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Readers' ViewsIRAN: 17 DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD At the demonstration of several thousands in the Bay Area on July 25, as part of the day of international solidarity with the movement in Iran, there was a whole gamut of people--from liberals in the government like Jerry Brown, to royalists--but there were mostly ordinary Iranian Americans expressing solidarity. There were very few leftists. We sold a large number of copies of N&L and got into some interesting discussions. The Left here, if not outright pro-Ahmadinejad and pro-Chavez, mostly seem leery they would otherwise be supporting U.S. imperialism. At our meeting on "The Specter of Revolution in Iran," the highlight of the presentation was a contrast between the meaning of the struggle for open space for public discourse in Iran in the process of challenging the regime, and what public discourse means here--intellectuals debating each other. The speaker emphasized the need to give the movement space for development as opposed to trying to schoolmaster it. Recent events in Iran can, indeed, be called "Seventeen days that shook the world" which is the title of the eyewitness report one of the speakers brought to our meeting on Iran. Nazanin also distributed a list, "The quandary of the American Left about the protests in Iran," challenging theoretical presuppositions on the Left that led it to hedge their support in the name of opposing U.S. imperialism. She brought out very profoundly the objectivity of the drive to be free as reflected in the unfolding total opposition among all segments of the population to Iran's theocratic rulers. As someone who followed events online as they were unfolding in Iran, I witnessed not only the beautiful solidarity in which the world was participating but also the desperate need for philosophy. The first day of the revolt had barely ended when the virtually universal solidarity turned into everyone going their own way. Some were stuck on U.S. imperialism as the cause of everything, others argued that Israel/Palestine should be the main issue. To me, it spoke to the increased need for philosophy to be a guiding and foundational force for all solidarity action. That is especially true today when technology enables us to be closer than ever to events that happen on the other side of the world. The Lead article in the June-July N&L was a wonderful expression of how I believe revolutionaries in the U.S. should respond to just such a situation. I would like to tell you about Mourning Mothers of Iran and invite you to support them. See their pictures and appeal at mothersoflaleh.blogspot.com. Millions of Iranians are protesting the election results and do not see Ahmadinejad's government as legitimate. Since June 12, the Iranian government has brutally attacked demonstrators and violated its own laws concerning peaceful demonstrations. The leaders of 13 worker unions are still in prison being tortured for the May Day protests in Iran. You, unfortunately, decided to be the first president to congratulate him on his success….You have chosen to support Ahmadinejad, beyond the call of diplomacy and reason. Evo Morales and Castro are in much the same situation as you, but have not chosen to make fools of themselves by befriending this ruthless dictator. Retract your support from Ahmadinejad, do not betray the people of both countries. In solidarity with people of Venezuela and Iran, and to the Bolivarian dream. EXCHANGE WITH INTERNATIONAL ANTI-WAR ASSEMBLY IN JAPAN Every August, on the anniversary of the U.S. atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an International Antiwar Assembly meets in Japan. It was with pride that our message to the 47th Assembly called attention to our long-established solidarity in the international anti-war struggle (see Editorial): "Like the worldwide economic crisis, the wars raging today grow out of the soil of a decaying capitalist system that has long since outlived its usefulness to humanity. Barack Obama, who began his run for president of the U.S. as an anti-war candidate but today holds the reins of commander-in-chief, is now repeating Bush's Iraq 'surge,' this time in Afghanistan…Nor can a truly anti-war alternative be found in the reactionary opponents of U.S. imperialism, from Al Qaeda to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Chinese Communist Party. There is no sharp boundary between conflicts between states and the wars waged by rulers against their own people....We extend our strong solidarity with your call to 'unite across borders and rise in struggles against war and impoverishment, on the basis of proletarian internationalism.'" *** Thank you for your message to our Anti-war Assembly, which is very encouraging and significant for us. Let us go on fighting beyond the Ocean! It has been eight years since 11-year-old Timia Williams was beaten by three white Chicago police officers. The cops were given token suspensions, mostly paid vacations. Larry Marshall, her grandfather, returns every month to the Police Review Board meetings seeking justice. In July, the Board spokesman dared to say that the case was settled, too bad but "you have no recourse" here now. Mr. Marshall replied, "Nothing has been settled. Too many young kids are still being beaten, still getting shot, every day. This isn't just about one case, it's about all the cases of brutality. And I can keep coming down here until the end of time if I have to do that!" PROFESSOR GATES: 'NAME, RANK AND SERIAL NUMBER' If, after having had trouble getting into my house, I had to prove my identity in my own home, I would probably have been highly indignant, and might have made comments that could have been better stated. Not having a "name, rank and serial number" such as Professor Gates has, I can only imagine the degree of disrespect he felt to his social/professional standing. But as a man, a Black man, I can fully understand the degree of denigration that an officer ("the man") can put you through. It was good that he could call upon the office of the President of the USA, who arranged to "settle it over a beer." But what about all the rest of us? Until our Creator brings about a change, we have to attempt working it out in ways such as Marxist-Humanists would. The whole incident of Gates reminded me of when I was in a white neighborhood in Los Angeles, working as a nurse on a home visit. I was sitting in my car, writing up a just completed visit when suddenly two police cars appeared. One pulled in front of me and the other directly behind me. They wanted to know what I was doing. I explained and they responded by saying my back brake lights were on (I had my foot on the brake pedal) and that a driver working with a robber keeps the car ready for a fast take-off. After the incident, I spoke to the nursing office that sent me out and they called the police to tell them to stop bothering their nurses. I tell this story to say that the police do not harass only Black men, but Black women as well. I think the problem is not only the officers but the "higher-ups" who give permission for these actions. When Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski died, there was a lot of comment on his Main Currents of Marxism. It is a very significant work. But I've often wondered about its silence on Raya Dunayevskaya's Marxist-Humanism, which was well known to him, as they were personal acquaintances. Sometimes it seems that he was trying to refute her views, as in his section on Gramsci. Other times I think he's leaving an opening for the possibility of a different view of Marxism, which could also mean that his entire thesis is wrong. In any case, his philosophic attitude in Main Currents of Marxism is basically the opposite of what she was to develop as the category of "post-Marx Marxism as a pejorative, beginning with Engels." He leaves us a monument and a silence, and she leaves a living body of ideas and a great historic responsibility. I received the following Call for protests, from the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (PO Box 652, Brunswick, ME 04011): "The U.S. arsenal of hypocrisy is poised for another launch from Vandenberg AFB in Southern California in the early morning hours of Aug. 23. Our government lectures and threatens Iran and North Korea about the evils of nuclear weapons and then arrogantly continues to fire nuclear missiles from California into the Pacific Ocean. "The U.S. will launch high speed hair trigger Minuteman III nuclear weapon delivery systems from Vandenberg Space Command to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The launch will be an operational test to verify the weapon system's reliability and accuracy. There will be protests at Vandenberg AFB as well as in El Segundo at the time of the launch. We urge people around the world to hold solidarity protests on either Aug. 22 or 23 to expose the hypocrisy of this U.S. nuclear test." I am passing this Call on for your readers to join in on them. The unique event held in Illinois on Aug. 6, organized by the North Suburban Peace Initiative and The Fellowship of Reconciliation, was important as a determination not to let humanity ever forget the tragic atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Activities were geared towards families with children. There was a potluck picnic, a film about a radiation-exposed girl who believed that making 1,000 origami cranes (which in Japanese lore brings good luck) would cure her. Along with showing Sadako and the Thousand Cranes, lessons were given for children to learn to make origami cranes. We must never forget, so that we will never repeat this history again. The article, "Women's 'Right to Become'" in the June-July N&L conceptualizes how to combat society's condemnation of women: "I believe our time as a movement would be better spent talking about how to conceive ourselves as human, human beings who are in the process of becoming whole and free..." Bergonzi takes the arguments of anti-choicers and replaces them with visions of a positive ground for human development: "Let's stop talking about 'prevention' in terms of 'reducing abortions.' Let's talk about women's liberation and the power to determine our sexuality." The mainstream Women's Liberation Movement has not done enough to make the abortion rights fight inseparable from other freedoms. It has allowed the Right to narrow "prevention" to mean "abortion reduction," rather than family planning. Black and Latina women led the fight for abortion in a context of women's freedom. Their experiences of substandard clinics and high costs, and of sterilization without consent led them to articulate the demand for "reproductive rights." In this context, "prevention" is not just for the purpose of reducing abortions, but a common-sense approach to a woman's control over her body. The focus of the WLM should not be on "prevention," should not be on talking ad nauseum about reducing abortions, because abortion is not the problem. The problem is women not having control over our bodies and lives and people who believe we don't have a right to that! When you look at it this way every kind of freedom comes into play: the ability to say "no"; choose to love another woman; raise a child in a safe, non-violent, non-toxic, healthy environment, in a world without poverty, war, sexism, racism. Freedom is what is at issue, not abortion, not prevention. Give us safe free birth control, give us sex education. Those are important in and of themselves, not just because they "reduce abortion." There is not a single mainstream so-called "pro-life" group in the U.S. that supports contraception; most oppose it. They are so rabid that they purged anti-choice Congressman Tim Ryan because his idea of preventing abortion was to promote comprehensive sex education and make contraception widely available. For that he was thrown off the Board of Directors of "Democrats for life of America." He should thank the WLM, which has agitated around birth control and sex education throughout its 35+ year history, including exposing the danger of the pill and fighting against the forced sterilization of Puerto Rican, Chicana, Black and poor women. Too many forget this important history. LABOR DOING SOME SERIOUS THINKING I agree with your criticisms of unions but what is missing is any sort of game plan for how to get from here to there. What is a union member to do when faced with concessions or closure? In the 1930s we had Joe Hill, the Wobblies, the One Big Union--and then we were "saved" by the war. At least there was some thinking going on, and some hope for a more just society. It seems much more bleak this time around where the official measure of health is the amount of (generally useless) consumption. Do we need to be reduced to the dust-bowl days before we try something else? I would like to challenge union members to take back their unions. Attend meetings, start study classes, come up with a democratic platform that would NOT include raiding. What is the union brass paid? How about no more than the top rank-and-filer? How about strike pay being for all--those negotiating and those walking the line? Maybe then some serious thinking will happen--like what sort of society do we want? I heard Armando Robles, the head of the Republic Windows and Doors local union, speak recently. Those workers went on a solidarity tour. They inspired others all over the world. Workers in several countries are talking about them. The labor specialist for In These Times has written that the Republic workers had failed to inspire other workers to a new wave of militancy. He wrote off the occupation. Armando had the opposite feeling. He asked how long it had been between the first sitdown in the 1930s and when it turned into the CIO. There is a debate between those giving up and those saying this could be just the beginning. It can't be just written off. There's a lot of thinking going on about what to do. I appreciate Raha's thoughts on Israel in the June-July Essay on "Gaza drowned in silence, despair and anguish," which took the perspective about the conflict in a universal and humanist direction. The bit about an "Arab Martin Luther King" was inspired. The perception of the spirit of movements as well as their mechanism, is the sign of a deeply humanist perspective. The crucial period in European history he has studied is important in understanding the historical ties between the Arab and Jewish world and the colonial legacy. It reminded me of Manes Sperber, a Jewish Communist anti-Stalinist who survived Hitler and Stalin and lived to write about the experience of the 1930s and '40s, explaining what it meant for communists in Germany and East Europe. His novel Teardrop in an Ocean had a big impact on me while I was growing up in the 1980s in Iran. It was irreverent and it detailed Stalin, the war, and the devastation Communists endured when Stalin solidified his grip over the movement. At the end of the novel he points to exactly what Raha pointed to, the turning away, forgetting and blaming everything on National Socialism and its dangers. The highpoint of the essay on Gaza was the return to Israel's point of origin, tracing the tendency that took its cue for the idea of a socialist transformation from Marx's perspective on communal agrarian forms (kibbutzim) within civil society. It is no small issue that they skipped over social revolution, leaving the door open to statist Lassalleans, but they did come "oh so close," as it was put in the essay. Two aspects of the essay on Gaza and Israel require comment. First, the category of "historical Jews" is problematic, and is not my understanding of what the Marxist-Humanist analysis is. Second, it is an exaggeration to say that Israel in the 1940s came "oh so close to social revolution." The hate crime laws passed by the State of New York and the federal bill which has just passed both houses are a very bad idea. They create a category of "thought crime," and once that genie is out of the bottle it can go anywhere. We can't legislate people's thoughts and feelings. Punish the act, not the thought. Ideas, thoughts and emotions can't be regulated by the state, but are tested by the experience of real life. Hatred and bigotry are not "things" which one can beat up on, they are an expression of alienated social relations which need to be understood as such in order to be uprooted and transcended. These laws will give new repressive weapons to our rulers which can and most certainly will be used against the very people who have called for their passage. I have read in the press that the Matthew Shepard Act is closer than ever to becoming reality. As part of the Senate's Department of Defense legislation, it awaits President Obama's signature. May the President sign this legislation which will add LGBT and disabled individuals as protected from physical acts of harm and death, without taking away people's rights of free thought and speech. Deep thanks for your regular "Queer Notes" column by Elise, which keeps us abreast of important developments in the LGBT rights movement. Thanks for your commitment to the critical and practical perspective you initiate in the minds of those like myself without which we would solely depend on choreographed reactions to the mainstream propaganda-based media. N&L presents an opportunity to read news generated not for the sole purpose of furthering corporate-owned ideas through corporate-owned media. Thanks! Your paper was passed on to me by an elder here in South Carolina who thinks highly of me and stressed that I make use of it. Many of us suffer the "Ostrich Syndrome." We continuously bury our heads in the sand, choosing to ignore certain realities in hopes they will go away. Justice doesn't always prevail, and when it doesn't, situations and circumstances are unjust. That alone is oppression. Proper education corrects errors. We have to take the slave chains off our minds. I see myself beyond prison. I'll continue to strive for peace, patience, and perseverance. It is why I want to continue reading N&L. I am hungry for ripe fruits. While it's true that N&L gives prisoners accurate information on freedom struggles around the world, prisoners who write to N&L give hope as they reveal their freedom struggles in the system of injustice, share N&L with other prisoners, and start discussions in their prisons. The "reader's view" from Robert Taliaferro in the June-July issue reinforces the way N&L is a needed part of the struggle for human liberation--and does its part in terms understandable to the "everyday" human being, who is the freedom struggler.
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