Jim Farmelant:
"if the bombing was done as an act of protest against Spanish support for the invasion of Iraq, then it seems that it succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations."
Yes, in a round about way. But you don't see a problem in the fact that the course of the election was turned around by a bomb?
My point was that the bombers' actions were not really protesting Spain's involvement in the war - or they would have attacked the Spanish government, not the people who were resolutely against it.
Jim picks up on my contrast with the 'revolutionary defeatism' position of the bolsheviks.
"And no doubt something could have been said about the Russian antiwar movement of 1917 which demanded that Russia pull out of the World War which was bleeding the country dry."
"Why should an ex-Trot like you have a problem with that?"
(Who said ex?) My problem is that the vote is more like Weimar than 1917. The protest against the war is more world-weariness and disengagement than positive alternative. (You can see as much in the mixed messages coming from the new government.) Jim gently mocks
"So is your criticism of the Spanish antiwar movement, that there are no Lenins or Trotskys around that are ready to take advantage of the movement to overthrow the state?"
OK so its a tall order, but that is the difference between the internal collapse of the ruling order, and the creation of an alternative to replace it. What we see in Spain is the elite's collapse, reflected in popular disengagement. But that is a long way off of an imposed alternative. What's more, the collapse of the elite without an alternative can be worse in its consequences than the elite's survival (look at Albania).
My plea to LBOers is not to react to momentarily good tidings without trying to understand what is a radically new kind of politics emerging in Europe. I see this much more in terms of the emerging 'risk society'/security state discussion. The mood seems very close to that in Sweden or Holland after the assassinations of leading politicians (Lind and Fortuyn), or in Belgium during the 'white' protests over Marc Dutroux's escape, or the public spasm in the UK over Princess Diana. New styles of popular emotionalism in politics are important, and resist being stuck in the traditional categories of 'war' and 'anti-war'.
Joanna contrasts the PSOE positively with Bush - but I am less optimistic. The clamour for security might not have the same right wing agenda, but there is a left-wing authoritarianism that is potentially as destructive.