[lbo-talk] chavez, bush, the devil and jon stewart

[Carrol Cox]

For the time being (and that time may well last quite a while) it really
makes no difference what the general public in the u.s. thinks of either
Chavez or Ahmadinejad. The anti-war movement is clearly dead in the
water for the time being (I'm going to use this phrase quite a bit), and
hence there exists no forum within which leftists can move anti-war
people towards an anti-imperialist position. And conditions in the u.s.
will not change dramatically on either  domestic or foreign policy
issues until there _is_ a _very_ large anti-interventionist movement
with a _quite_ large anti-imperialist core within it. And what the
general u.s. public thinks of Chavez and/or Ahmadinejad cannot 
contribute or be a barrier to the growth of a movement that does not
exist.

But it does make a difference the impact one or both of these genetlemen
have on (a) the public in nations of Asia, Africa, & Latin America and
(b) any governments which are potential present members of a growing
worldwide united front against u.s. imperialism. It is such a worldwide
united front which will constitute the framework (or the climate) within
which u.s. leftists must operate in the forseeable future.

There is no devil, but taking it metaphorically, the current resident of
the White House (now, in the past 50 years, and in the forseeable
future) represents about as good a stand-in for the devil as I can
imagine.

Carrol