[Marxism] A velvet revolution in Iran?

[S. Artesian]

I'm not projecting anything, no more than I was with Solidarinosc in Poland 
in 1981, or with the students in Tianeman Square in 1989.

I accept what it is, with all warts included.  And the most important issue 
is the one you won't engage with:

Is this upsurge precipitated by the general economic contraction, and the 
problems with the accumulation and reproduction of capital?

Was it so triggered by an analogous conflict between means and relations of 
production in Poland?

If you think not, then you are left only with conspiracy theory, the same 
conspiracy theory that is utilized to explain everything that happened in 
the fSU and Eastern Europe from 1981 on.

These circumstances do not parallel Obama or Chavez.

But I'll tell you what-- remember Chicago '68?  Did you defend the McCarthy 
kids against the Chicago police?  Did you defend all those liberal spirits, 
democratic defenders getting the shit kicked out of them in Grant Park?

I know, before your time.  But not before mine.  I, we, in our affinity 
group [sorry, I'm from Chicago, I wasn't going there alone, and not without 
people who know what we were getting into] did defend them, physically when 
we could, or by dragging them away from the cops and making them run rather 
than sit there and take the beating.

And I'll tell you something else, if cops were attacking students, women, 
African-Americans who were demonstrating for the right to free abortions; 
enforcement of civil rights laws, etc. at a demonstration called by NARAL 
and the NAACP and in support of the Obama Dems when he was campaigning in 
the primaries, we would or SHOULD physically defend them too without 
displaying a shred of support for the Dems or Obama.

I mean really... do you really believe that this entire struggle has been 
fomented by the US?  By a liberal bourgeoisie in Iran?  That there is no 
social crisis there?  That, even if you admit there is, that Ahmedi-nijad 
will not use the crushing of the demonstrations to clamp down even tighter 
on the workers and the left and accommodate every more overtly the right 
wing, "liberal" elements he now denounces?  That,  by the way, is exactly 
what Jaruzelski did when he took power, outlawed Solidarity.  He crushed the 
workers, and quickened the ascendancy of capitalism.

If I remember correctly, and perhaps J Scot can verify or correct this, I 
think when the Polish miners went on strike, Thatcher exported coal to 
Jaruzelski, and he of course, then returned the favor when Thatcher turned 
to crush the miners in the UK.  Sequence might be reversed, but you get the 
picture.

Again, I don't support either faction contending for the government.  I 
don't think either faction has the capacity to resolve the economic conflict 
at the heart of the struggle.  But I think there is an economic struggle at 
core, and if the protestors are not defended, the class at the core of the 
economy will never get the chance to enter the conflict.  It will be crushed 
in situ.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "brad bauerly" <bbauerly at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 2:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] A velvet revolution in Iran?