>
> 1. We (the opposition) don't have to either defend or attack the
Taliban
> or Mugabe or any other "third world" regime or political force. We
have
> to insist on non-interference in the rest of the world by the United
> States.
=========
I'll tell that to Dumb'ya when he comes to town.
>
> 2. Religiously informed politics ebb and flow. We don't _know_
presently
> that politics will continue to be expressed in religious terms
> "forever," any more than we _knew_ 50 years ago that politics would
> continue to be secular forever.
=========== This avoids my point. Islam is a theology/cosmogony much more than merely a politics even as we can agree there is an intimate connection between monotheism and monopoly-monopolity; the very antithesis of pluralism. If you've got an aufhebung algorithm that terminates the problem we'd love to hear it.
> 3. When you speak of Bush's exemplifying this or that "problem" you
are
> taking an academic or journalistic rather than political
perspective.
> What we do _know_ is that Bush is wrong and we must oppose him.
======== Mere opposition is not enough; we will be simply accused of armchair quarterbacking and knee jerk anti-imperialism. Since I have no idea what a non-political perspective is on this issue I can't make out the first part of your claim. If we take a potlatch approach to alleviating poverty and destitution in the ME and CA and call on the more secular polities on the planet to aid in the process, we'll still be infidels to Islam, indeed we have no way of knowing that anything short of ending non-Islamic culture is going to be enough for significany numbers of the 1.25 billion Muslims on the planet. It is in that sense I mean we have a potentially interminable problem on our hands even if the imperialists pull out of the ME and refrain from encroaching upon CA any more than they already have. In other words, even withdrawal from that area may galvanize the radicals even further...Then what? And how is your position any different than Pat Buchanan's on the issue?
>
> 4. I think Fitch was right -- Bush and the ruling class are walking
into
> a trap. We have to build a movement to say _no_ and work within that
> movement to bring more and more people over to a left perspective.
======= Again, what is the left, saii, aufhebung given Islamic theology and the problem of the "true believer syndrome"?
>
> 5. We can leave it to the scholars of the 25th century (if there are
> any) to write long complex studies of the internal dynamic of
various
> countries, regions, etc. And if we can hamstring U.S.
> foreign/military/economic policy seriously enough there may well
still
> be scholars then.
>
> 6. The mode of discussion on lbo to date has been legitimately
> non-political -- i.e. it has discussed political issues from an
abstract
> perspective, detached from any ongoing political practice. But there
is
> a growing movement and we need to think strategically and tactically
> from inside that movement, not from the scoffer's chair of detached
> superiority.
============ There you go making up straw people.....again.........
Ian