Ok, organized labor in Iran is ok as long as they don't talk to any other unions in the world and they avoid upsetting the populace (i.e. the mullahs) too much. You also seem to also think the world would be better off if the Soviet Union sent in tanks to smash up Solidarnosc and Charter 77. Fascinating
This conversation is looping itself, but I want to ask Yoshie one last thing. Do you still consider yourself a leftist? A socialist, progressive etc? You don't seem to be a practicing Muslim and you write for Monthly Review, not Islam Today, so I'd assume you still consider yourself to be a leftist, but I can't for the life of me see why. You're only positive agenda seems to be anti-Americanism. You apologize for a capitalist regime that arrests and beats up trade unionists, kills and expells the left, represses religious and ethnic minorities, prosecutes gays and lesbians, and regulates women to a secondary legal status. You made some pithy comment about how the class stuggle is more intricate and complex than some leftists imagine. I take that to mean that you are still interested in class struggle, but I can not see how that matches up with your advice to the Iranian working class which is to shut up and do what the government says. You also seem to write off any hope for domestic labor movement here too (unless it takes the form of a US-Iranian friendship society I assume). I mean Trotsky called for defending Ethiopia against Mussolini, but he never spent a second apologizing for slavery or the theocratic rule of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the way you do for the Shiite Mullahs in Tehran.
As much as I disagree with Chuck's perspective, I can see how we want the same thing and share similar values. I fail to see how your third world real-politik -which takes more from Putin than Marx or Lenin- is even in the same ballpark as the political left.
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