[lbo-talk] "dialectically responsible position, " United for Peace & Justice-News listserv

[Michael Pugliese]

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Message: 3
   Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 15:12:10 -0800 (PST)
   From: Kkennieth Heard <kkennieth at yahoo.com>
Subject: The Iraq and the Position of the Working Class Here
 Dearest Comrade Feldman
 There is certainly a problem in this regard
                      of the occupation, but the position this writer 
attains is that there should be intervention
                      by the United Nations in this situation, and
                      with a force of Peace Keepers as well. Such
                      position is maintained and has been discussed with 
personnel here in Philadelphia for sometime,
                      and as the ultra-left here has the attitude not to
                      support such a position, there has been a constant
                      split in the movement to remove the United States
                      military form the area of the United States 
Governmental Protorate of Iraq.
 Without the UN, there will be no withdrawal of such imperial forces as are 
there at this point. and as an American and an African American at that, 
there is
                      no other realistic, dialectically responsible 
position
                      one may take in this regard.
 Having just returned from a meeting of well informed people who have 
agreed in a day long meeting to
                      subscribe to the position of the UN intervening in 
the Iraqi situation, must move to request the maturing of
                      other said positions which are not of this style nor 
content.
 To do so may take a bit of time, but we have all confidence,
                      the more mature position will assist you and others 
in your work.
 Also, there was recently a communication from one of the people posting to 
 the UfPJ board. We must caution, there are a number
                      false organizations which are posing as one 
organization or another
                      having a so-called-more-revolutionary position than 
the other.
 Such repositions of false organizations masquerading as another       
should be investigated and ceased as soon as possible, and in the manner of 
the UfPJ standard call for correct thinking and analysis in such cases.
 Specific to this was the so-called posting from the so called (Cadre) 
group
                      in Iraq,  if they were at all within the country at 
all.
 In Love and Struggle
                      Ken Heard
                           Onward to Socialism!
 Fred Feldman <ffeldman at bellatlantic.net> wrote: AlWith the possible 
exception of the unions, which I know little about, all sections of the 
Iraqi population who are resisting the occupation have bourgeois 
leaderships.  That includes the Shiites and
Sunni-based  armed resistance.  That means they all pursue particular
bourgeois class interests through the struggle. In most semicolonial
countries this was true in the original fight for independence itself.
Only in a minority of the cases was there major
revolutionary-nationalist or working-class leaderships.
 Maneuvering with the occupation and attempts to demobilize the masses
are built into this situation.  We have to not romanticize the
situation. But we also should not demand that the situation be
romantic before we will recognize the reality of the struggle and the
fact that some gains have been made. At present -- there may be an
attempt to reverse this after the US elections -- there is an overall
tendency of the imperialist occupation to weaken and retreat in the
face of the very broad overall resistance of the peoples of Iraq.
 We are not going to learn how a Chavez or Castro or Ben Bella-type
leadership would function in this situation, because there is none
there to teach us at present.  It is important to assess the situation
realistically, but it is even more important to reject every trace of
sectarianism toward the real process by which the Iraqi masses, in
this extremely difficult situation of occupation by the world's one
imperialist giant, are pursuing the fight to assert and win their
independence.
 Unconditional opposition to the US war and occupation, and to UN
intervention to prop it up, should not become an excuse for refusal to
support the complex and difficult struggle that the peoples of Iraq
are actually carrying out. Fred Feldman


-- 
Michael Pugliese

>From "Marx at the Millenium, " by Cyril Smith, Pluto Press. Footnote 5, pg. 
178, "...The Three Priciples of Democratic Centralism...by Don Cuckson: 1 
Father Knows Best 2 Not in front of the children 3 Keep it in the family.