From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse

 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.     

************

IT IS TIME TO GET NASTY

 

COMMENTARY

 

WHILE BUSH AND THE DEMOCRATS DO THE MINUET-IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ-THAT MEANS NOW.

 

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!

 

At the price of beating the reader over the head once again this writer finds the need to comment on these recent acts of parliamentary hubris between the Bush Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. This past week, the week of April 25, 2007, both branches of Congress passed their joint compromise version of the supplementary Iraq war budget by slim margins. Next week Bush promises to veto that bill because it contains timetables for troop draw down. The Congress, at this point, does not have enough votes to override that veto. So on the parliamentary level it is back to square one. Remember two things. First, the Congress voted FOR continued funding for the war against all reason. That includes all the leading Congressional presidential contenders, notably Hillary and Obama the “Charmer”. Second, this war will get funded one way or the other. No one in Washington with any weight is committed to any other course. The net effect of these acts of parliamentary cretinism is that this war will continue on course until at least 2009. That is the nut of the matter.

 

Anyone who was gullible enough or idealistic enough to believe that there would be a swift end to the conflict should by now be thoroughly disabused of the notion that, well-intentioned or not, the Democrats would get this thing over with soon. Moreover, even in the narrow confines of military strategy Iraq commander General Petreus spent the week backing off a timetable for when the public should see results from this summer to the fall. Additionally, the daily news out of Iraq gets grimmer each week the ‘surge’ continues.  It does not take a hardened communist, although that does not hurt, to realize that such would be the outcome. I have been playing the role of Cassandra on this war for the past few years. Now it is time to get nasty with those people. This war, if it is to be finished, will take the efforts of those willing to go out into the streets, go into the factories and offices, go into the schools and, most importantly, link up with the rank and file soldiers fighting this war to do that. So let us get to it. The time for parliamentary niceties and waiting for good new is long past over.

 

 

On another note. Just when it seemed that every one is abandoning the ship Titanic, I mean the Bush ship, I read an article in the Sunday April 29, 2007 Boston Globe by Op/Ed columnist Jeff Jacoby defending the Bush ‘surge’ and taking the Democratic Congress to task for not taking the fight against ‘war on terror’ in Iraq seriously. Moreover, Mr. Jacoby does a rather crude job of linking up the Democrats and Al Qaeda. Where has this guy been for the last several years? Former top Bush strategist Matthew Dowd has written off his former bosses as fools. Former CIA Director George Tenet, of ‘slam dunk’ fate, self-servingly questions whether Bush can tie his own shoes. But the intrepid Mr. Jacoby counts himself among the approximately seven ‘true believers’ who still think that while things are tough ‘victory’ is possible in Iraq.

 

The only part of Mr. Jacoby’s commentary that I can agree with is that Al Qaeda is happy with the American quagmire in Iraq. But not for his reasons. One of the main fallacies of American policy makers and their hangers-on, like Mr. Jacoby, is that Al Qaeda and its network condition their policy on American moves. Sure they take advantage of stupidities like Iraq but it is apparent that they pretty much keep to their own counsel and are immune to the niceties of American rationalism, such as it is. Thus, to premise continuing a massive troop presence in Iraq on keeping Al Qaeda out is wishful thinking.  Make no mistake these ‘guys’ are the enemy, for sure, but bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age is not the way to defeat them.

 

How then, Mister Smart Guy Markin? I have written elsewhere that Islamic fundamentalism is a threat to every one of us that seeks a democratic secular world, to speak nothing of a socialist one. Know this- a workers government would, of necessity, have a fight to the death with these forces. Not like that half-hearted fight the Soviets waged in Afghanistan. In the end that only whetted the appetites of Bin Laden and his followers.  No question. But it looks to me like diligent police work would be the more effective. On the level of police work, while not conceding any political points to that fundamentalist monarchy, the news out of Saudi Arabia this week points in the right direction. The Saudis were able to foil various plots against their regime by what appears to be good police work.  And if that fails? Believe me, if a workers government needed to take military action to root these buggers out then that strategy would be placed squarely on the agenda. Know this also- under our own worker-controlled government we would have not problem getting workers councils to fund that kind of war.