Monday, August 07, 2006

JOIN THE THIRD CAMP IN OPPOSITION TO THE TWO POLES OF TERRORISM

War, or murder, rather, has once again rendered it an urgent necessity for the humanist and freedom loving people of the world to rally around the banner of a third camp - the camp of freedom, equality, and humanity. The two poles of terrorism have shed the blood of innocent people and destroyed their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, New York, Beslan, Madrid and London… and today in Lebanon and Palestine.

The current savage attacks of the Israeli government on the people of Lebanon, carried out with the overt support of the United States and Britain, and accompanied by the consensual silence of many Western governments, has left hundreds of people dead, thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced and/or homeless. On the other side of the conflict stands Hezbollah, or political Islam at large, which, directly backed by the Islamic regime in Iran, envisages the annihilation of the State of Israel through expanding its terrorizing of the innocent citizens of Israel.

The Israeli government has officially declared that it is implementing the goals of the USA in the region. However, what we are in fact confronted with is a state that has never stopped, even for one single day, suppressing the most basic rights of the Palestinian people, and whose leaders must be brought to justice as war criminals, now posturing as the standard bearers of fighting terrorism! Today, the Israeli government is, indeed carrying out the exact same policies as the US is following in Iraq. And tomorrow it will be the Iranian people’s turn. So far the outcome of such policies has not only been the mass killing and total destruction of the lives of innocent people, but also the growth of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that of political Islam at large, the expansion of insecurity for the people of the region, increasing loss of rights for women, and increasing loss of civil rights for people in Palestine and Lebanon. Moreover, such circumstances have increasingly overshadowed the just demand for the establishment of an independent, secular Palestinian State on an equal footing with all other internationally recognized states. And, finally, such circumstances have paved the way for Hezbollah to let out increasingly louder howls in the streets of the West, to raise the posters of such murderers as Khomeini, Moqtada al-Sadr, and Hasan Nasrollah, and even to verbally assault “unveiled” women at rallies and demonstrations in the heart of Europe.

Civilized humanity must stand up and free the world from the claws of these two murderous camps of terror. The banner of the Third Camp must be raised and fly at full mast everywhere. The world is in urgent need of such a camp and its humane, radical policies against the other two. The Third Camp is the camp of hundreds of millions of people with a thirst for freedom and justice all over the globe who have no common interests with either of the other two camps of reaction and terror.

Join us, and take this initiative across the world.

We, the undersigned, demand the following:

 immediate cessation of war against the innocent people in Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel;
 conviction of the Israeli government as a war criminal;
 establishment and international recognition of an independent, equal Palestinian State;
 payment of compensation to the people of Lebanon and Palestine;
 condemnation of the governments of United States, Britain, and other state supporters of the State of Israel in the current war against innocent people;
 condemnation of the terrorist policies of Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and political Islam in its entirety.

We call on all progressive organizations, personalities, and individuals defending freedom and equality, human rights, secularism, women’s rights, and so on, to support the above-mentioned demands, and to join The Third Camp in order to oppose the other two, and to help bring about freedom and welfare for the people throughout the world.

Asqar Karimi

To sign on, go to www.thirdcamp.com.


Asqar Karimi/Maryam Namazie

81 comments:

sonia said...

So all this terrorism has been caused by two Poles ?

The manifesto is pretty even-handed, except for this paranoid little nugget:

attacks of the Israeli government on the people of Lebanon carried out with the overt support of the United States and Britain, and accompanied by the consensual silence of many Western governments

That's simply not true. I haven't heard a single expression of support for attacks against the people of Lebanon - only for attacks against the Hezbollah.

beatroot said...

I don’t see anything wrong in giving secular groups in Palestine etc political support etc.

But the Israel-Lebanon war is being used by the west as yet another chance to do some posing. It’s the same as the indigenous Londoner I met who called one of his kids after a ‘Palestinian freedom fighter’. Ask a few questions and it quickly became clear that this guy new fuck all about the Middle East. It was a pose, like wearing a badge on your lapel.

And all the blogs that go on and on about either ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrosist’ depending on the pose.

Isn’t it about time that western bloggers (and governments) started turning their attention to problems that are sitting right under their noses and left the people of the middle east to get on with it themselves?

David Broder said...

Good good...

In response to "Cucumber" - I don't see why the fact that Israelis are conscripted means that all civilians are accomplices - why should you be held responsible for something you're forced into. Sure,there are refuseniks - but even if a worker did actually support the war, why would that give Hezbollah the right to butcher him/her.

In response to Sonia, the USA and UK have given Israel support in taking out Hezbollah, even when Israel is killing so many civilians - so they obviously see civilian deaths as irrelevant, and do not care about the consequences of the war.

Anonymous said...

This manifesto is a disgrace. What, at this moment, is the practical meaning of calling for the expulsion of Iran from the 'international community'? Who, exactly, is being appealed to? I won't state the obvious. This is a sad day for the Left in the Middle East.

Poulod

beatroot said...

It’s another normal day for the left, Poulad. It’s just about all they got left.

While pro-Israeli left is cheering it on as the defender of democracy and human rights in the region blah blah blah, the other side is demanding that the UN step in, international peacekeeping forces be put in the region blah blah blah.

What or who gave either of these sides (and I include this ‘Third’ side) the right to demand anything at all?

If western intervention has been the cause of much of the problems in the Middle East then anymore intervention is the last thing these people need.

I say to the left: stop projecting your uselessness and helplessness onto the Middle East and try and formulate some politics to change you own societies.

Frank Partisan said...

beetroot: What is more important; Lebanon or the fact the post office in Minneapolis, removed the mail drop at my corner?

The international corporations, and the nations geo-political interests, don't confine themselves to national boundaries.

Sonia: If Serbia told the South Lenanese, to move or face extinction, they'd call it ethnic cleansing.

I don't agree with cucumber. Hebrew and Arabic speakers, have rights.

Isolate Iran? This document was created by the Iranian left. It is life or death to them.

Anonymous said...

Renegade Eye--this was created by 'the Iranian Left'? This is without a doubt the work of the WCPI and no one else. They are a section of the Iranian Left, and no longer a very exemplary one. I should have stopped keeping up with them when they marched with royalists through the streets of Los Angeles a few years ago, against the Islamic regime and its right to nuclear energy. If you don't want to answer the question, I'll do it for you: asking for Iran's ejection from the 'international community' is an appeal to those who make up its leadership--the governments of the countries on the Security Council, and more to the point, of the United States. I am all for supporting the Iranian Left against the mullahs, but this 'third camp' rhetoric remains as bankrupt today as it was during the Cold War. To speak of 'international terrorism' as one pole in world affairs, comparable with the United States, is absurd. To speak of it at all in so broad a way as to lump Hezballah with Al Qaeda is simply ignorant. In the end, any equation of Ahmadinejad with American imperialism is a travesty. Count the bodies.

Poulod

beatroot said...

I am speechless. Can you really not think of anything in the United States worth writing about? Are the left in the US that hopeless that they cannot engage with Americans politically?

Do you not get the impression that the left is an irrelevance in your country? And that it is an irrelevance because you are failing to engage with them, preferring to act as cheerleaders in someone else’s battles?

Western politics: may it rest in peace.

beatroot said...

O, and Cucumber: you are a disgrace to vegetables everywhere.
The IDF hacks into Lebanese television and plays this Hebrew shit

Hebrew? Shit? Grow up. And there was me trying to argue that anti-Zionists are not necessarily anti-Semites...

troutsky said...

Beatroot doesnt think the Left is active in the West? He must be watching CNN, reading the Post.There is a vibrant Left in the US and elsewhere and it is perfectly legitimate for such "internationalists" to both express opinions and act on them.The working class exists globally.The Right certainly feels no compunction about inserting themselves in EVERYONES business, globally, without even pretending they express the will of the people.

as for who is truly innocent, this is a very interesting question.Sonia has heard no support for the attacks on the Lebanese people but the silence she hears is deafening to the rest of the world.

Anonymous said...

General cucumber,

Check out this pro-Lebanon propaganda video Much better then the IDF one.

Graeme said...

I agree. Good stuff.

Nicholas said...

I am really confused as to who this third camp claims to be. Once the three camps were : the Capitalist bloc, the communist world and the non-aligned world led by Yugoslavia. How does Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, oh I could even throw in Syria, Sudan etc. make a block? A collection of third world powers does not make one pole. We are in a uni-polar world since the counter revolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, the only state that was a counter weight to US imperialism.

This third camp must be third world nationalism masquerading as real proletarian internationalism and revolution. We need the workers of Israel to take up the cause of the Palestinian people and to defend the Lebanese against their own predatory bourgeoisie.
We need the Arab workers to throw of the rule of their capitalist mullahs. I see no call for socialist revolution in this decree, only a kind of revisionism.

Frank Partisan said...

Poulod: I hope you'll continue posting here. You fit right in.

I don't believe the two state solution is a solution to the problem. Neither solution can work under capitalism. Even if Palestinians and Israelis were in one state, how would water rights etc. be negotiated under capitalism?

beatroot said...

There is a vibrant Left in the US and elsewhere

Dreamer! :-)

Graeme said...

"Western politics: may it rest in peace."


I am not sure I get that either. Come to the US and ask someone what they think about the situation in the Middle East. Half of the people you ask might know where Israel and Lebanon are. Concerning ourselves with international politics is hardly a negative thing. This is what the left is all about.

? said...

I have just checked the list. The signatures are on the increase. Excelent post.

? said...

*excellent

sonia said...

Nicholas,

Soviet Union, the only state that was a counter weight to US imperialism

Soviet Union as a 'counter-weight' to US imperialism, was a bit like AIDS being a counter-weight to promiscuity...

We need the workers of Israel to take up the cause of the Palestinian people

Dream on. The only people in Israel defending Palestinians are left-wing intellectuals, university professors, journalists and filmmakers. Not a single worker among them. Working-class neighborhoods in Israel are the most rabidly anti-Arab places in the whole country.

We need the Arab workers to throw of the rule of their capitalist mullahs

That's unlikely to happen. Hamas and Hezbollah aren't capitalist at all. They collect (or extort) money from Saudi capitalists (Hamas) or Iranian state oil revenues (Hezbollah) and distribute them among poor Lebanese Shiites, thus buying their loyalty and support.

As for 'Arab workers'... What 'Arab workers'? They don't work! In most Gulf states, all workers are immigrants from Asia and Africa, the native Arabs collect their welfare checks...

beatroot said...

Renegade Eye – there is something wrong with your political vision (perhaps it’s because only one of your eyes is renegade. What’s the other one doing?)

General Cucumber – the salad days of the left are over.

And the freshwater revolutionary Troutsky should spend less time in the left wing fish tank and more time in the left wing THINK tank.

Etc…

John Brown said...

In the battle between those fighting for an against imperialism, I'm sure Hizbullah and Hugo Chavez will be happy to know so early on that the Third Camp has decided to ignore the struggle.

Better to get a clear picture of where one stands early on, and if you can't stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine now, what good are you?

If you stand idly by while the Washignton/Tel Aviv axis will continue to occupy Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, what's the point of even claiming a political affiliation with the oppressed?

Should I stand with the occupier or the occupied?

Irrelevant. Better to spout ignorant and misinformed rhetoric about the class nature of Hizbullah.

Anonymous said...

Good god, I didn't realize Sonia was a racist too. She should apologize--and then some--for her 'all Arabs are lazy' bullshit.

Poulod

Anonymous said...

And no-one has addressed the actual nature of this manifesto: an appeal to imperialism for the isolation of Iran.

Poulod

John Brown said...

Poulod,

Well said. This manifesto - another Nation-liberal, blame-both-sides, cruise-missile leftist piece of garbage - is simply another in a long line of pro-imperialist screeds to convince well-meaning people that there is no conceivable justification for anyone to resist imperialist aggression.

Unfortunately Renegade has decided to take a pass on the class nature of this imperialist struggle. Instead, he has chosen to rely on propaganda that ignores the true nature of imperialism and essentially calls on the left to take a hands-off approach while Apartheid Israel ethnically cleanses Lebanon.

The attempts to equate the violence on both sides here is quite sickening.

sonia said...

I didn't realize Sonia was a racist too

You obviously don't realize many things. You've obviously never been to any Gulf state. Almost every worker there is an immigrant.

Frank Partisan said...

Just an aside: I saw the theater version of the blog "Baghdad Burning". It had four women, playing Riverbend. The script was posts from the blog. Good show.

Maryam posted a document from her party, opposing imperialist involvement in Iran. I can't defend the idea, of calling on imperialism, to isolate Iran.

JB: Israel has more blood on its hands, than Hezbollah. That doesn't mean, you have to support Hezbollah, an Islamist anti-communist group. How do you support them? Arms? $$? Ultimately they'd settle on a deal. This document is not for the Euston Manifesto crowd. This discussion is not Nation Magazine radicalism.

Maryam knows I disagree with her party's version of communist history, negating Bolshevik-Leninism.

This is the discussion that divides the revolutionary left. The issue of Islamism and anti-imperialism, the Palestine question, etc.

beatroot said...

renegade Eye - 'Revolutionary Left' is an oxymoron these days. Get real and you cam move on...

Agnes said...

"Just an aside: I saw the theater version of the blog "Baghdad Burning". It had four women, playing Riverbend. The script was posts from the blog. Good show." - how authethntic is that blog? The text is heavily edited: normal with a book. Not so normal with a blog, and the Riverbend blog has been edited from the very beginning. I've been reading it for two years or so now.

David Broder said...

I don't get beatroot's point about only posting about "other people's battles"

How does he think the Left in the West will grow if it doesn't talk about international issues people care about, and engage them?

Anonymous said...

Renegade Eye--Maryam Namazie has been a joke since she spoke at those minscule 'save Denmark' demonstrations this year. I'm glad you can't support the isolation of Iran, but then ask yourself, why does the WCPI? My guess would be that they're a slippery, opportunist bunch without a real popular base. I understand what's appealing about them: they look like Middle Eastern revolutionary socialists on the ground. I used to defend their stupid position on the Iraqi resistance all the time--'Sure it's a dumb position, of course the Americans are alot worse than the resistance, but the WCPI is on the ground and we aren't. They have to put up with the Islamist militias and we don't. So what if they go a little overboard in equating the two sides? They're better than nothing.'

Now I take it all back. This call for the ejection of Iran from the 'international community' is too revealing, and too unforgivable. It's not quite Nation-liberalism, it's actually in a sense more pernicious. It's the road to Berman, Hitchens, Walzer, the whole Decent Left, being walked by the WCPI before our eyes. They don't deserve support after this. Better to stand with the Lebanese, Iraqi, Palestinian and Iranian masses--who, with or without Hezbollah weapons, have a right to defend their homes--than with this bunch. The Left can't risk losing trust again--not that anyone really cares about the WCPI anyway. I long thought they controlled the Basra Oil Workers Union, but then I saw its representative, Hassan al-Jumaa, speak at Marxism 2006. He explicitly called on us to support the 'patriotic resistance' while denouncing the 'cowardly actions' of Al Qaeda and other sectarian groups--many of whom are bankrolled by the United States, through the puppet regime. Wouldn't it be better to stand with him than with Maryam Namazie and her pathetic group of supporters?

Sonia--You're right, there are alot of immigrant workers in the Middle East. Don't pretend that was all you said. I haven't been to a Gulf state, it's true, but my parents were born in one. It's generally in bad taste to try to defend racist slips--of course this couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you think Hezbollah is the responsible party in the Lebanese conflict.

Poulod

sonia said...

Poulod,

Don't pretend that was all you said.

Poulod, everybody can just look up and see that it is indeed all I said. YOU wrote that 'Arabs are lazy'. I never did. I wrote that they collect welfare checks. They do. All Gulf states are very generous towards their native populations, distributing huge amounts of money (in the West, it's called welfare) to them. I have a friend who is Tunesian and who worked in Dubai for years. He never saw a native Arab worker in Dubai. (Of course, it all depends on your defnition of 'worker' - I mean it as 'manual' or 'blue-collar' worker, not a supervisor, a boss, or a controller...)

beatroot said...

My point, Mr Broder is because the left has given up trying to mobilize the working class in the west – because there is no working class movement to mobilize anymore – it has turned outward, trying to find another ‘historical actor’. Unfortunately, with national liberation movement also gone, and with the Cold War also over, there is no serious challenge to capitalism top engage with.

This is why some have turned to Islamists in the bizarre belief that they are ‘anti-Imperialist’.

But what the left should be doing is trying to engage with struggles AT HOME. But they don’t because they don’t seem to be able to identify any struggles worth fighting for.

This is why left bloggers continually ‘protect’ their ‘revolutionary’ politics into other people’s business, calling for immediate ceasefires, UN intervention, humanitarian intervention etc etc etc.

But who gives them to demand anything? Butt out!

John Brown said...

It's ironic that the Zionist Sonia is flapping her jaws about welfare.

I'm shocked that she failed to mention that the biggest recipient of welfare in the region is Apartheid Israel.

Without the billions and billions they get every year from its Uncle Sam, how would it be able to slaughter babies from 25,000 feet in the air or bulldoze Palestinian homes?

The answer is plainly that it woudln't. Apartheid Israel is a totally unproductive, broke country whose entire existence is predicated on Uncle Sam shipping it weapons of death and bribing neighbors.

John Brown said...

Beatroot,

First of all, your ignorant assertion that the left is dead is particularly comical given the rise of socialism in South America.

Back to the matter at hand, however: Apartheid Israel is an imperialist power. Do you deny this?

And casting aside your ignorant mischaracterization of Hizbullah, the organization's raison d'etre is to end the Zionist occupation of Lebanon.

That you refuse to call their actions anti-imperialist, that you mock those of us who do, exposes what a total and complete lackey you are for Uncle Sam and its racist apartheid stooge.

John Brown said...

Renegade,

Instead of espousing the same sort of rhetoric about Hizbullah as Zionists do, you could really benefit from researching how the movement got its start, the types of actions it has undertaken, and the class nature of the people in whose name it acts.

You ask how one can support Hizbullah? Well, one can support them by clearly and unequivocally insisting on their right to resist Zionist occupation instead of posting screeds that lump together and condemn their actions as occupied people with the actions of their occupier.

You don't know what they would settle for, so you really shouldn't assume that you do. They have said since hostilities intensified that they would accept a cease-fire if there was a prisoner exchange. They have since added to their demands the removal of all Zionist land-grabbers from Lebanon.

Since their campaign has had more success combatting imperialism than anything that has occurred in Europe or North America in decades, perhaps we should trust them to be honest and forthright - just as they have to this point - rather than questioning and second-guessing everything they do as a pretext for lumping their actions together with those of Apartheid Israel.

Nicholas said...

To Sonia and others,

Yes in the Gulf states something of the order of maybe half the population or more are not citizens.
This is not the case in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey where the natives make up the majority of these multiethnic working classes. It is still imperitive to recognize that workers truely have no homeland and that its is crucial for the workers of an aggressor or oppressor nation to take up the defence or cause of the victim nation. This is real internationalism.

Your statement about the workers being the most nationalist is a common lie. The workers may embrace crude nationalism or racism but the origins of this is in the capitalist class, and the force that keeps this going is part of the world economy, not something specific to workers.

The point on the Sov Union still stands, if not for them the Cuban petty bourgeois left nationalist revolution would have been drowned in blood by the US.

To Beatroot, you happen to be essentially right about much of the mainstream and radical left about giving up on the working class and looking at other nationalisms as the new vanguard. However that is not true about all of us. Some of us still believe in working class primacy.

Frank Partisan said...

The revolutionary left did shrink after, the Soviet breakdown. That event also created new oppurtunities. They go beyond whether the garbage is collected on time on my block.
A)The struggle between world powers for resources.
B)Struggle for democratic rights as gay marriage, privacy etc.
C)Struggle against imperialism and Islamism.
D) National struggles as Palestine and Kurdistan.
E)Defense of states as Venezuela, Cuba, against imperialist attack.

Political consciousness comes from seeing beyond your small niche. The vision has a domino effect. One connects different elements. From that comes political theory.

On John Brown's blog, he often has a feature, of asking 10 questions to someone he disagrees with, and they ask him 10 questions on their blog. I've been wanting him to do that with beetroot.

Who you support internationally, has effects on your behavior. If I was pro-Zionist or nationalist, my blog and activism would be different than if I support someone as Edward Said.

I'm struggling with what critical support means. A rope gives critical support to someone hanging.

sonia said...

Nicholas,

in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey where the natives make up the majority of these multiethnic working classes.

Great. Countries like Syria and Iran (as well as Libya and Sudan) should have revolutions. The bloodier the better. I am all for revolutions in those oppressive countries.

And so is George W. Bush, I suspect.

But Turkey and Iraq (as well as Israel) are DEMOCRACIES. Working-class people can fight for their rights at the ballot box there, not through revolutionary means.

Your statement about the workers being the most nationalist is a common lie

It's a common, all right, but truth. A kind of truth radical leftists don't want to hear. They didn't want to hear it in Germany in 1933 neither.

origins of this is in the capitalist class

Bullshit! Rich capitalists are by definition the most internationalist and anti-nationalist people in every country. The richer they are the more countries they have visited, the more languages they speak, and the more foreign friends they have...

The point on the Sov Union still stands, if not for them the Cuban petty bourgeois left nationalist revolution would have been drowned in blood by the US.

Who are you calling a 'petty bourgeois' ? Castro ? Two million Cubans (20% of the entire populations), and not just rich people, have fled Cuba because of totalitarian persecution (and Cuba in the 1960's was FAR worse than today). If the US really wanted to
'drown' Cuba in blood, the Soviet Union certainly wouldn't object (they would have just asked to be permitted to drown Polish 'Solidarity' in blood in exchange)... Your naivety about Soviet Union's leaders is touching, but totally wrong. Those were cold, calculating people. I knew them. They made Al Capone look humane...

John Brown,

Israel is a totally unproductive, broke country

You've never been to Israel, have you... Israel has a vibrant economy, very hard-working people, clean cities, is well-organized, efficient, etc. How do you think Israel managed to win EVERY war against its Arab neighbors ?

But keep believing that Israel is broke. As long as its enemies underestimate it, Israel is safe. But the day the Arabs will wake up and realize precisely how efficient and powerful Israel is, they might begin to work to make their countries even more efficient and powerful. And then Israel will be in real trouble.

beatroot said...

Israel, indeed is not broke. It does have the security of having a strong backer - obvious - but it is a vibrant, modern, democratic (kind of) country in an area not really known for these things.

Israel is a great country! I wish arabs could have as good.

? said...

The Israeli issue I think is a blueprint for dissasters happening all over the middle east, and spreading like wild fire. There is so much uncertainty in the world today. Look at todays events !

troutsky said...

Beatroot, in your praise of Israel you should mention the fact that it is a religious state, a cloaked theocracy. And to claim there is no working class movement left in the US seems to be a case of your will clouding your perception of the facts.

Nicholas said...

Hey folks, Sonia thinks that being an internationalist means being wealthy and well traveled! Ha Ha! By the way Sonia it means that workers do not recognize nationality but instead favor proletarian brotherhood against their own ruling classes. The bourgeois are the most nationalist because they are the most patriotic, use nationalism, essentialism, and racial characteristics to explain human action etc. very easy, right? Not because of their frequent flier miles. By the way, I forgot that you are a righty.

Turkey is a Democracy as long as the army says it is and not a day longer. Turkish democracy is predicated on the murder and expulsion of ethnic minorities from Armenians, Greeks, up to the Kurds of today.

I’m so glad Sonia has revealed her blood lust against the victims of decades of US imperialism, the real cause of the rise of fundamentalist reaction.

I guess the actual fact that the Soviets never abandoned Cuba until their own demise does not phase you? I too dislike their leaders and would have fought for workers political revolution to restore power to the soviets. Cuba is at more or less the same level of relative development today as it was in the 1960’s It may have fallen back a bit because of the need to find new sources of technology but it’s relative place on a development scale has not changed. It has not progressed either, so this is evidence against both socialists and capitalists, I have the papers to show this.

Mahmood Ketabchi said...

I am writing in response to Poulod's statement posed on August 8.

1.He claims that WCPI members marched together with royalist against the Islamic regime. I do not know where he/she (sorry, I cannot tell the gender) got that from. WCPI marched with several thousand of Iranians in Los Angeles some of whom were royalists.
2.Why not eject a fascist and brutal government from international community? That is the question that Poulod needs to answer. Iranian regime, since it came to power, has been and continues to be a government of murder, torture, imprisonment, and complete rightlessness. Why should this regime has the right to participate in the United Nation conference on Human Rights? What does Poulod expect Iranian opposition group do? Should they allow a government of human right violation pose as defender of human dignity and freedom? Should they sit aside and allow the United Nation to have Iranian regime attend such meeting? Of course not. Just a month ago Saeed Motazavi the criminal prosecutor of Tehran went to Geneva to participate in a week long conference on Human Rights. Iranian all over the world were angry as mad to see this butcher of Tehran in that meeting. An international campaign began immediately. That lunatic bloodsucker was forced to secretly leave Geneva one day after he was there. The Canadian government demanded that he should be arrested for crime against humanity. Saeed Motazavi was involved in the rape and murder of Zahra Kazami the Iranian-Canadian who was an international photographer. She was arrested when she was taking picture of protest in front of the Evin Prison, known among Iranian as “Slaughter House.”
Another example was the ILO conference. Iranian regime and their hand made Islamic labor council participated at that meeting. Iranian labor activists and Communist protested against that. Several members of WCPI were able to go into the conference. They spoke with trade union members coming from various countries. They handed out fliers, fact sheets, articles about working class struggle in Iran and their lives. They exposed the Iranian regime and their hand made labor group that was involved in beating up Transit workers leaders in Tehran and destroying their office.
As soon as members of Iranian regime saw WCPI members they left the conference. When it came for the representative of Iran to speak at the conference, a leading member of the party took the floor and was able to speak about the brutality of the Islamic regime and working class struggle in Iran. He also read the letter from the labor activists and leaders organizing in Iran. Was it right to that? Yes, it was. Should it be done again? Yes. Should the Iranian regime because of its brutal suppression of labor organizing be kicked out of ILO? My answer is yes. Poulod who acts as super revolutionary needs to answer what is wrong to try to have Iranian regime that has a history of brutality against working class movement be thrown out of ILO. I have given my answer, now it is time for Poulod to make clear why he likes to see criminals and murderers speak of Human rights and workers rights.

3.Poulod says it is wrong to demand the isolation of Iranian regime because we will be asking governments including the US government to do that. It looks like that Poulod has never fought for anything. Just look at the anti war movement here in the US. They mobilize people to pressure the US government to end the occupation of Iraq. Is it wrong to confront the US government with such a demand? No, it is not. The transit workers in NYC went on Strike and demanded from the city government to meet their demand. Workers all over the world struggle and target their employer and the state to do this or that. There is nothing wrong with it. That is basic fact of life and ABC of daily struggle of workers who fight to improve their lot. Has Poulod ever gone on Strike? Has Poulod ever been in prison? Has Poulos has ever been beaten up and knifed for handing out fliers? Has Poulod ever demanded justice for him/herself or others?
I think Poulod is smart enough to know that. He/she is just acting super revolutionary because because for him/her the main enemy is the US government and everything else is secondary. Well my friend world is more complicated than this narrow and and bogus description of the world situation. The outcome of such policy is everybody join together against the US Government. My friend, you are welcome to do that we have no intention to join Iranian regime or any other fascist regime to confront the US government. For us they are all the same criminal gangs that need to be ejected out of the political scene.
4.Now, what is the difference between Hizbollah and a Al Qaeda they both claim to fight for their country. They both have supposedly a “good” reason for what they do. One like to beahed the other one likes to hang. Both are Islamists. For them freedom has no meaning because God is omnipotent and omnipresent. Women are subhuman. For both of them people are servants of God and rightless. So, please say how they are different that need to be so careful about it. Do you think Hizbollah is better than Al Qaeda? So take some time to explain. Do not make some preposterous statement.

Craig Bardo said...

Sonia,

For the Arab countries to become more efficient and powerful, they would have to adopt republican forms of government, turn over state controlled industry to the private sector, allow for solid property rights and foreign investment and adopt a market economy.

There would still be those Protocols fed zealots bent on the destruction of a country the size of New Jersey, but I suspect the people (proletariat, if you will) would have little taste for that as they enjoy their new freedoms and wealth.

Anonymous said...

I'll just respond to Mahmood and then step away from this blog, which has an awfully...weird feel to it. Strange that a blog 'influenced by Leon Trotsky' could draw so many people with ridiculous ideas about imperialism (No offense to the owner, and I don't mean you, Mahmood--more the people who support Israel, tacitly or overtly. By the way Sonia, I will just let everyone look up. 'There are alot of immigrant workers in the Middle East' was not all you said. You said the Arabs 'don't work!' There's a difference. Anyway, I'm not wasting any more breath on it.)

So I'll just start from the beginning:

--That's right, the WCPI marched in LA with thousands of Iranians, 'some of whom were royalists.' How many? I wasn't there, but I saw it on the exile TV stations (unfortunately some of my very old, senile relatives still don't know their heads from their asses and watch that stuff). From what I saw, the demonstration was predominantly royalist, and if not explicitly so, then very clearly in support of our dear Crown Prince and American attempts at regime change. Would you object if I said most Iranians in LA are (royalist) exiles or their children, and have quite different reasons than we leftists for marching against the regime? This is hardly a prerevolutionary situation. There were not major demonstrations in Iran at this time to express solidarity with (there were some small ones, I know). But these worldwide demonstrations, marking the anniversary of 1999, I think, were very much organized by royalist and Mujahedin exiles--I hope you'll agree, very unsavory types. This was not my main case against the WCPI, I just thought it was revealing (especially the fact that both you and the royalists were denouncing the development of nuclear power in Iran, which is extremely popular with most Iranians, who worry about an attack from the United States or Israel).

--Why is it wrong to demand Iran's expulsion from the 'international community'? You answered it for yourself. First of all, the 'international community' is not something Marxists should appeal to. It should be clear by now that the UN is usually little more than a vehicle for American (or at best, Euro-American) interests. How many of the governments on the General Council are human-rights violators? How many are brutal? How many suppress workers' organizations and murder dissidents? Too many, obviously, and that should tell you something about the character of the institution to which you're appealing. Besides, calling the Islamic regime 'fascist' is a bit of a stretch. Of course we cannot run our candidates, and repression is very real, but there are contested elections in Iran. There was a difference between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani--this is why the former won mass support among the poor. There is more choice in Iranian elections, in any case, than in American ones. I'm not making excuses: it is a bloody, awful regime, but Iran is not the 'totalitarian dungeon' that many Decent Left-ers in the West, enamored of their ridiculous theory of 'Islamo-fascism', would like us to think it is.

But still, this isn't the central point. As I said, you made it yourself: "Poulod says it is wrong to demand the isolation of Iranian regime because we will be asking governments including the US government to do that."

'Including the US government'? Don't make me laugh. The Security Council rules supreme over the United Nations, and the United States almost always has its way on the Security Council, unless it's deliberately blocked by some European bloc, as in 2003 (not going to happen again in the near future, I would guess). It is precisely an appeal to the US government. Yet, as you go on to say, what's so bad about this? "Just look at the anti war movement here in the US. They mobilize people to pressure the US government to end the occupation of Iraq. Is it wrong to confront the US government with such a demand? No, it is not."

Are you really making this comparison? The anti-war movement pressures the US to act against its interest. You pressure it to act in its interest. I suppose there's a case to be made that the US doesn't completely want to isolate Iran since it needs the regime's support badly in Iraq (and Afghanistan), but things are much too blurry for anyone to make that case decisively. In many ways, it's clear that the Americans (and more so, the Israelis, especially at present) have been trying to brand the Iranian regime as a pariah state (yes, I know in a world of democratic, socialist, peace-loving nations, it would be that, since it has so much blood on its hands, but this is not that world. American imperialism is much worse.)

This, then, is why you should never appeal to the American government to further its own interests. Frankly, they don't need any more help. And fine, don't support the mullahs against the Americans. I don't either, but you're putting it very vaguely. You should know from the Cold War--Third Ways are slippery and treacherous. And then, there really were 'two poles'. There absolutely aren't today. The Iranian regime does not compare to imperialism (as I said earlier, count the bodies). When brutal regimes are targeted by imperialism, we shouldn't support either one, but we should never pretend the two sides are equal, or that in the case of an invasion, we wouldn't seek the defeat of imperialism. But of course, you oppose resistance in Iraq and Lebanon...

Which brings me to the final point, Hizballah and Al Qaeda. They're just radically different organizations. Look at their histories. Al Qaeda is a tiny chauvinist sect that carries out terrorist attacks against civilian targets and takes money from anyone it can get it from. Hizballah is 'Islamist', yes, but it has quite another background. Too long to go into, but it's well put here: http://www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html
Basically, yes Hizballah is much better than Al Qaeda. I oppose them politically, but I hope they--and the broader Lebanese resistance, which includes leftists (CP fighters and others)--succeed in driving Israel out of their country.

Lastly, assaulting my revolutionary credentials is a waste of your time. I don't have any. I'm not trying to one-up anyone. I'm an eighteen-year old Iranian-American guy who likes to read. I have family members and friends who have been tortured and killed in the struggle against both the Shah and the Islamic regime, is that good enough for you? Does it give me the right to an opinion? Frankly, all your 'has Poulod ever been knifed' talk is more 'super-revolutionary' than my unwillingness to give up this elementary socialist principle: anti-imperialism.

I know where you're coming from. For still being on the Left after all that's come to pass, after repression from the Shah and from this regime, the WCPI deserves much commendation. But this manifesto, with all it implies, is a huge mistake. I hope you and your comrades will reconsider.

Poulod

John Brown said...

Sonia,

Evidently you've forgotten that Apartheid Israel lost the first time it invaded Lebanon.

And it would have lost in 73 as well if it weren't for Uncle Sam's welfare checks coming through just in time.

Frank Partisan said...

The discussion between Poulod and Mahmood is an important discussion. It is representative of the left as a whole. Maryam is going to continue the discussion on her television show.

When I was Poulod's age, I was an activist against the war in Vietnam. I didn't have a quarter of his theoretical knowledge.

This blog has more diverse opinions than most left blocks.

jams o donnell said...

The standard of debate on your blog is excellent ren. I don't often comment but I do read and I am never disappointed

Craig Bardo said...

Ren,

I read your blog rather than the Daily Kos because of the high level of discourse, mostly wrong, but sincere and intellectually honest. Tip 'o the hat, from the Right side of the aisle!

Agnes said...

It is an excellent discussion. As for isolating a country or not ...I can't find an answer, and probably there is none. I am in the situation (again) to be both for and against it.

beakerkin said...

Renegade

You had better call your dog John Brown off. I warned him that if he continued to spam my blog and that of my friends.

Excuse me Comwads I am all for free speech but the same posts forty or more times is a waste. Brown has been warned and obviously has no regard for your friendship or blog.

Frank Partisan said...

Thank you for the comments. The reason the discussion is on a high level, is that I surround myself with people smarter than me.

John Brown is welcome here. I'm often challenged by his posts. He keeps me on my toes.

beakerkin said...

Renegade

John Brown is a labotomy and has zero manners or readers. Even by Marxist buffoon low standards his ignorance and low class are notable.

I do not enjoy comming here and dealing with Marxist dullards. It is your right to remain ignorant.
I am not a special ed teacher or a shrink and have zero desire or patience to deal with treasonous appologist for a failed philosopher whose accolytes exceed
only in the creation of human misery.

That being said free speech does not include spamming blogs with ninety posts. If Brown wants to spam me and my friends his friends are fair game.

Now I advise you to have a long talk about blog edicate with the Rain Man of Stalinism John Brown.
In the event that Brown does not knock it off I will be back with help and we will post Brown's spam here.

I have my space and you have yours but if Brown continues to pollute my space and that of my friends we will follow suit. Be smart and let the dullard know this is no joke.

John Brown said...

Renegade,

Sorry for the distraction amidst this very intriguing discussion. I apologize in advance for whatever silly antics MULLAH BEAK the DHS PEDOPHILE pulls.

For some time MULLAH BEAK found it good fun to spam my blog with dozens and dozens of posts every day, forcing me to switch to HaloScan.

Yet when I finally decided to respond to MULLAH BEAK's attacks, he predictably began crying and making threats like those above.

Not unlike the way Apartheid Israel acts, actually!

Anyway, I apologize. Please e-mail me if you'd like to discuss proper edicate [sic]!

Off to DC in a few hours.... Solidarity, Comrades!

? said...

I have just seen the George Galloway movie on savage justice. It was fantastic. I think George was speaking the truth. That video is worth seeing. See it here.!

Anonymous said...

Please tell John Bown Stain to stop spamming blogs that people actually post on.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Obokun said:

"I have just seen the George Galloway movie on savage justice. It was fantastic. I think George was speaking the truth. That video is worth seeing. See it here.!"

When people in the US accept money from Oil people and carry their water from that point they are condemned.

Why would you treat George Galloway the Movie Star any differently??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You MORON!!!

Anonymous said...

So tell me, how do you decide that people who use shrapnel devices to maximise the casualties in CIVILIAN AREAS are OK and should be supported, but those who use expensive smart weapons to try and destroy ONLY THE ENEMY LAUNCHERS and other facilities which HAVE BEEN PLACED AMONGST CIVILIANS AGAINST THE GENEVA CONVENTION are the bad guys??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You MORONS!!!

Anonymous said...

Lemme see, the Palestinians and other Arab groups claim that the problems started with Israel stealing their land with their Independence in 1948.

How does that explain the activities of this gentleman:

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php

slaughtering Jews as early as the 1920's??

Don't depend on my link. Please look this gentlemans history up from other sources!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

YOU MORONS!!!

? said...

Anonymous,

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but when most people give it they do so with respect for others.

To resort to insults to make a point signifies a degree of personal frustration.

Perhaps you should reiterate your remarks in a more acceptable form and you might just get a useful response. I believe you have something to say which might enlighten others without hiding your identity?

Constructive critism is more useful than any untrained response.

I am sorry you appear so unhappy.

Purple Avenger said...

So who gets to do the heavy lifting of actually implementing this delusional anti-semitic pipe dream?

I think the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers are booked solid for the next couple of years...

beakerkin said...

Renegade

I appologize for the intrusion but your dog started this mess by spamming my blog and that of my friends. His cries of solidarity do not match his mentally disturbed behavior. Labeling people who get sick of his spam as KKK advocates is a tactic you have commented on yourself.

Given the fact that the real KKK is a loathsome organization this is slander. However, the genuine KKK has not killed nearly as many people as the insanity advocated by Brown and or yourself. A comparison of Communists to the KKK
is insulting to the criminal KKK who have not killed 100,000,000.

Then there is theft of bandwith and my avatar and the creation of a blog that claims I have criminal tendencies. Brown impersonated me
and threatened people children.

We are talking about criminal behavior. This is no longer Marxist insanity but a psychological defect and gross stupidity on the part of Brown.

Is Brown worth all this trouble? Solidarity with a low IQ psycho with criminal tendencies is no bargain.

Warren said...

John brown posted so much spam on my blog that it actually closed the comments section down.

I still have all of it saved to a gmail account.

Same crap over and over copied and repasted until blogger actually cut it off.

Would it be ok if I posted it here?

Mahmood Ketabchi said...

Poulod, For an 18 years old young person you are very bright and smart. I am very glad to see that. But, I have to be frank with you do not know an iota about political and class struggle. I like to respond to some of the issues you brought up in your posting on august 11. It will be in two parts.

1.In regard to WCPI participation in a demonstration in which Iranian royalists were also present there are few things that readers of this blog must keep in mind. Iranian bourgeoisie opposition groups including the royalists are trying to put their mark on anti Islamic regime protests where ever they are able to do that. WCPI believes that Iranian progressive forces should not leave the field empty for them to maneuver and increase their visibility among the Iranian community or in the international public opinion. WCPI independent of other forces and with their own banners, signs and sound system went to the demonstration and became a throne on the side of the reactionary forces that wanted to tell the world that they control the Iranian community and their protest against the Iranian regime.

Let me give you another example. Last summer when Ahmadinejad came to the UN in NYC, Mojahedeen organized a demonstration in front of the United Nation. WCPI tried to get its own permission for a protest in the same or a different location but the police refused to give them a permit. So they went to the same location where Mojahedeen assembled and rallied. Iranian royalist where there, too. They were assembling in one corner of the square. Several thousand Iranian came to the demonstration. About 20 members of WCPI, went to the rally set up their own table. They put up several big red banners. Some held red flag of Marx and Mansoor Hekmat. They had their own literature. We handed about 2000 flyers not only to people who were at the rally but many people who were walking by. A few media outlet interviewed members of the party. They did not use their sound system because it would have created a cahos. FBI agents as soon as they saw the red banner and pictures of Marx were all over us. At some point, two members of the Mujahedeen came and tried to provoke a conflict saying that why we were there when we consider them a reactionary force. But several people came forward and told them that WCPI has every right to be there. That was a very successful action . It was good for many people who were passing by to see the presence of Iranian communists. A lot of people who came to the rally had nothing to do with the Mujahedine. It was that we were able to connect with them. So, Poulod, what is your problem with this?

2.You say “you and the royalists were denouncing the development of nuclear power in Iran which is extremely popular with most Iranians." As to the nuclear power, my position is clear and I will not repeat that. If you are interested you can read it at Iranian.com at
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2006/April/Nuclear12/index.html

I have to strongly reject to your assertion that most Iranians support the idea of Islamic regime developing nuclear power. Iranian people after 27 years of dealing with the Islamist regime know very well that developing nuclear power is nothing but a diversion from dealing with the great misery that working people in Iran are facing with. They also know full well that The Islamic regime is using the tension with US government to launch a wide scale attack on mass movement in Iran, arrest and murder political activists and labor leaders. Contrary to your statement that people in Iran support the the idea of nuclear power, labor, student, and women movement have repeatedly exposed the Islamic regimes malicious intents behind the “right to develop nuclear energy.”

Although, you do not openly support the Islamic regime's nuclear policy, you sound upset that WCPI condemns the Islamic regime for that. You also seem to legitimize the Islamic regime nuclear policy by saying that it appeals to most Iranians. You need to explain where you stand on this issue. However, lets for a moment assume that most Iranians support the idea of having nuclear power. That brings no legitimacy for building nuclear power and or weapon. Most American supported George Bush's war on Iraq. But, I am sure you do not come to the conclusion that war on Iraq was legitimate.

3.You say you are against the Islamic regime. Yet, you repeatedly come up with some bogus ways to defend the Islamic regime or make it sound less brutal. You speak from two sides of your mouth. You sound confused.
Listen to yourself:

“calling the Islamic regime 'fascist' is a bit of a stretch.”
“Iran is not the 'totalitarian dungeon'”
there are contested elections in Iran.
There is more choice in Iranian elections, in any case, than in American ones.
“American Imperialism is much worse [than Islamic regime]”
“Iranian regime does not compare to imperialism.”

Why don't you like when I call Islamic regime a fascist regime? Why do you oppose when people call Islamic regime “totalitarian?” Is it because according to you “there are contested elections in Iran?” or because Iranian have more choice in elections? Contested election between Hashami and Refsanjani. Now I have to laugh. That is pathetic. What a great choice. I suppose we have to appreciate that Islamic regime is giving us the option to choose either one of these two people. You call that choice? That shows how far you are off the line. This position belongs to the so called “reformist” faction of the regime, people like Khatami and Refsanjani, etc who like to preserve the Islamic. Two murderous criminals contesting to become the next president of the Islamic regime. It impresses you but to me both of them have to be put on trial for their crime against humanity.

I have seen pro Islamists American and European leftists onject to calling Islamic regime in Iran a fascist regime. They have no problem if I call Pinoshe's regime a fascist regime, but when it comes to Islamic regime in Iran they begin to think twice and warn us, like you do, that it is “a bit of stretch.”

From a theoretical perspective, the Islamic regime fits the description of the fascist regime. It is a regime driven by ideology, sectarianism, demagoguery, extreme brutality and crudity, anti-communism, reference to popular slogans, patriarchy, homophobia, prison, torture, murder, employing brown shirt fascist hooligan, etc. (For your information, I should also add that Germans Nazi groups love the Islamic regime; in fact during the Olympic games, they carried the Islamic regime's flag)

In terms of politics, the rise of political Islam in Iran and ascendancy of the Islamists to power was nothing but fascist backlash against the threat of communism and socialism in Iran. Traditional dictatorships such as Shah's regime or like the ones in Latin America failed to defeat communism in Iran. Iranian bourgeoisie could not use military dictatorship to face the challenges of a mass movement that from the very start of the revolution threatened its rule. Iranian bourgeoisie with the help of the US and the western power dug Islam out of the trash can and pushed it to forefront to act as the “leader” of of a mass protest movement against injustice. Islam as the so called “ideology of the disgruntled masses” became a fascist instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie to put down communism and freedom.

I have no insistence to call the Islamic regime a fascist regime, but I find it quiet obnoxious when pro Islamist left gets upset and become paranoid when opponents of Islamic regime call it fascist.

To be continued.

Mahmood

Frank Partisan said...

Thank you Obokun and Mahmood, for some sane political discourse.

I have nothing to do with your fight with John Brown. I even plugged the John Brown spoof site.

I could easily take care of the problem by moderating comments. That would be against the spirit of this blog.

The irony is that if you guys, go through with your threats, it will be the conservative readers of this blog, who'll kick your asses.

Anonymous said...

Hey John Brown Stain,

I love it when you lie like a Democrat. Do it some more!!!

Oh and Renegade, I will go away quickly when MR Stain stops spamming my friends blogs.

Apparently he is a little too immature to play with other children with different ideas unless an adult takes him firmly in hand!!

Frank Partisan said...

Shouldn't being anonymous, be beneath you. If your cause is right, why be anonymous?


See: http://thebeakspeaks.blogspot.com/2006/08/john-brown-this-means-war.html

This explains what this nonsense is about.

beakerkin said...

Renegade

You haven't seen the antics of your comwad. My friends and I have not been vulgar and deposited the same mesage ad nauseum.

I ask you how is it possible that so many people tell the exact same
story. Brown has spammed my friends and my blog to the point we have to moderate. You are 100% correct that having to moderate is not what a blog is about. However, there seems to be one person who has no respect for basic blog manners John Brown.

We want you and your readers to have a talk with Brown. Explain to him that he is generating a real headache for you.

Unlike Brown we do not like to come here and interfere in your right to free speech, no matter how odious it is at time. We will be happy to leave if you tell Brown to knock it off or ban him.
My friends and I have put up with this for six months and if you think this is annoying imagine what we have put up with.

Have a nice day.

? said...

beakerkin said "We will be happy to leave if you tell Brown to knock it off or ban him."

beakerkin, I know you are a complete gentleman and have the noblest of intentions, however, we need a breakthrough pretty fast.

I would have suggested a compromise but for the fact that we have both (one on the subject of the post, and two, on whether our new friends should leave) discussions running in parallel.

Why not invite your friends and all join in the original debate, the subject of the above post?

I have a very strong feeling this debate could really go on forever.

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Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

Seems that there is civil war here on this thread. Or is it simply a mirage like the one in Iraq?

Agnes said...

I wish participants of the Brown-Bwown conflict tried to reach an agreement or carry on the ...khe ..."fight" on their own blogs. This is simply spamming a third blog. I am against moderation of any kind, but this is exactly what makes one moderate the comments.

beakerkin said...

Red Wine

You are 100% correct but Brown was warned if he didn't knock off the spam that this would be the consequence. Brown obviously has zero consideration for anyone.

My friends and I put up with much worse for six months. The time has come for you lefties to talk to Brown. You deserve free speech and so do we. Talk to Brown and tell him to knock it off.

beakerkin said...

Renegade

I have directed everyone to stop pestering you. We would appreciate it if you and your readers had a word with Comwad Brown.

We will not pester you or anyone else if Brown stays off our blogs and keeps his grubby paws off my avatar and my friends bandwith.

Good luck dealing with Brown.

John Brown said...

All,

Once again, I apologize to everyone for the antics of my little friends.

Renegade made an important point before all the nonsense began: this debate is an essential one for the left.

I could not agree more. The struggle for Palestine, the struggle against imperialism, has become where the rubber meets the road for the left - particularly here on Sam's Plantation.

It's where one either defends socialst and anti-imperialist principles or abandons them. It's presents a choice to everyone on the left - not unlike the one many socialists faced in 1914 - between siding with the national bourgeoisie or taking a stand in solidarity with its concrete victims.

One cannot support both Palestine and Apartheid Israel. Just as the Serbian powder keg did in 1914, today Palestine blows a hole in the rhetoric of many on the left who still suggest such a formulation is possible.

There's a reason Trotsky went to Serbia, after all!

Palestine forces Third Campers - and everyone else - to make that concrete choice, materially, between their own bourgeoisie and those they most concretely & most directly oppress.

Late last night I returned from DC after participating in the March in Solidarity with Palestine & Lebanon. Protests of this sort have taken place all over the world - in Egypt and England and Indonesia and Bolivia - showing that the world's poor and the world's oppressed are united against the atrocities of Zionism.

This struggle, this issue, and this debate has become the chief litmus test for the left throughout the world. Contained within the struggle over Palestine we see issues of White Supremacy, class struggle, and imperialism.

To those in the Third Camp, I have one simple question: what must Apartheid Israel do in order to compel you to abandon your position of opt-out 'neutrality'?

Ignoring the class interests represented by Hizbullah and Hamas, many say that because these groups are Islamic, one can't take a position in solidarity with their resistance. Personally, I feel that this equivocation smacks of hypocrisy unless those same people also refuse to work in solidarity with anti-imperialist Catholic groups or non-Zionist Jews.

Otherwise, it's just Islamophobia.

Nor is it sincere to state, using the passive voice. that Iran should be destroyed without acknowledging that such a position implicitly endorses a military attack - probably a nuclear one - against Iran by Uncle Sam.

But the time has ended for the left to remain silent on the issue (as UFPJ and others have tried to do): silence has now obviously and tangibly exposed itself as complicity with Uncle Sam and Apartheid Israel.

Warren said...

Wow, john brown, consumate little propgandist you are. But I'm afraid your little charade falls apart in the face of reality.

Now lets see the words and actions of the "all so reasonable" mr brown.

From my blog complete with time and date:


From: John Brown savagejusice@riseup.net
To: xxxxxx@gmail.com
Subject: [Long Range] 6/13/2006 01:17:25 PM
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:17:29 -0700 (PDT) (13:17 CDT)


Fascist Pig Porter
Goss: don't let the door hit you on the ass. --Posted by John Brown to Long Range at
5/05/2006 02:03:03 PM Come on, shitposter! Can't I even say "hi"? --Posted by John
Brown to Long Range at 5/05/2006 01:28:01 PM Picking up Goebbles mantra, eh
shitposter? --Posted by John Brown to Long Range at 5/05/2006 12:58:34 PM
FreedomNow,Sambo Warren will censor these as soon as he can, so don't worry your
pretty little head about that.Meanwhile, I saw that 5 more Head Coffins are needed
in Iraq for Sam's little GI Jackboots. --Posted by John Brown to Long Range at
5/05/2006 12:20:38 PM Hey, Shitposter! --Posted by John Brown to Long Range at
5/05/2006 12:19:18 PM Shitposter,Post some shit. --Posted by John Brown to Long
Range at 5/04/2006 05:32:29 PM Hey Sambo Warren the Injun Killer,Shitposter is just
like you in that she has a real fettish for men who run around advancing the ruling
order's cause and slaughtering Indians?With her, though, the Indians to be killed
and massacred lived in the other hemisphere.Marx has some funny things to say, too,
about the little colonial clown.Censor away, Murderer. --Posted by John Brown to
Long Range at 5/04/2006 03:58:53 PM Hey Sambo Warren the Injun Killer,Any reason why
you've explicitly been chosen to censor me over at Always on Watch?Is it because
you're a book-burning fascist or becuase you're a jack-booted white supremacist
Uncle Tom? --Posted by John Brown to Long Range at 4/27/2006 12:12:31 P Sambo Warren
the Injun Killer,I've decided to extend the olive branch olive branch. --Posted by
John Brown to Long Range at 5/11/2006 12:37:14 PM Why don't you leave, Widow.If you
really are out to make me happier, there's an idea. --Posted by John Brown to Long
Range at 6/01/2006 12:44:33 PM Thoughts, Sambo Warren the Injun Killer:Geronimo's
family call on Bush to help return his skeletonBy Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 01 June 2006 The great grandson of the Apache leader Geronimo has
appealed to the big chief in the White House to help recover the remains of his
famous relative - purportedly stolen more than 90 years ago by a group of students -
including the President's grandfather. The story that members of Yale University's
secret Skull and Bones society took the remains - including a skull and femur - from
the burial site in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been part of the university's lore.
But a university historian recently recovered a letter from 1918 that appears to
support the story that members of the society did indeed take the remains while
serving with a group of army volunteers from Yale, stationed at the fort during the
First World War.The students - among them, Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott -
apparently returned with the remains and kept them in their society's headquarters
at the university in New Haven, Connecticut. The society's initiation rite
reportedly involves kissing a skull, referred to as "Geronimo", usually held in a
glass case.The letter from society member Winter Mead to fellow member F Trubee
Davison, made public earlier this month, said: "The skull of the worthy Geronimo the
Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe inside the
[tomb] together with his well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."The famous Indian
chief's great-grandson is appealing for President Bush's help in recovering the
remains. Speaking from his home in Mescalero, New Mexico, Harlyn Geronimo said: "I
am requesting his help in getting the remains - the skull and the femur - returned,
if they were taken. According to our traditions the remains of this sort, especially
in this state when the grave was desecrated ... need to be reburied with the proper
rituals. To return the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace ... is important in
our tradition." The letter was discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and
published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr Wortman said there was still scepticism as
to whether the remains were those of Geronimo - something that could probably only
be proved by carrying out DNA tests."What I think we could probably say is they
removed some skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he
said."Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's
from Geronimo." Geronimo, a leader of the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of
the last Native American leaders to hold out against the forces of the US
government. He eventually surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was
moved first to Florida and then Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909,
and was buried at the fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.The White House
yesterday did not return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman, Dorie Baker,
said the university could not comment because the Skull and Bones was a separate
entity and that because it was a secret society "we don't know anything". The
society has not commented on the issue.Life of a warriorGeronimo's real name
Goyathlay literally meant "one who yawns", but any further comparisons with lethargy
stop there.The Chiricahua Apache leader was head of one of the last American Indian
fighting forces to formally capitulate to the United States, and gained a reputation
for his bravery and ability to dodge bullets.The feared Apache warrior took up arms
against the Mexicans, and later the Americans, after Spanish troops massacred his
wife and three children in 1858. His tribe was later forcibly moved by the US
government to arid reservations.Geronimo and his 35 warriors avoided the combined
armies of Mexico and the US for a year before being captured in 1886 by General
Nelson A Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.Geronimo became something of a national
celebrity, despite being a prisoner. He evenrode in Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural
parade, but still died a prisoner of war far from his homeland. --Posted by John
Brown to Long Range at 6/02/2006 12:26:17 PM Still no comment, Sambo Warren the
Injun Killer?Where do you stand? With Geronimo or the Nazi family who robbed his
grave?Geronimo's Family Call on Bush to Help Return His Skeletonby Andrew
BuncombeThe great grandson of the Apache leader Geronimo has appealed to the big
chief in the White House to help recover the remains of his famous relative -
purportedly stolen more than 90 years ago by a group of students - including the
President's grandfather.The story that members of Yale University's secret Skull and
Bones society took the remains - including a skull and femur - from the burial site
in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been part of the university's lore. But a
university historian recently recovered a letter from 1918 that appears to support
the story that members of the society did indeed take the remains while serving with
a group of army volunteers from Yale, stationed at the fort during the First World
War.The students - among them, Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott - apparently returned
with the remains and kept them in their society's headquarters at the university in
New Haven, Connecticut. The society's initiation rite reportedly involves kissing a
skull, referred to as "Geronimo", usually held in a glass case.The letter from
society member Winter Mead to fellow member F Trubee Davison, made public earlier
this month, said: "The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its
tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe inside the [tomb] together with his
well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."The famous Indian chief's great-grandson is
appealing for President Bush's help in recovering the remains. Speaking from his
home in Mescalero, New Mexico, Harlyn Geronimo said: "I am requesting his help in
getting the remains - the skull and the femur - returned, if they were taken.
According to our traditions the remains of this sort, especially in this state when
the grave was desecrated ... need to be reburied with the proper rituals. To return
the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace ... is important in our tradition."
The letter was discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published in the
Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr Wortman said there was still scepticism as to whether the
remains were those of Geronimo - something that could probably only be proved by
carrying out DNA tests."What I think we could probably say is they removed some
skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he
said."Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's
from Geronimo." Geronimo, a leader of the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of
the last Native American leaders to hold out against the forces of the US
government. He eventually surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was
moved first to Florida and then Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909,
and was buried at the fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.The White House
yesterday did not return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman, Dorie Baker,
said the university could not comment because the Skull and Bones was a separate
entity and that because it was a secret society "we don't know anything". The
society has not commented on the issue.Life of a warriorGeronimo's real name
Goyathlay literally meant "one who yawns", but any further comparisons with lethargy
stop there.The Chiricahua Apache leader was head of one of the last American Indian
fighting forces to formally capitulate to the United States, and gained a reputation
for his bravery and ability to dodge bullets.The feared Apache warrior took up arms
against the Mexicans, and later the Americans, after Spanish troops massacred his
wife and three children in 1858. His tribe was later forcibly moved by the US
government to arid reservations.Geronimo and his 35 warriors avoided the combined
armies of Mexico and the US for a year before being captured in 1886 by General
Nelson A Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.Geronimo became something of a national
celebrity, despite being a prisoner. He evenrode in Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural
parade, but still died a prisoner of war far from his homeland. --Posted by John
Brown to Long Range at 6/05/2006 10:48:06 PM Hey Sambo Warren the Injun Killer,You
still haven't responded to this article. Do you support the campaign to have your
Nazi-loving President return Geronimo's skull?Which side are you on?Geronimo's
Family Call on Bush to Help Return His Skeletonby Andrew BuncombeThe great grandson
of the Apache leader Geronimo has appealed to the big chief in the White House to
help recover the remains of his famous relative - purportedly stolen more than 90
years ago by a group of students - including the President's grandfather. The story
that members of Yale University's secret Skull and Bones society took the remains -
including a skull and femur - from the burial site in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long
been part of the university's lore. But a university historian recently recovered a
letter from 1918 that appears to support the story that members of the society did
indeed take the remains while serving with a group of army volunteers from Yale,
stationed at the fort during the First World War.The students - among them, Mr
Bush's grandfather Prescott - apparently returned with the remains and kept them in
their society's headquarters at the university in New Haven, Connecticut. The
society's initiation rite reportedly involves kissing a skull, referred to as
"Geronimo", usually held in a glass case.The letter from society member Winter Mead
to fellow member F Trubee Davison, made public earlier this month, said: "The skull
of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your
club... is now safe inside the [tomb] together with his well worn femurs, bit and
saddle horn."The famous Indian chief's great-grandson is appealing for President
Bush's help in recovering the remains. Speaking from his home in Mescalero, New
Mexico, Harlyn Geronimo said: "I am requesting his help in getting the remains - the
skull and the femur - returned, if they were taken. According to our traditions the
remains of this sort, especially in this state when the grave was desecrated ...
need to be reburied with the proper rituals. To return the dignity and let his
spirits rest in peace ... is important in our tradition." The letter was discovered
by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr
Wortman said there was still scepticism as to whether the remains were those of
Geronimo - something that could probably only be proved by carrying out DNA
tests."What I think we could probably say is they removed some skull and bones and
other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he said."Historically, it may be
impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's from Geronimo." Geronimo, a
leader of the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of the last Native American
leaders to hold out against the forces of the US government. He eventually
surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was moved first to Florida and
then Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909, and was buried at the
fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.The White House yesterday did not
return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman, Dorie Baker, said the university
[...]


I cut that a little short.

Now, imagine 150 of them 8 times that long posted to your comments in one day.

That's what he has been doing.

I turned on comment moderation at that time and the stupid shit didn't realize it for a while and didn't realize I was having a little fun on his blog at the same time.

That's what he has been doing to my friends every time they turn off their comment moderation.

So, john brown, if you want your buddies to see the rest of them; Keep it up!

For the PC types out there. I'm the one that the white boy, (john brown), calls, Sambo Warren the Injun Killer!

That would be American Indian to you.

Renegade eye, I'm sorry, really. This is just a very small tase of what we put up with every time brownie goes off his meds.

My crime is that I won't let him post his crap on my blog.

troutsky said...

In the interest of reasonable standards of discourse I am appealling to John Brown to quit spamming beak and the others with whom you disagree. We can discuss on my blog.

beakerkin said...

Renegade

I am placing this post on the bottom. Your protestation of innocence are less then convincing.
You were well aware of the antics of your Comwad labeling people who object to his spam as Klansmen. Moreover you have seen the posts using anti black racial epithets to describe a native american. You
have also seen the post that portray me as a criminal. You are also well aware of the theft of my avatar.

There is zero reason to assume that you also have no knowledge of Brown's spamming blogs into moderation.

You were asked to have a talk with your comwad? You were not spammed but visited. If you do not like my visits this is okay but imagine six months of spam.

You should have a serious talk with your Comwad. This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong.

? said...

If there are questions about Irans nuclear project, then the US in particular, must be questioned about their own. As usual, it is clearly more related to economic and political concerns about retaining their status as a world superpower. The irony is, having possibly the largest collection of nuclear arms in the world today? the fate of ALL nations lies principally at America's door...

Anonymous said...

Israel is a bourgeois state and like every other bourgeois state it should be overthrown. But it isn't an apartheid state. Read Moshe Machover's analysis:

http://pamolson.org/ArtApartheid.htm