Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> The fundamental problem here (which W. Kiernan already pointed out to
> Chris) is why some leftists have begun to think _as if_ they were
> formulating foreign policies that they had the power to execute (when, as a
> matter of fact, they are not in power at all). Such a habit of thinking
> only belongs to the governing elite and their think-tank servants. Since
> e-lists are media of sovereign individualism, I suppose anyone is free to
> put forward as many proposals, with as much wishful-thinking, as s/he
> wants, but still it is an odd exercise.
In the 1970s I was associated with one of those groups which was in thrall to Chinese foreign policy -- that bizarre attempt by China to reproduce the international structure of the 1930s with new personae:
Nazi German = Revisionist USSR
USSR = China
England/US/etc = US/England/etc
The bad guys were trying to isolate China. The good guys were trying to force an alliance between China and the US against fascism. It led to really convoluted politics. During the Yugoslav war I pointed out that Chris's pathetic position was the last pale echo of this "Maoist" theory. One of the (im)practical results of this was that pipsqueak groups on the left were continually propounding what the U.S. should do to carry forward this program.
There was one thing to say for those grouplets: it was not wholly obvious that they were pipsqueak; it was not wholly irrational to see themselves as growing and coalescing into a new communist party in the u.s.
But now for the most part we don't even have groups with a (possible) future proclaiming complex programs for the imperialist states to carry out. We have pipsqueak individuals -- including individuals who proclaim their opposition to any party that might have an effective voice -- laying out such preposterous proposals for positive actions by the imperialist states.
Probably nothing individual leftists think at this time can make any difference. But whatever power we *might* have must consist simply in saying NO! to the imperialists. Stop the bombing! Stop giving aid to Indonesia! Attemts to complicate those slogans result in merely private opinions the only effect of which is to give the individual a warm fuzzy feeling of his/her moral superiority.
Such positions are frivolous except in one respect. They are *at this time* the most serious kind of error a leftist or would-be leftist can make because they are barriers to the growth of unity within the left. Whatever other principles will (or may) eventually form the core of a united and growing left, a united No to the central imperialist powers must be one of them, a No uncluttered with the delusion that leftists can have any say in implementing foreign policy.
I don't know what will happen in East Timor if the imperialist powers stay out. I know rather exactly what will happen if Australian troops enter. To know that one need only read descriptions of life in Haiti at the present time.
Carrol