[Marxism] Ahmadinejad: Capitalism nearing collapse

[Walter Lippmann]

If only the world could be as simply understood as by dividing it 
into two camps, "fosterers" and "suppressors". We cannot simply
put a minus where people we disagree with put a plus. Reality is
more complicated than that.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a socially conservative, but at
the same time NATIONALIST government. It strives, by its own means
and methods, to defend the national interests of the Iranian nation.

It's been doing that for going on thirty years now. And while surely
some of the architects of Marxmail think that they could do a better
job defending Iran's interests, the Iranians haven't as yet come to
the same conclusion, apparently. Ahmadinejad did win an election not
long ago in his home country, for those who might have forgotten it.

Perhaps if Iranian Marxists had not been excluded from the ballot, 
they might have defeated Ahmadinijad, just as Marxists here in the 
United States might have defeated the Democrats and Republicans were 
it not for the undemocratic election laws which predominate in this 
country. In Argentina, the Kirchners are leading the government of
that country, under a nationalist and not a Marxist program. 

Unless I'm not mistaken, Marxists haven't found quite the same
following in Argentina than the Kirchners have developed. Nestor
can help us understand why this is, I imagine, since he's both a
Marxist and someone there on the scene. It may well be that the
extreme sectarianism of the Marxists have prevented them from 
developing a broad audience in accord with the actual historical
circumstances of the Argentine nation. That's my guesstimate.

The idea that a bourgeois national government cannot do that is not
in accord with the facts, but it IS in accord with the schema which
insists that it can NOT do that. The world today is filled with many
governments which maintain capitalist private property relationships
while fighting to defend national interests against imperialist ones.
One has to be blind not to see that. Some remain quite blind.

Iran and Libya are hardly the only examples. George W. Bush's regime
in the United States, while brazenly and shamelessly capitalist in
many ways, acts to subordinate the interests of some capitalists at
the expense of others in an exercise of raw political power. Some
capitalist interests in the United States make money off of the
blockade of Cuba, while others lose money from the same blockade.

Instead of seeing all capitalists as having IDENTICAL interests,
one should also see that SOME of their interests are in conflict
with one another, for example over blockading Cuba. It is better 
to divide your adversaries than to unite them, after all. That's
only common sense in political strategy. If Fidel Castro had 
followed such a foolishly sectarian strategy, the likelihood of
Cuba's revolution succeeding would have been far less, I believe.

Such perfectionistic Marxists are today sweating over their fear
that Raul will make Cuba into a replica of China when he talks of
more and better foreign investments. He doesn't just talk about
more. He also talks about better. This is the part which those of
a perfectionistic bent continue to leave out when discussing the
unfolding policy changes which are being conducted in Cuba today.

Some people get so carried away with their opposition to everything
and everyone who is capitalist that they can't see the advantages
to a place like Cuba of dividing its adversaries. And at the same
time, they get so carried away with hostility toward the national
governments in the Third World, like the Islamic Republic of Iran,
that they campaign against them rather than trying to understand
what drives them, and how what drives them should be seen by the
socialist and revolutionary movements outside of their countries.

This has led some people to fantasize that the Islamic Republic 
is colluding with the government of the United States when, what
is actually happening, is that the Islamic Republic is trying to
postpone conflict with the United States as far as possible, and,
at the same time, defending its own interests by encouraging the
opposition to Washington elsewhere. Why should we try to unite
our adversaries when it's better to have them divided and pitted
against one another? 

This is why the Iranians evidently see more in common with Cuba
and Venezuela, in relation to their fundamental adversaries in
Washington, and Cuba and Venezuela have the same non-sectarian
approach. Would that Marxists in the United States of America
and Europe have as practical a grasp of the political reality! 

Is that really so hard to understand and to hope for? Perhaps
it's time to go back and pull of the shelf our old copies of
George Novack's AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LOGIC OF MARXISM.

Sometimes I wish that the world were different than it is,
but my wishes alone won't make it so, unfortunately.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California

Nancy Pelosi Says US Blockade of Cuba Should be Lifted

Havana, April 25 (acn) The speaker of the US House of Representatives 
Nancy Pelosi said the US economic blockade of Cuba “has failed and
should be lifted.”

The US congress woman made her statements in an interview with CNN on 
Friday as she answered questions on different Latin American issues. 

Pelosi recalled that she has been advocating for a change of 
Washington’s policy towards Cuba for some time now, which include the 
lifting of travel restrictions to Cuba, family remittances, trade 
exchange, among others relevant to the US economic blockade on the 
Caribbean archipelago, and which would allow for the normalization of 
relations between the two countries.

The over-45-year US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba 
has translated into over-89-million-dollar losses. The unilateral 
measure, which was reinforced by the George W. Bush administration in a 
failed attempt to topple the Cuban Revolution, has been overwhelmingly 
condemned by UN member nations over the past years.  
======================================================================
April 25, 2008 10:54 a.m. EDT

Head of Joint Chiefs of Staff
Warns of Iran Efforts
Associated Press
April 25, 2008 10:54 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accused Iran
on Friday of increasing arms and training support to insurgents in
Iraq as well as militants battling U.S. and NATO forces in
Afghanistan.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mullen said that recently
made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing
rate.

Adm. Mike Mullen told a Pentagon news conference that he has "no
smoking gun" proof that the highest leadership in the Iranian
government has approved the stepped-up aid to insurgents who are
killing U.S. and Iraqi forces. But he said it's clear that recently
made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing
rate, including to support insurgents during the recent fighting in
Basra in southern Iraq.

"It's not just weapons," Adm. Mullen said of Iranian support. "They
continue to train Iraqis in Iran to come back and fight Americans in
the coalition," he added, saying U.S. intelligence is seeing similar
Iranian aid for militants and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"I just don't see any evidence of them backing off. And Basra
highlighted a lot of that," Adm. Mullen said of Iran.

Still, Adm. Mullen added: "I have no smoking gun that could prove the
highest [Iranian] leadership is involved in this."

Adm. Mullen said the U.S. isn't taking any options off the table --
including military -- to counter the Iranian threat, but he said the
Bush administration believes the best approach remains continued
diplomacy and discussions with Iran's government, which has said it
has been trying to reduce any such support to insurgents across the
border in neighboring Iraq.

Officials in Washington and Baghdad have said that recently found
caches of Iranian mortars, rockets and explosives had date stamps
indicating they were manufactured in the past two months.

The allegations, which couldn't be independently verified, mark a
further hardening of U.S. rhetoric on Iran, which senior American
officials now describe as the greatest long-term threat to Iraq.

======================================================================
LOUIS PROYECT writes:
Peronism was based on fostering trade union power, while the Islamic
Republic is dedicated to suppressing it. I would compare Iran more
with other Middle Eastern or North African petro-states like Libya
than with Argentina.


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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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