for their liberation from imperialism.

You pointed out much more than 'the Amerikan "Left" is social chauvinist and opportunist'. You pointed out that Canadian (and I assume American and Western in general) workers aren't exploited, that their lifestyles are fantastic. Later on you called for revolution in America and talked about a world labour movement. This is of course contradictory, as there can't be a world labour movement and certainly not a revolution, if exploited workers don't actually exist in the imperialist states at all. The necessary conclusion would be that it's in the interest of the Western worker to be a social chauvinist servant of imperialism and that the "Left" is actually representative of the Western workers'/labour aristocrats' interests. Because without imperialism how can the labour aristocrat sustain his lifestyle? So I suppose when you say "the real masses" you mean third-world workers, peasants, Assads, Gaddafis etc. and that there is actually no class basis for communist struggle in the West?

Also why should American non-workers follow Lenin's instructions anyway?

[L.A.P.]

Here SMC demonstrates that he does not grasp the LTV. Marx makes a crucial distinction between productive and unproductive labor, and specially notes that unproductive workers are parasitic on productive workers.

Marx's distinction between productive and unproductive labor was meant to distinguish workers who produce surplus-value and those who don't. That doesn't mean unproductive labor isn't necessary for society, i.e. school teachers.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Historically Syria has been more a tempering influence upon Hezbollah (while Iran has been the Hezbollah ally that's done more "egging on" of the more extreme elements within the organization).

[Rafiq]

Historically Syria has been more a tempering influence upon Hezbollah (while Iran has been the Hezbollah ally that's done more "egging on" of the more extreme elements within the organization).

Actually Iran founded Hezbollah. It is unapologetically a proxy organization and an extension of Iran's influence in the levant.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think that Syria and Iran share credit for Hezbollah's creation in the early 80's. Except Syria's role was more ambivalent and based more clearly on "realpolitik" than Iran's role was.