Shred NATO's credibility

[Charles Brown]

I'm with you, Jim. I almost mentioned the old thread, but I thought
it might be a little obscure for those who weren't there. Maybe we should call it the Sidney Hooks phenomenon, which I learned about from your posts. Since that old thread, I keep running across new examples with the earmarks of the phenomenon. I suppose it could be seen as a trivial consequence of good old opportunism. When I think about it, labor leaders have always led me ( a naive lefty) on and raised my hopes with leftish rhetoric that skillfully and strictly stops short of radicalism. I bet the bourgeoisie do not rely on chance left traitors. I bet they have a major "department" and system to court , entice, coerce, cajole, and corrupt every left leader and steal our ideas.

We should add solving the "Hooks" problem to our lonnngggg list of What Is To Be Done by the Next Left.

U.S. out !

Charles


>>> James Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> 04/20/99 06:50PM >>>
Charles,

That reminds me of an old thread concerning whether the bourgeoisie
makes use of Marxist analysis for its own ends.  Certainly, they can
and do make use of ex-leftists to help them promote their own
political agendas.

		Jim Farmelant

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999 11:00:03 -0400 "Charles Brown"
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes:
>This is an interesting observation by Michael Pollack. His statement 
>suggests that one of the treacherous aspects of lefties and ex-lefties 
>supporting the current wars on Iraq and Yugoslavia is that they 
>contribute skill and experience in avoiding the propaganda errors of 
>previous imperialist wars. The right wingers had already learned from 
>the eras of Viet Nam and modified their approach in the contra wars of 
>the 1980's. Now added to that may be a whole gang of left advisors, 
>many of whom have experience in peace movements in the past.
>
>Shall we overcome ? 
>
>
>Charles Brown
>
>>>> Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> 04/20/99 06:53AM >>>
>
>On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Carl Remick wrote:
>
>> As I expected, the NATO debacle in the Balkans is continuing to 
>unfold
>> along the lines of the Vietnam War.  Once again, I believe, the 
>antiwar
>> movement's best tactic is to destroy the warmongers' credibility 
>among
>> the public at large.
>
>Maybe you're right, Carl.  But I have the depressing feeling they've
>learned from Vietnam.  They deny it when the first reports hit, and 
>then
>admit it a day later, when it's old news, complete, as you point out, 
>with
>gory details.  And then move on.  With their own rumors, they do it in
>reverse: trumpet outrageous claims in an ominous voice, and then -- 
>when
>people turn up alive, for instance -- say that it's tough to get
>information in wartime.
>
>If they would only deny things longer, stonewall, refuse comment on
>outrageous lies, credibility could really take a fall.  But they don't 
>do
>that anymore.  They just keep spinning.  They've preserved the most
>effective features of the big lie (constant repetition).  But, by 
>making
>it a constantly churning procession of slightly different stories, 
>it's
>less attackable than it used to be.  They constantly admit they were
>wrong, which is the biggest lie of all, since it implies inadvertance.
>But it's hell to pin down.
>
>We haven't learned a thing about humanitarian aid, conflict resolution 
>or
>even how to wage war.  But we do seem to have improved our propaganda
>techniques.
>
>Michael
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Pollak................New York 
>City..............mpollak at panix.com 
>
>

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