From: "Charles Brown" B@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Subject: [L-I] Analysis of doublespeak 2001
To: leninist-international@lists.econ.utah.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 09:44:39 -0500
Reply-To: leninist-international@lists.econ.utah.edu

trade union rightist said

> Why would I need to respond to a post in which you so
> clearly and unambiguously laid out your support for, how
> did you say it, "terrorism," disagreeing only with AL
> Qaeda's poor strategy in implementing mass murder?  You
> have said it all yourself.

No one here is advocating mass murder, but that does not
mean we cannot sympathethize with al Qaeda's plight. Your
comment seems divisive and so offers an excuse to append a
little essay I wrote a month ago, but put aside as too
verbose.

============

A modest defense of terrorism

What follows is not a call for terrorism. We are in fact
engaged in a World War III, and in this war, the word
"terrorism" is used as an ideological weapon against the
working class. I here propose that we neutalize this weapon
and through a tactic that will help to win allies in the
struggle for global justice and democracy.

I find it troubling that nearly all discussions of World War
III begin with an obligatory statement to the effect that of
course we all condemn terrorism and sympathize with those in
New York and Washington who were its victims, but ...  Any
other approach is made to appear not only treasonous, but
immoral or even pathological.

And yet, that is what must be done, for this obligatory
condemnation of terrorism stands in the way of any
progressive response to such tragic events that alone will
discourage them from happening again. An honest look at
terrorism does not imply an indifference to its victims, but
is the beginning of an effort to ensure there are no future
victims.

First, we must insist there are no innocents. It is said
that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of
the problem. To the extent people have the power to change
things, they bear responsibility for what their governments
do. It seems likely that the majority of those who died in
the WTC at best could only plead ignorance of the US role in
world affairs by burrying their head in the sand, and who at
least passively acquiesced to the gross injustices
perpetuated by their government, or who enjoyed significant
advantages thanks to US imperialism. Everyone there bore
some responsibility, however slight, for oppressive US
foreign and domestic policies unless they actively fought
against them.

Since the late 19th century, the broad masses have been
engaged in wars either as its victims or its
victors. Weapons are those of mass destruction; wars are
voted on by representatives of the people. So in this war,
are we on the side of Bush and his fellow capitalists, or
are we on the side of people struggling against the effects
of the global capitalist order? None of us are innocent
bystanders with clean hands.

Saying this does not mean we should not mourn the deaths at
the WTO, for we mourn a death even when a person's own
behavior contributed to it, but our sadness over their death
does not make them innocent. The relatively comfortable
lives of those with jobs at the WTC were not the result of a
fortunate accident, but were the fruit in large part of US
global hegemony.

That does not mean we should not mourn their deaths, but we
should also mourn the far more numerous deaths throughout
the world caused by the US government.  Otherwise, our
exclusive mourning of just those who died at the WTC becomes
politically charged and hypocritical.

It might be objected that the people in New York are closer
to us, but that does not carry much weight in a globalized
world in which all people are affected by what happens to
everyone else, regardless of their physical location. Is the
commuter in New York really closer to us than the commuter
in Baghdad, for both share the same working-class existence
and the need for dignity and justice that arises from it,
regardless of our cultural differences such as language and
religion.

We should therefore turn from the issue of innocence or
guilt and instead assess the character of the current
conflict and consider what our role in it will be as it
unfolds. It seems World War III will turn out to be an axial
point in world history, for it marks the beginning of the
political conflict of capital and labor at the global level,
although events in the 90's - Kosovo, Iraq, and the protests
againts the Bretton Woods institutions - seem its early
stages.

The bipolar world that arose after World War II has yielded
to a unipolar world marked by capitalist
domination. Opposition to that order arises no longer from
non-capitalist states, but from the broad masses, just as
the unipolar capitalist order does not simply reduce to the
hegemony of a particular state. I am not suggesting that
state power is becoming marginal, but that states are
becoming nothing more than local agencies of global
capitalism and no longer resting on local mass support.

In terms of class, there seems no question that the victims
are the working class and the perpetuators of the capitalist
war are the capitalists. An understanding of the causes of
the events of 11 September tends to support this
generalization. Most states in our world today are either
headed by governments that, like the US, are the political
arm of capitalist interests, or, like the Republic of South
Africa or Haiti, have accomodated capitalism by
privatization and an acquiesce to IMF conditionalities.

Any attempt to categorize states in terms of whether they be
capitalist or social democratic, imperialist or not, becomes
unncessary when the very atmosphere they breath is that of
capitalism thanks to globalization. No more are there good
guys and bad guys among the world's nations, for even a
workers' state inhales the same maisma. Some states may be
less appaling than others, but no states can long stand in
opposition to capitalist forces.

The labor movement must free itself of bondage to the
capitalist state. In part this is because the state is
ceasing to be a meaningful forum of struggle.
Privatization, globalization and trade arrangmenets are
dissolving the competence of states to satisfy working-class
needs, and so the struggle of labor has little choice but to
shift from the context of the bourgeois nation state to a
level suited to engage globalization.

World War III, if we admit that actual circumstances are
necessarily a lot messier than broad generalization, seem
fundamentally a war of labor against capital, even if
capital was the first to pick up the sword and labor has not
yet done the same in any significantly international
way. Until now, globalization lacked coercive political
instruments at the global level, but that changed when Bush,
Blair, and Howard (all white males) agree to crush, despite
constitutional rights or international law, any forceful
opposition to their hegemony. Even an accomodation with
opposition, whether it occur in the Philippines, Malaysia,
Indonesia, China, Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, Chechnya,
Uzbekistan, Ireland, USA, Kashmir, Pakistan, makes one a
terrorist.

This is a long list of trouble spots, but each area
represents a focus of current negotiation in which the
combined political forces of capitalism offer to become
directed against local struggles for national liberation,
for ethnic autonomy, of organized labor, or of popular
discontent. These struggles differ in specific terms, but
all refuse to acquiese to bourgeois law or submit to the
increasingly oppressive militarized police.

I'd be the first to admit some of them may have unsavory
features, but they are nevertheless all mass struggles for
liberty or dignity against the domination of capital. They
certainly differ in their specific characteristics, but they
share a common opposition to the kind of world that is
emerging from imperialism and globalization. This opposition
is therefore similar to the series of political protests to
meetings of the Breton Woods institutions in recent
years. While the confusion of objectives that characterized
these protests was divisive, everyone present well knew that
globalization had unacceptable outcomes.

While labor did pursued an ambivalent course in these
anticipations of World War III, only labor offers a positive
alternative upon which a future might be built.  Without the
leadership of organized labor, diverse objectives will
necessarily divide anti-capitalist forces. True, labor has
itself also suffered from that ill, but it alone has the
potential to build solidarity based on a shared relation of
production. In more conventional terms, it is the only
social force founded on economic democracy, which opens the
way to social development and progress.

It seems that organized labor is the ultimate target of
World War III, and it also seems the current situation
represents an opportunity for labor to assume leadership of
all the popular struggles. At the moment this is far from
the case, but the logic of the situation points in this
direction.

Organized labor is the obvious leader for several reasons:
it alone has a claim to universality rather than be confined
to just local conditions; it alone has a potential for
self-organization, rather than the traditional relation of
ruler and ruled; it alone has a proven record of commitment
to democracy and human rights; it has an institutional
structure long tested in struggle. If organized labor were
to assume leadership of the struggle against globalized
capital, it would have the leverage needed to move its
allies toward democracy and a respect for human rights and
dignity, which are surely conditions for a happier future.

So it might not be a good idea to use the litmus test of
being anti-terrorist as a precondition for labor's
alliances. Originally, the Jacobin "terrorists" in the
French Revolution were the radical democrats. Only by
embracing the word in that sense can labor engage the broad
masses in the struggle and move labor's allies in a positive
direction.

To join the chorus condemning terrorism is not simply a
rejection of illegal force, but to sing the anthem of the
capitalist order. Movements or peoples are labelled as
terrorist because they resort to force to achieve their
ends, but are they not potential allies of labor? Does not
revolution to achive democracy fall within this definition
of terrorism; do not wildcats or a general strike also fall
within that definition; does not a refusal to let the
government track everything you say or do as a labor
activist fall within the definition of terrorism? To someone
not following events closely, such points may sound like
quite a stretch, but in fact they are not.

Surely the guarantee of liberty is a willingness to use
illicit force against oppression when no other course of
action remains open. If the word "terrorism" is broadened to
include the use of any illicit force against the prevailing
capitalist order, then let us all become terrorists if that
is the only way to achieve democracy! Let us call our stikes
acts of terrorism; let us call our protests acts of
terrorism. And if this can't be said without risk of
retribution, then surely that is evidence that the present
order must be cast aside.

If we are indeed witnessing a new phase in the struggle
between labor and capital in which unconstrained force will
henceforth be used against any non-conformity with the
capitalist order, it will end in disastor for everyone if
labor does not recognize what is happening and take
appropriate measures in its own interest. This can't be
limited to the usual declaration of opposition to capitalist
attacks on labor, but only by offering seasoned and militant
leadership to the various forces of discontent in the world,
most of which are now being called terrorist.

Such bold independence will result in the labor movement
being labelled terrorist as well, but this seems the price
we would have to pay in order to assume a principled
leadership of the popular struggle for democracy and human
rights.

Haines Brown


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