[lbo-talk] black books

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Sun Sep 9 07:18:22 PDT 2007


On 9/9/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 8, 2007, at 9:05 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > On 9/8/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >> Imam Yoshie writes:
> >>
> >>> Most leftists are too busy writing a Black Book of Khomeinism to
> >>> bother fighting against the general US propaganda campaign against
> >>> Iran exemplified by this cartoon...
> >>
> >> I'm trying to decide whether this is a smear or a lie. Name a leftist
> >> who spends even a tenth as much time compiling such a black book as
> >> you do writing and editing apologetics for the Iranian state. Name
> >> one who doesn't agitate against a war on Iran.
> >
> > What leftists should be agitating against is the ongoing US campaign
> > for _regime change_ in Iran, _not_ a US war on Iran (which is not
> > going to happen any time soon). Stop using opposition to a phantom
> > war as an alibi and start opposing what Washington is already doing:
> > _economic sanctions, covert action, and "democracy assistance."_
>
> In other words, you can't offer up a single name. Posts that repeat
> this smear will go straight to the trash.

If you need an example, take these curious paragraphs from Stephen Zunes, which curiously fail to name "certain Western nongovernmental organizations."

<http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4456> The United States and "Regime Change" in Iran Stephen Zunes | August 7, 2007

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In an effort to head off such a popular uprising and discredit pro-democracy leaders and their supporters, Iran's reactionary leadership has been making false claims, aired in detail in a series of television broadcasts during the third week of July, that certain Western nongovernmental organizations that have given workshops and offered seminars for Iranian pro-democracy activists on the theory and history of strategic nonviolent struggle are actually plotting with the Bush administration in offering specific instructions on how to overthrow the regime. On several occasions, Iranian authorities have arrested and tortured these activists, forcing them to sign phony confessions allegedly confirming these allegations.

Some Western bloggers and other writers, understandably skeptical of U.S. intervention in oil-producing nations in the name of "democracy," have actually bought into these claims by Iran's hardline clerics that prominent nonviolent activists from Europe and the United States—most of whom happen to be highly critical of U.S. policy toward Iran—are somehow working as agents of the Bush administration. These conspiracy theories have in turn been picked up by some progressive websites and periodicals, which repeat them as fact. The result has been to strengthen the hand of Iran's repressive regime, weaken democratic forces in Iran, and strengthen the argument of U.S. neoconservatives that only military force from the outside—and not nonviolent struggle by the Iranian people themselves—is capable of freeing Iran from repressive clerical rule. -- Yoshie



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