Deserving Americans

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Sep 20 15:52:30 PDT 2002


SergioL652 at aol.com wrote:
>
> About why no "blowback" from Latin America.

As has been pointed out many times, on this list and elsewhere, the secular left in the mideast was pretty completely crushed in the '80s, mostly by forces supported or even created by the U.S. That _may_ be happening in Latin America, but as long as a visible left at all survives you won't get the kind of desperation which AQ depends on for its support. (That support is for the most part I think pretty passive: but people don't turn themselves into human bombs or cruise missiles unless they can _feel_, rightly or wrongly, some sort of support from large masses.)

Somewhat related: In the riots after the murder of King, the areas in Chicago, Atlanta, Oakland, and several other cities where violence did NOT break out were areas in which SNCC, Panthers, or other left groups had been organizing actively.

Desperation breeds terrorism.

If all left resistence in Latin America is wholly crushed, various freakish (and terorist) movements may well arise there.

Incidentally, the Weathermen I knew in the '60s were all people who started out with an intensely moralistic view of imperialism. The attitudes both towards "the left" and towards the "working class in general" which have been expressed on this list recently are precisely the kind of garbage that led many individuals to weather politics and terrorism.

Carrol



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