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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2004Readers' ViewsBUSH'S MANDATE AND LOOMING SOCIAL CRISES The moralists won the election. It was razor thin, but they won. It is very retrogressive. They want to take back every right from women and gays that the Civil Rights Movement had accomplished. We can't underestimate the power of the fundamentalists. There will be a new fight now, especially on the question of abortion. Their stand on stem cell research harkens back to the Middle Ages. Not since then has there been such opposition to science itself. Bush said he has "political capital," which he wants to spend. But we are going to pay the interest on it --Black writer, California Right after the runoff election in Ukraine, the network news reported evidence of fraud because Yuschenko won big in the exit polls but lost the vote tally. The same networks on Nov. 2 reported that exit polls showed Bush behind, but concluded that those exit polls had to just be wrong --Wondering, Madison, Wisconsin I have had many discussions with both the staff and residents of a senior establishment here and am amazed at how many are anti-war and anti-Bush in what is supposed to be Republican country. A number of WWII veterans have expressed their disgust at the U.S. aggression in Iraq. I can't help wondering if it was the exit polls and not the official count that was accurate. Computer voting that leaves no paper trail for recounts is a chilling reality. One wonders what it will take for the American people to take to the streets in mass in the face of election fraud the very way it is happening in Ukraine today --Observer, Southern California It didn't take long for people to start comparing a map of the red states and the blue states after the Nov. 2 election with a map of the slave states and the free states at the time of the Civil War and find they matched almost perfectly. I know it may seem too facile an analysis if left simply at that, since the city/suburban political divisions have to be considered. But it was a fast graphic "analysis" that explains a lot of what was happening on Nov. 2. --No cartographer, Chicago When I heard that the major reason the Black vote—small though it was, to be sure—was double what it was in the last election, I was stupefied. When I heard it was mainly older, church-going Blacks that went for Bush it made me feel worse, because that is exactly the population that came of age during the Civil Rights Movement, and should understand discrimination more than any other group in the country. It made me think about the way Marx wrote of the difference between the religion of the oppressed and of the oppressor--that is, when it can be revolutionary and when it's not. I wish John Alan would write a column about that. --Erica Rae, Chicago Editor's note: He did, see page 1. As a bisexual woman who is politically active in the Chicagoland LGBTQI movement, I find the next four years of George Bush's presidency a frightening prospect for my community. While enough voters were "scared straight" enough by the prospect of gay marriage to vote for Bush and thereby assure his election, I doubt that a Constitutional amendment banning it will ever pass. But, as some of my gay and bisexual sisters have said, the clock could be turned back on so many things -- from domestic partnerships, to employment and housing discrimination -- it is all the more reason to keep fighting Bush's tyranny. --Bi Gal, Chicago The most perfect "summary statement" on Bush's victory was summed up in one sentence he spoke the day after the election: "This campaign has earned me political capital and I intend to use it." He has begun to do just that with the realignment of his Cabinet. The system we live under, capitalism, is exactly what produced those like George Bush and his chief "architect" (his own words) Karl Rove. To me, the most frightening harbinger of things to come was made by one commentator who observed that while Bush cannot run again and it's unlikely Dick Cheney would undertake the demands of a presidential campaign, Karl Rove is at the top of his game and his career is on course and going strong. --Plenty worried, Illinois That over half the voters voted on the basis of religious fundamentalism, racism and opposition to abortion and gay marriage shows that we are not so far from a theocratic state. It has never been clearer that how bad things are with the war and the economy and environment is not enough to change many people's minds. --Sheila, Los Angeles The front page of THE NEW YORK TIMES on Nov. 23 carried an article with the headline: "Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda, Caution Joins Optimism, Poll Finds Reservations About Social Security and Tax Changes." It indicated, at the very least, that Americans are not enthralled by the Bush administration's agenda despite the Nov. 2 vote. One of the many limitations in U.S. democracy is that the voter essentially pulls a lever for A or B and has no way to indicate reservations about either of the two. --E.M., New York The "moral values" question can't be separated from racism. They've skillfully downplayed overt expressions of racism, which helped lure some Black and Latino voters to identify with this "morality." Let's not forget that the "morality" being pushed in the 1960s was one of defending segregation forever. There are a number of people in the South who are aware that the Bible has been used historically to justify slavery and is being used today to justify homophobia and patriarchal sexism. The fact that one of the Republican strategies was suppressing Black votes shows how important they know the Black vote to be. --Environmentalist, Memphis I appreciated the message Michael Moore sent out on the internet after Nov. 2 to let everyone know that "if there was one group who really came through on Nov. 2 it was the young people of America. Their turnout was historic and record-setting. And few in the media are willing to report the fact," he wrote. He drew attention to the students at Boulder High School in Colorado who took over their school by staging a sit-in two days after the election, to protest the election and put Bush on notice that they weren't going to allow the draft to come back. I have to agree with him that "it was the most uplifting moment of the week." Hooray for the Youth. --Octogenarian, Michigan Four more years of "Leave no Child Behind" under the "educational" policies of the Bush administration will sentence the entire next generation to being left behind. Children who were preschoolers in 2000 will have spent eight years by then, their entire elementary and junior high school lives, being "instructed" to perform on tests that assess nothing more than rote learning and quantified measurement instead of critical thought or complex problem solving. That does not develop thoughtful, creative human beings. Even if reforms come after another election, the critical period of development for these children will be over and we will truly have lost an entire generation. --Educational researcher, Illinois The affinity between capitalism and fundamentalism is what the Lead-Editorial in the November issue dealt with in discussing "faith" and certainty. It is an alliance capital has engaged in since 1980. In the Lead, Olga Domanski says that Bush is using the Christian Right. But aren't they using each other? That there is a reach for fascism here is a reality we have to face if no meaningful alternative is found in light of a global economic collapse. Can the Left project a meaningful total view that does not reduce everything to economism? The Left does not understand the need for a total philosophy that speaks to the whole person in their everyday alienation. --R.B., Oakland THE INJUSTICE SYSTEM Over Thanksgiving weekend I visited with Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. I also read George Jackson's classic SOLEDAD BROTHER, written in 1967-70 during his solitary confinement in the California prison system. The two experiences highlighted the American injustice system as well as affirming the Black Panther Party as an intellectual, practical and inevitable product of racist society. Woodfox and Wallace are former Black Panthers whose activism in prison got them placed in the solitary confinement in which they still live 33 years later. I arrived on Thanksgiving evening in time to attend an alternative celebration organized by a Native American / African-American coalition, where the performances were reminders of the Native American genocide on which the U.S. was founded. The continuing confinement of Wallace and Woodfox is a recent manifestation of the historic and violent struggle for justice in the U.S. Over the weekend I met with several others working to free them. What the weekend clarified for me was the extent of the challenges we face for the broad-based struggle that must be waged against an extreme form of tyranny indigenous to this country. --Beth Shaw, Chicago DEBATES OVER IRAQ WAR In his essay on "Resistance or retrogression?" (November N&L), Peter Hudis was really very restrained in his sharp critique of Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein who say they support the fundamentalists as long as they oppose the U.S. If they come to power there will be no opening to freedom except as an opposition to them and they are ruthless in dealing with any who oppose them. The course of the revolutions from Algeria to Iran shows that. It is completely irresponsible for Roy and Klein to equivocate. If the Islamist insurgents win, all other opposition will be exterminated. Yannar Mohammed's life wouldn't be worth a dime. Nor would the workers who refused to let them use their factories. --Urszula Wislanka, Bay Area Peter Hudis' essay incisively reveals the Left's current fetish of power, possible evidence of a new version of the old Left authoritarianism sans the USSR or China. Where were Walden Bello and James Petras, Naomi Klein and Arundhati Roy last year when the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq and the Union of Unemployed were calling for solidarity? Few came out to show support for those indigenous struggles. People in the anti-war movement were voting with their feet by not supporting these forces. Now suddenly some well-armed militias "deserve" our uncritical support and the claim is made that not to lend them support implies dictating to Iraqis how they should resist. It shows how important it is that Marxist-Humanism upholds the idea of freedom even when its forces are not as great as those of retrogression. There are no pragmatic shortcuts to world revolution. --Anti-war activist, New York CENSORSHIP, AD-STYLE South End Press, an independent book publisher, has learned that any advertisements promoting Mumia Abu-Jamal have been banned on Chicago's public transit system. This action was discovered when the Press investigated a report that a Chicago police officer had torn down a paid advertisement on Chicago's Red Line for the award-winning journalist's new book WE WANT FREEDOM: A LIFE IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY. This is not the first time Viacom (which manages the ads on the Chicago transit system) has acted to prevent even the mention of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 2002 they censored a video by Public Enemy because the song included the line "Free Mumia." Further investigations into the ban are underway. Anyone who witnessed the removal of posters for We Want Freedom is encouraged to contact the Press by phone at 617-547-4002 or by email at southend@southendpress.org . --Mumia supporter, Chicago NON-PARTYISM The piece by Raya Dunayevskaya excerpted in the November N&L was so striking on the question of "apartidarismo" (non-partyism) that I looked up to reread where she had returned to it two years later in a 1977 thesis. There she said it was the one historic new beginning to come out of the Portuguese Revolution. She called for the masses to recognize that self-emancipation was their task alone and to "make sure that 'apartidarismo' in throwing out the 'party to lead' proceeds to so totally new a relationship of practice to theory as to forge a unity of philosophy and revolution." Our task today is no less. --Computer analyst, Tennessee AN URGENT APPEAL I'm writing to you because the organization you've supported in the past, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is in a critical condition. RAWA needs funds, and needs them badly. Their biggest and most important project, Magalia Hospital, is struggling and I'm not sure we can keep it open next year. It costs about $20,000 each month to run the hospital, pay for doctors' and nurses' salaries, buy supplies like bandages or surgical instruments, even keep the water and heat running in the building. Magalia treats 300 to 350 people each day, women who might not get care elsewhere. Over the past years, we've all had our attention focused on some very serious problems right here at home. But we can't forget our sisters in Afghanistan, who are still struggling to go to school, to be free and to provide for their families daily. A gift of $50 would provide a monthly visit to the hospital for five women and their children. Please help Afghan women today by contributing whatever you can. Contact us at www.afghanwomensmisson.org/help_us/donate.php . --Sonali Kolhatkar, Co-Director, Afghan Women's Mission FIGHTING WAR FROM INSIDE Htun Lin's point in his Workshop Talks column in the November issue, on the significance of the mutiny of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, is well taken. How much more unrest is stirring within the armed forces? We don't know where it could lead. To dismiss it because the soldiers didn't put out a statement opposing the occupation but "just" rejected a suicide mission would be like the leftists Raya Dunayevskaya wrote of in the Portuguese Revolution, who underestimated the Armed Forces Movement because of its narrow beginnings. I would like to see the current anti-war movement make a greater effort to connect to the resistance by soldiers. His column connecting that to the unrest of workers in production is a very good start. --Anti-war activist, Memphis I question whether the soldiers were challenging the war in Iraq, the way the Workshop Talks column implies in the November N&L. They were opposing working conditions. They were protesting not getting the tools to get their job done. Maybe you could say they are implicitly challenging the way the war is being carried out, but I didn't get the sense they were challenging the war per se. Different soldiers are saying different things. Many are saying they have done their duty. And other soldiers are opposed to the war. --Mitch, Oakland, Cal. Any opposition to military orders is serious. The military is not a free speech area. There are thousands now who are refusing to show up, which forces the U.S. to call in anybody on whom they have any claim, like in the reserves. --War protester, California I recently found a used copy of Karl Liebknecht's book on Militarism and Anti-militarism, written in 1907, and found his comments even more appropriate for today than when he wrote them. There seem to be anti-war break-outs here and there in this country and in the military but not enough yet to threaten the powers that be. Too many still get caught up in religious patriotism, as if they are stuck at a certain level of awareness but not enough to really question authority. How do we break through this backwardness? If I understand what you have been saying about Hegel's philosophy, the first negation is not enough and we have to go beyond mere opposition. That is the hard part. --Long time socialist, Wisconsin TOILING IN BANGLADESH It was good to have an article like "Toiling in Bangladesh" in N&L because it shows a human voice of those who make the things we buy at Wal-Mart. I noted that the article criticized the group who brought these workers here for focusing on a consumer relationship. But what that group did was really important. We can draw conclusions different from theirs. There are a number of people coming to the U.S. who are looking for the kind of solidarity that is reflected in N&L. The concreteness of that kind of solidarity goes beyond the limited expression that the organizers of this event might have articulated. --Supporter, California WHILE DARFUR BURNS Your article on "the Left fiddling while Darfur burns" (October N&L) provides additional information on what is stifling the process of ending the genocide there. It gives a clear example of the Left's inability to maintain a connection with the people who could make a revolutionary thrust. From the outside it wasn't hard to see why the so-called international community (I'd call them the industrial elites) were so hesitant to come to an agreement on the nature of the atrocities being committed. When the financial interest of one or more of the five permanent members of the UN security council is involved in any area of the world in crisis, a resolution is slow in coming. What's troubling is the kind of analysis of the problem you pointed to by so-called Leftists, like Stephen Gowens who opposes efforts of any outside powers to stop the fighting since "the only effective protection against these attacks is to put an end to the imperialism that prompts them." Of course putting an end to imperialism would stop some of these kinds of attacks on helpless people, but the situation in Darfur demands a resolution notwithstanding the demise of imperialism. It's precisely due to the inability of the Black Africans of Darfur to protect themselves from the superior military power of the Arabic North Sudanese regime that the world has no choice but to mount a forceful intervention to prevent the total destruction of an indigenous people. --Angry Observer, Crescent City, California WHO SUPPORTS N&L? What made me want to hear more about Marxist-Humanism was knowing just enough Marx to see that capitalism was at its own dead end. It is knowing of all the lives being lost today and the daily horrors that capitalism has brought about that pushes people to get involved. --Secretary, Los Angeles It was good to read a Marxist publication that openly denounced the USSR and Stalinist thought. As an anarchist I am more than willing to work with other revolutionaries of different stripes, but it's hard to work with "revolutionaries" who spend their time stumping for other despotic governments and institutions. So it is refreshing to have come into contact with you. The anti-capitalist and revolutionary movements need to move beyond the sectarianism we have imposed on ourselves. Anarchism, Marxism, Council Communism, whatever we call our ideologies, we must be willing to work together against the capitalist and imperialist state before we can worry about arguing what will happen "after the revolution." --New reader, Lawrence, Kansas I first read a copy of your paper in the office of one of my teachers. I think your position on Marxism is true because I'm also a Marxist here and try to think about humanism which I believe to also be your goal. As Marxists, we need practice to develop that goal, and for that we need proper theory and love for people. --University student, Bangladesh News & Letters has helped me to understand that there are great and numerous tragedies being committed against my fellow human beings. I didn't really think about or relate to the human tragedies that were going on all over the world until you put it right in front of my face every month. I knew there were problems in my country but you made me aware that this is a global problem and has to be dealt with globally by all of us fighting to put a stop to it together. --Prisoner, Tennessee Colony, Texas |
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