To answer the question, how does it help the Iranians for people in the US to speak out against the crimes of the Iranian government (etc.)?, it makes us credible here.
If we do not do that, we will be dismissed as apologists by people whom me might actually influence here at home. This is is so obvious it should not have to be said.
No one here is saying that the first task of the left and the antiwar movement is to do anything but stop the war, by which I mean, oppose the US occupation of Iraq or any attack on Iran, Syria, etc. But to do this effectively we have to be honest about the situation and clear that we are not suggesting that we favor the bad things that repressive regimes do abroad.
Chomsky, who has been staunchly anti-imperialist for 50 years and more illuminatingly scathing about US aggression than anyone, both savages the people here who make a career out of saying true but safe things about our Official Enemies and also himself has never been anything but totally frank (if perhaps on one occasion distressingly naive) about the crimes of the people whose self-determination he defends.
If it is really dumb and politically self destructive to be apologists for vicious regimes (sorry, Chris) that we think the US should nonetheless not be attacking, it is worse to know the truth about those regimes and not say anything because we don't want to appear to offer any aid to imperialism.
And it is really insulting to lump Doug or me in with the likes of Paul Berman, who did the reverse of what we do -- he used his supposed position on the left to make respectable an imperialist politics that was mainly directed at attacking Official Enemies and justifying US aggression. We attack the US for its imperialism while refusing to identify with repressive foreign governments merely because they are targets of imperialism, and thereby (we hope) enhancing our position with Americans who might be moved to join us in opposing US aggression, but not if they think we support (for example) Iranian repression.
The historical analogy that comes to (my) mind with regard to silence about the crimes of Official Enemies is the fellow travelers and others who knew about the crimes of Stalinism but did not admit because they didn't want to support US cold war ambitions. They didn't help the cause very much.
I guess I myself am imprinted by own introduction to activist politics, the international peace movement of the late 70s and early 80s, when we had no problem with saying, a plague on both your houses, and extending our support to the victims of Stalinist repression while being clear that US nuclear ambitions were the main threat.
Ah well, this is pointless. We're not going to change each other's minds. We'd really be better off agreeing agree about the nature of US policy and talking about that, and agreeing to disagree about whether to talk about the nature of the Iranian (or whatever) government, and those who don't want to talk about that, just don't.
--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/25/07, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> > Jerry Monaco wrote:
> > > Simply put, the U.S. state is within some
> compass of your agency and
> > > my agency, and the Iranian state is not.
> Therefore you bear
> > > responsibility for the actions of the U.S.
> state. You don't bear
> > > responsibility of the actions of the Iranian
> state because it is not
> > > in the compass of your agency. At least in name,
> the rulers of the
> > > U.S. state act as agents for you and it takes
> more than words to
> > > negate the effect of that __de facto__ agency.
> That de de facto agency
> > > is both moral and practical. There is no
> collective responsibility i> > the abstract, but
> there is both relative responsibility and practical
> > > responsibility for the situations you can have
> an effect upon, as
> > > contrasted with the situations that you have no
> effect upon.
> > >
> > >
> > This position assumes that we live in a truly
> democratic society in
> > which ordinary people can significantly affect the
> decisions and actions
> > of the U. S. government.
>
> Where did I make this assumption. I talked about
> __relative__
> responsibility and the effects of our speech and
> actions. I made no
> assumption about "democracy" in the U.S. If you
> actually read what I
> wrote you would have seen I talked about
> responsibility, relative to
> our freedom, power and privilege. What you would
> like to do, I gather,
> is to say that we have as much effect on the
> governments of our
> official enemies and of the governments "over there"
> as the state
> institutions here. Well quite frankly this is
> bullshit Miles and I am
> surprised at you for even presenting this as an
> argument. We have
> limited violence of our government in the past and
> we can do better in
> the future.
>
> In fact our intellectual culture is highly
> undemocratic or else I
> would never have to explain, to generally good
> hearted people such as
> Doug, that we have a lot more freedom to effect the
> policies of the
> U.S. government and that speaking out against the
> governments of our
> official enemies is not only counterproductive but
> will only
> contribute to war fever and lead to war. If we did
> not have an elite
> intellectual cultural that accepts violence,
> terrorism and war crimes
> as a matter of course, I would never have to explain
> to people like
> Brian that U.S. terrorism kills far more people (and
> thus homosexuals)
> than Iran will ever kill. If those who rule and own
> our society
> weren't intractably anti-democratic, I would never
> have to point out
> that we can only limit the crimes of our rulers and
> owners but we do
> not yet have the power to stop them. And if our
> intellectual culture
> were more democratic, those of us who are privileged
> would not follow
> the agenda set by the rulers and owners of society
> and maybe I would
> never have to point out that vastly greater crimes
> are committed by
> the U.S. in places like Colombia and U.S. allies in
> places like Saudi
> Arabia, than ever have been committed by Iran.
>
> "Speaking out" against Iran, in the current
> political context, is just
> a way to soothe the conscious with even-handed good
> intentions. It is
> a way to not feel embarrassed in front of friends so
> that they don't
> accuse you of being a crazy leftist who can't see
> how bad our official
> enemies are. It is a way to come to some modicum of
> conformity to
> the very undemocratic and pro-violence intellectual
> culture of our
> society, and to accept the premises of the agenda of
> the
> anti-democratic rulers and owners of our society.
>
> The U.S. holds a gun to the head of people in Iran,
> not just the
> government. It threatens to bomb, even to the
> extent of not ruling
> out nuclear war. And then citizens of the U.S. turn
> around and
> lecture Iranians out the faults of their society!
> Miles, you don't
> find this at all problematic or strange? What
> effect do these
> lectures have? Do you think that U.S. intellectuals
> "speaking out"
> against Iran's crimes at all helps the people in
> Iran? How? You
> don't think that U.S. intellectuals speaking out
> against the Iran
> state contributes to the war fever and the general
> culture of violence
> and terrorism here?
>
> For these subjects I think I have history on my
> side. Unfortunately
> for Doug and Brian, there positions are not much
> different in this
> case than many of the people around Dissent in
> regards to Nicaragua
> and also Panama. They are not as bad as Paul
> Berman, but.... At the
> time that massive slaughter was being perpetrated by
> our government in
> the rest of Central America, the Dissenters could
> only write about the
> violations of freedom in Nicaragua. That's
> basically the same as most
> of the left now as far as Iran is concerned.
>
>
> >Perhaps I'm getting cynical in my old age, but
> > we have ample evidence that the U. S. government
> does whatever it bloody
> > well wants, regardless of needs and attitudes of
> the majority of people
> > in our society. The state is (mostly?) a tool for
> the wealthy and
> > powerful to consolidate and expand their wealth
> and power. So in
> > practical terms, you or I taking responsibility
> for the actions of the
> > U. S. state is about as silly as you or I taking
> responsibility for the
> > actions of the Iranian government. --And even
> worse: taking
> > responsibility for the actions of the U. S.
> government reinforces the
> > pernicious myth that we live in a society governed
> "of, by, and for the
> > people".
> >
> > Miles
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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