[lbo-talk] A good summary of the Lebanon situation

[Eric Beck]

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Within a given nation, and probably within some 'clusters' of nations (e.g.
> in the EU) politics can be viewed in left-right terms. But globally, at this
> time, the division is between the Major powers one 'side,' nations
> struggling for independence on the other side.

Hey Carrol, 1961 called. It wants its political theory back.

The movements for national independence were won 50 years ago, and
unlike Western leftists (or at least Carrol), the protesters in NA and
the ME know they have been a disaster for them.

Your formulation denies the immediate antagonism that ME protesters
experience and reunifies them with their governments in a fight
against some abstraction called the "major capitalist powers." But
unlike you, the protesters think that they can fight both the local
and global (really abstract) manifestations of their oppression at the
same time, that a fight against one is also a fight against the other.
You assume that "internal" politics are not really politics at all.