Reminds me of our Cuba spat a little while ago.
This bit is interesting:
I’d like to suggest that revisiting that idea—the principle of solidarity with people struggling against oppression everywhere, whoever their oppressors are, the vision that inspired the international brigades that went to defend the Spanish Republic— would do the Left a world of good today.15
and the footnote for it:
15.Lest I over-romanticize the brigades, I of course realize that many of them were Stalinist. Let me be clear that my sympathy belongs with the anarchist and independent socialist forces that fought in Spain, not with the Stalinists. (The holy writ here, of course, is Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.) But my argument is more about the underlying spirit that guided the solidarity than the particular doctrines of the groups in question.
http://www.postelservice.com/on-iran-rs.pdf
It says a lot to me about what kind of Leftist the author is: one who looks for oppression (however one defines it, the broader the better) and goes after that, ignoring broader implications (not that I or others are immune to that criticism wrt capitalism . . .).
Iraq's going to change, no doubts, and I hope, generally, things "get better" for Iranians, but I also hope it'll go a different path than the "all out" bourgeois one I'm fairly sure it'll go. I'd just rather not be an active part of changing it in ways I don't care for.
I'm guessing liberals had the same feelings in those spots of resistance in South America where the US propped up or created dictatorships and the radicals opposed them. Didn't like what the rads did or said, but also didn't like the dictatorships themselves. WITBD?
And BTW: how much did the Stalinists, backed by the economic power of an entire country, "tip the scales" vs. Franco? Were they just "hangers-on" to the victory brought about by the anarchists and indies? Or were they a more decisive addition than Postel might like?
Todd
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