rc-am wrote:
>
> you're deeply confused. you insist that a strong state is necessary; and
> when i argue that this entails the erosion, if not disappearance of
> democracy (esp inasmuch as a strong state requires the ability to reign in,
> ignore and/or crush working class demands), you then write, as if by way of
> argument (with yourself?) that indonesian workers are demanding democratic
> reforms!
Kind of vague and ambigious. Democracy? The state? What do you mean? Capitalist state? Worker's state?
Marx viewed all states as dictatorships of one class over another. A strong state does not necessarily mean a capitalist state or a repressive state or even a nationalistic one. A strong state would be one that is able and willing to resist the imperialist onslaught once policies are enacted that the U.S. ruling class views as antithical to its interests. Maybe a single state could not survive in such an environment but several states together could.
The idea is that the worker's movement or the revolutionary movement itself becomes the state with maximum horizontal relations and a mnimum of vertical relations. That way the gap between the state and the movement disappears. The stronger the state, the less likely it is to be overthrown from within by counter-revoultionaries, meaning greater freedom for counter-revolutionary activity, freedom of speech etc.
I don't like nationalism at all in any form, expecially in imperialist countries where it is usually a rationalization for something else i.e. placing the blame for domestic problems on foreigners or diffusing domestic class struggle by appeal to some mythical cross class "we". Canadian nationalism above all makes me nauseous, especially when its proponents don't realize that the Canadian nation is predicated on the slaughter of the indigenous people, destruction of their culture and the subsequent herding of who was left into tiny quasi-concentration camps called "reservations".
However, nationalism should be evaluated on a case by case basis for the content of its doctrines. Some nationalisms are an expression of anti-imperialism, like the nationalism of Allende,Mao, Kim-il Sung or Castro, influenced by dependency theory in its insistance that the resources of a country should benefit the people of that country and not some foreign or domestic elite. Some nationalisms are in between i.e. have progressive and reactionary aspects e.g pan-Arabism of Nasser, Qaddafi, Assad, the old PLO, Stalinist nationalism. Some are downright reactionary or fascistic in extreme instances e.g. Hitler, Suharto, Idi Amin, Pik Botha etc etc.
Sam Pawlett