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This is Imperialism at work, not a mass democratic workers movement.
Comrades, please look at the man behind the curtain calling the shot. The working class in Iran has numerous reasons to feel outraged at the current government. They have many reasons to rebel and rise against. But this is not the working class rising up. This is Imperialism putting its dirty hands into the mix.
This is the war mongers and business men manipulating the justified anger that many Iranians have against the Mullahs, and instead of channeling it where it belongs towards worker's power. It is being put to use to destablize Iran in the interest of Monopoly capitalism. Iran we must not forget has among the largest oil reserves in the world, it is among the few countries that offers unconditional support to Hezbollah and the Palestinian cause. It is the biggest counter balance to Israel and US interest in the region. Why is this happening now?
Well it is a probe to see if they can bomb and rob Iran back 20 years. After 30 years of development after a brutal war with Iraq that the US had provoked where millions of lives were lost, Iran has represented an independent path of developement and a counter balance to US Imperialism in the region. Iran while a bourgeoisie republic which doesn't have the worker's interests at heart has developed in a progressive manner, its military, its infrastructure, its industry, its technology, its universities, have all developed to a level where its beginning to become a power in the region, a country able to dictate its own terms at the bargaining table. Imperialism would have no problem of this if their interests where to open up and be blindly rob by its companies.
But instead Iran represents an independent path of developement, dictated by its own sovereignty. Please do not be manipulated by corporate media, you can tell this is Imperialism's hand at work by how the most reactionaries of the State Department are the first ones who show excitement at this development.
And by no means is Iran a worker's republic, they are not going to address the concerns of the working class, they represent the interest of a sovereign Iranian bourgeoisie. Not a semi-colonial bourgeoisie, but a sovereign bourgeoisie. They are going to be blunt and heavy handed against the protests. But the Iranian state is forced to react and react hard or more of these probes will happen.
They have to be, if they care to defend their sovereignity from NATO powers.
Whatever you say mr vanguard of the revolution. I will now proceed to unsubscribe from this thread.
Okay, enjoy being manipulated by Imperialist media.
The Imperialist media also celebrated the Russian and Chinese revolutions, in the beginning stages. I'd rather base my political positions on correct theoretical lines than what the western media says.
And what do you propose to do by "opposing the movement"? All that could mean is that you would not be on strike against the current government with the Iranians in the event you could, which is clearly a wrong position to hold. Ahmadinejad is definitely incapable of pursuing a revolutionary situation while Mousavi coming to power would at least mean a radicalisation of the workers. The western bourgeois media is opposing Ahmadinejad because he represents a faction of an class that is opposed to their interests, the victims of his oppression oppose him for the same reason but they do not have the class consciousness to develop a correct theoretical line because of the current political climate. To support opposition to the movement is to support a continuation of the current Iranian climate which have lead to one of the worst leftist scenes in the world, the Iranian workers have nothing to lose by radicalizing.
Until you get rid of religion in their country nothing will change. The leader is more or less a figure head. The religious leaders are the ones who run the country.
I am fully aware of imperialism's interests in this uprising. What I would like is the uprising to move beyond simply supporting pro-West pro-privatization lackey Mousavi which it's looking like more and more every day.
And when Marx says, 'Hitherto the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways', what that 'hitherto' means is not a renunciation of theory and that all we need to do is wade in with our fists and there will be no more need for thought. This idea is in fact fascist, and it would be grossly unjust to Marx to impute such views on him.
--Theodor Adorno, 'On Theory and Practice'
Ya, but i don't think that's going to happen tomorrow. Revolutionary movements take decades to build and require patience leadership. What's happening in Iran is much more likely to be in the interests of imperialism (because it is in part imperialist engineered) rather not blossom into a revolutionary anti-imperialist movement. Absent an actual revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist force in Iran, we should make our main line one against imperialist intervention.
The so called left, nine month's ago, tricked themselves into thinking that that Obama was somehow a radical. Now so called revolutionary left is baboozled into campaigning for the CIA's color war in Iran.
www.raimd.wordpress.com
www.monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com
What revolutionary leftists are you referring to when you mention them supporting Obama? Your such a paranoid idiot, your like a conspiracy theorists only much more of a joke because your clearly a self-loathing first world kiddie who wants to rage against himself and other people.
On the issue of this protest, I see large amounts of people protesting against a government that doesn't meet their needs. This is militancy of thousands of people against a reactionary government that is reponding with force. Such militancy teaches ordinary people of the power they have and the need for struggle, and so I support this movement and hope it moves in a revolutionary direction, rather than standing on the sidelines and expressing my support for some murdering bastard and his theocratic buddies because I'm an anti-imperialist.
It's funny, the 'anti-imperialists' are defending Ahmadinejad's repression, which includes killing protestors, on the basis that 'If this movement succeeds, the USA would oppress the Iranians!' Take a fucking look - Ahmadinejad is already doing that, idiots.
Ivan "Bonebreaker" Khutorskoy16.11.2009"We won't forget, we won't forgive"
So protesters largely supporting the candidate that wants to attack food subsidies, redistribution of wealth, welfare programs, and speed up privatizations are doing so because the government doesn't meet their needs? I fail to understand your logic.
You speak of imperialism as if it is some sort of separate entity, another higher economic being, rather than the highest stage of capitalism; a development of capitalism.
"Imperialism" is not just the actions of, or the intentions of, the United States. That is simply absurd, and a horribly vulgar understanding imperialism.
Realizing that Iran is a bourgeois republic, you also realize that Iran is capitalist; you then indicate that it has positive developments in education, and other such things (as if this changes anything). The fact that you realize that Iran is a capitalist state contradicts your own bourgeois analysis. Capitalism necessitates expansion to survive - it necessitates the destruction of other economic modes (natural economy, etc) in order to perpetuate it's domination. Iran, despite your chauvinistic, rose-tinted view of their government, is not independent of this, even if it's independent of the US' interests, or attempts to counter them.
Your analysis reduces itself to nonsense, by firstly siding with conspiracy-theorists, without any grounds for reason - acting like mediocre detectives in a b-grade film; by then ignoring the nature of global capitalism in its imperialist phase; and by ignoring Iran's own imperialist nature (interlinked with the previous point); and by then taking sides with a bourgeois state over another bourgeois state, under the illogical presumption that the bourgeoisie of any country is on the side of the proletariat.
It merely stems, however, from your ridiculous politics. Ridiculousness only perpetuates itself.
Sovereignty? Who's? National sovereignty, that "sovereignty" which while draping class in a flag, undermines and perpetuates the oppression of the working class? What interest is that to a socialist?
What on earth are you supporting it for then? This is absolutely ludicrous, unsubstantiated nonsense.
How can a country be semi-colonial?
You are an apologist for the Iranian police state, and the violent and systematic oppression of the working class.
"The sun shines. To hell with everything else!" - Stephen Fry
"As the world of the spectacle extends its reign it approaches the climax of its offensive, provoking new resistances everywhere. These resistances are very little known precisely because the reigning spectacle is designed to present an omnipresent hypnotic image of unanimous submission. But they do exist and are spreading.", The Bad Days Will End.
"(The) working class exists and struggles in all countries, and has the same enemies in all countries – the police, the army, the unions, nationalism, and the fake ‘socialism’ of the bourgeois left. It shows that the conditions for a worldwide revolution are ripening everywhere today. It shows that workers and revolutionaries are not passive spectators of inter-imperialist conflicts: they have a camp to choose, the camp of the proletarian struggle against all the factions of the bourgeoisie and all imperialisms." -ICC, Nation or Class?
And why don't you substantiate your claims?
"The sun shines. To hell with everything else!" - Stephen Fry
"As the world of the spectacle extends its reign it approaches the climax of its offensive, provoking new resistances everywhere. These resistances are very little known precisely because the reigning spectacle is designed to present an omnipresent hypnotic image of unanimous submission. But they do exist and are spreading.", The Bad Days Will End.
"(The) working class exists and struggles in all countries, and has the same enemies in all countries – the police, the army, the unions, nationalism, and the fake ‘socialism’ of the bourgeois left. It shows that the conditions for a worldwide revolution are ripening everywhere today. It shows that workers and revolutionaries are not passive spectators of inter-imperialist conflicts: they have a camp to choose, the camp of the proletarian struggle against all the factions of the bourgeoisie and all imperialisms." -ICC, Nation or Class?
And when Marx says, 'Hitherto the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways', what that 'hitherto' means is not a renunciation of theory and that all we need to do is wade in with our fists and there will be no more need for thought. This idea is in fact fascist, and it would be grossly unjust to Marx to impute such views on him.
--Theodor Adorno, 'On Theory and Practice'
I am also puzzled as to why there isn't more discussion of the man behind Mossavi's campaign, Akbar Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran (1989-1997) and a die-hard neoliberal. He's bound to be even more of a power player in Iranian politics if the Mossavi bloc succeeds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar_Hashemi_Rafsanjani
Like Arizona Bay, I am still looking to see if the current unrest is able to grow into anything that could overturn the reactionary trajectories of the Mossavi bloc.
You have made an incredibly long-winded post that has nothing to back it up.
Could the pro-Mousavi current coincide with the interests of Western imperialism? Sure, but let's look at reality here. Iran was not very close to the West at all under the administration before Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad in his promotion of the nuclear power program and other moves has done what some in the Iranian ruling class would consider to be excessively alienating Iran from the West (they would not like to risk economic sanctions for example) but this is as far as the interests of the United States and Mousavi & co. align. Mousavi is very much a man of the Islamic Revolution, who called repeated times for a "return to the teachings of Khomeini" during his most recent campaign, and presided over a regime that was far more repressive and undemocratic than the current one in the eighties as Prime Minister.
Will the Western countries try to manipulate the situation to their advantage? No doubt. But you have not shown any evidence that they are on the ground in Iran doing so. The only thing you and many other "socialists" have shown by taking this position is your utter cravenness toward regimes that your government and media take a stance opposing. That, and complete theoretical bankruptcy, is the only way that mass uprisings in a Middle Eastern country could automatically translate into an expression of Western imperialism.
We will have a chance to see where these protests are going, within a week or so I should think. Mousavi is a member of the ruling class, he will seek a compromise with the ruling faction. At that point, whether he is able to sell that compromise on the street will be a good barometer for how much the protests are really behind him.
Also, I wanted to respond to this in particular:
Actually the regime in Iran has done quite a lot to damage the cause of Palestine solidarity in their own country. People are told not to worry about their own poverty and other economic issues at home, for the Palestinians have it worse. "Pray for Palestine" is shoved down people's throats in the same breath as "fix your hijab". Many Iranians resent all the aid to Hamas and Hezbollah when there is such poverty and underdevelopment at home. Thus, one of the chants at recent protests has been "mardom chera neshastin, Iran shode Felestin!" (People, why are you sitting down? Iran has become Palestine!)
None of these factions currently slogging it out in Iran have the working class interest at heart and there are INDEED some signs that imperialists are manipulating behind the scenes in some way. i STAND FOR THE WORKING CLASS INTEREST NOT FOR FACTONAL INTERST!!!!
Uh and what do you think the Iranian workers and communists have been doing the last decades? Writing articles on revleft? Workers action and any attempt for a class concious mass movement met brutal repression by the iranian regime. Communists have been murdered. They have met the same repression under Moussavi, are you honestly thinking you can judge the situation better than ALL revolutionary forces in Iran? Also how the fuck can you first say we have to denounce the protests, and than say we have to build a revolutionary movement? If you had any idea of revolutionary movements, you'd know that they result out of struggles, not out of "antiimperialist" rethoric. The current protest isn't revolutionary for now, but it is a chance for all the workers, communists, anti-theocratic forces to gather and to radicalize. This is a chance the Iranian people just wouldn't have without this movement. Now how would you suggest the revolutionary forces in Iran should fight? Should they go home once a western newspaper dares to say something positive about them? Should they go home once the Imperialist countries see a chance in them? No they should radicalize the current movement (Which is not what some Antiimp students in the first world make it out to be just "middle class kids" rebelling) and use the chance to get better conditions for communists, for revolutionaries to work in.
And for the people who are "looking to see" if the protests can meet their standarts. What will happen than? Will you be inclined to write a positive article on them? The people of iran need our solidarity, not the hyprocritical bullshit from the imperialists or the media, but revolutionary international solidarity. We should support the progressive forces and the peoples movement against the regime in iran. Anyone supporting our comrades and fellow workers to be beat and shot down by a reactionary regime in the name of anti-imperialism cannot be called internationalist.
What about the car workers going on strike yet specifically stating that strike is not about supporting one of the electoral candidates? What about the bus workers? The oil workers? Do you/will you oppose them all too, last time I checked workers tended to be working class...
And what about the fact that people are taking to the streets against an oppressive, dictatorial, theocratic regime, that it doesn't matter that this election was rigged more blatantly than the others because every election is a farce, that every communist/socialist/leftist party in/in exile from Iran supports the uprising, that Ahmadinejad is not an anti-imperialist, that support for Mousavi is dwindling yet the movement remains strong, that this is a genuine chance for the Iranian working class to seize a wave of popular discontent and revolt against the Iranian state, what about all this? And you sit at your computer screen condemning the people of Iran while they are getting attacked in the streets and claim to be 'revolutionary'. For fucks sake man.
Where are the working class Barrabas Where are the heavy duty boys like the Oil workers, steel workers, cement workers, construction workers chemical workers etc. Where are the poor and dispossessed. Where are the peasent farmers. One day bus strikes are nothing
Dearest Bilan, I have not said anywhere in my posts that Imperialism is separate from Capitalism, they are one and the same. Imperialism represents a specific feature of capitalism at this stage of development, Imperialism means the robbing of other countries people and resources for the expansion necessary for Monopoly capitalism to survive, opening up markets, getting resources and labour at new low rates, and bringing about higher rates of return needed for further expansion. They need these additional markets to starve off the crisis in overproduction, which it will inevitable occur. Capitalism has ceased to be a progressive system of economic developement.
I have made no claims other than this is monopoly capitalism at work using the uprising as a probe to see if they can counter-balance the influence of Iran in the region by neutralizing it. It is in their interest. Capitalism has something called competition, there are things such as inter imperialist rivalries that exist. The fact that Iran is competing on their own terms is unthinkable. Sovereignty is something that real communists support. Instead of Bilan here who is cheer leading imperialism making semi-colonial countries out the third world. Semi-Colonialism means you have your own flag, your own government but that government is at the service of a foreign bourgeoisie. Sovereignty means your country has a direct say in what goes on within its borders. The struggle is much easier when you are facing your own bourgeoisie instead of one 1000 miles away.
This by no means is a thorough explanation of events. this is merely something a little deeper than the superficial comments that have been plaguing the forums, thinking this is Anarchism/worker's power in motion. Rather this is the opposite. Let us not forget are rival bourgeoisie within Iran itself. The working class with a justified anger against the status quo is having their justified anger channel not against their class enemy but for their class enemy.
Why do I support Iran? Because I believe countries have a right to an independent path of developement from the dictates of the Imperialist powers. I believe a peoples have a right to sovereignty. It is the job of the working class alone to solve the problems in Iran, not foreign bourgeoisie.
And I am not an apologist for the Iranian state, this is a capitalist state, not a humane worker's state, they employ blunt tactics against the uprisings. They are incapable of doing anything otherwise, they are not the working class in power, if Iran doesn't have a heavy hand against this probe by the Imperialist powers, the Imperialist powers will do what they wish. The Imperialist powers are testing the waters for whatever means necessary to neutralize this independent country.
