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Communists against the vile mullahs in US occupied Iraq
Enemies of religion are attempting to catalyse resistance to the foul Islamists in post-Saddam Iraq. They need our support.
This article is from the 'Economist,' in the U.K.
This article is from the 'Economist,' in the U.K.
Battle
of the beards
Jun 12th 2003 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
Iraq's few Communists are among the brave to stand up to the ayatollahs
ARE Communists coming to America's rescue? While Iraq's other secular parties cosy up to the clerics, the Workers' Communist Party of Iraq (WCP) is struggling to halt Iraq's slide into an Islamic state. It holds coming-out parties for Baghdad girls who shed the veil, and, with reports of women being mugged, it has opened a refuge on the top floor of a Tigris-side bank repossessed by the proletariat. “Congratulations,” says Yanar Muhammad, a self-professed “ex-Muslim” and founder of the WCP's Women's Freedom in Iraq Organisation, as she hugs her latest recruit to the barehead brigade.
In the charred shell of the bank below, party cadres plot their return to Al-Thoura, Baghdad's sprawling Shia shantytown, once their heartland but now the bridgehead of an Islamic state. A comrade with a huge bush of facial hair proposes Molotov-cocktailing a mosque for each liquor store or cinema torched.
The battle of the beards dates back 45 years. In the 1958 regime-change that ousted the monarchy, Marx not the mullahs was Iraqi Shias' source of emulation. The ayatollahs fought back, but without great success. Now, the failure of America's regime-change to impose order—which a report by the International Crisis Group describes as “a reckless abdication of the occupying powers' obligation to protect the population”—has sent women scuttling beneath the safety of the veil, or to self-imposed purdah indoors. It has paved the way for vigilantes to enforce patriarchal codes. Girls are pulled out of school, men do the shopping, and wedding parties and cafés are shut down before dusk. Al-Thoura is as tightly veiled as the southern suburbs of Tehran.
Can the Communists' clarion call again strike a chord? Young people are fed up with being told which films they can and cannot watch. Women demand equal inheritance rights and the abolition of laws that sanction “honour” crimes and forbid them from leaving Iraq without a male guardian. In the Baghdad cafés frequented by artists and authors, there is talk of a backlash. “We don't want to replace one totalitarian system with another,” says an artist, with a whisky bottle stuffed down his jumper. “Iraqis just need some time to have fun.”
The Communists' political muscle is hard to assess. They stood no chance in one-party Baathist Iraq. In the northern haven, the Iraq Communist Party got no more than 2% of the vote in the 1992 parliamentary election, and since then the party has split into three.
Moreover, the ayatollahs have grown so influential in post-Saddam Iraq that even some secular leaders are beating a path to their doors for a blessing. Few politicians dare broach the issue of separating state from religion. And the artist in the café could not have paid for his whisky, had it not been for the rush of commissions for clerical portraits to fill the billboards formerly adorned by Saddam.
of the beards
Jun 12th 2003 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition
Iraq's few Communists are among the brave to stand up to the ayatollahs
ARE Communists coming to America's rescue? While Iraq's other secular parties cosy up to the clerics, the Workers' Communist Party of Iraq (WCP) is struggling to halt Iraq's slide into an Islamic state. It holds coming-out parties for Baghdad girls who shed the veil, and, with reports of women being mugged, it has opened a refuge on the top floor of a Tigris-side bank repossessed by the proletariat. “Congratulations,” says Yanar Muhammad, a self-professed “ex-Muslim” and founder of the WCP's Women's Freedom in Iraq Organisation, as she hugs her latest recruit to the barehead brigade.
In the charred shell of the bank below, party cadres plot their return to Al-Thoura, Baghdad's sprawling Shia shantytown, once their heartland but now the bridgehead of an Islamic state. A comrade with a huge bush of facial hair proposes Molotov-cocktailing a mosque for each liquor store or cinema torched.
The battle of the beards dates back 45 years. In the 1958 regime-change that ousted the monarchy, Marx not the mullahs was Iraqi Shias' source of emulation. The ayatollahs fought back, but without great success. Now, the failure of America's regime-change to impose order—which a report by the International Crisis Group describes as “a reckless abdication of the occupying powers' obligation to protect the population”—has sent women scuttling beneath the safety of the veil, or to self-imposed purdah indoors. It has paved the way for vigilantes to enforce patriarchal codes. Girls are pulled out of school, men do the shopping, and wedding parties and cafés are shut down before dusk. Al-Thoura is as tightly veiled as the southern suburbs of Tehran.
Can the Communists' clarion call again strike a chord? Young people are fed up with being told which films they can and cannot watch. Women demand equal inheritance rights and the abolition of laws that sanction “honour” crimes and forbid them from leaving Iraq without a male guardian. In the Baghdad cafés frequented by artists and authors, there is talk of a backlash. “We don't want to replace one totalitarian system with another,” says an artist, with a whisky bottle stuffed down his jumper. “Iraqis just need some time to have fun.”
The Communists' political muscle is hard to assess. They stood no chance in one-party Baathist Iraq. In the northern haven, the Iraq Communist Party got no more than 2% of the vote in the 1992 parliamentary election, and since then the party has split into three.
Moreover, the ayatollahs have grown so influential in post-Saddam Iraq that even some secular leaders are beating a path to their doors for a blessing. Few politicians dare broach the issue of separating state from religion. And the artist in the café could not have paid for his whisky, had it not been for the rush of commissions for clerical portraits to fill the billboards formerly adorned by Saddam.
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this opinion by George Will is creepy because he seems to be joining antiwar protesters, using their arguments 100%
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/22/ED260630.DTL
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/22/ED260630.DTL
Let's see. Under communism, the party decides for you what you get, and enforces it severely.
Under the mullahs, they'll decide what you can do, and enforce it severely.
Hmmm. Either way, the Iraqis are screwed.
Under the mullahs, they'll decide what you can do, and enforce it severely.
Hmmm. Either way, the Iraqis are screwed.
Communists have always been in the forefront of the struggle against Islamist totalitarianism in the Muslim world. In Iran, the best organized and effective force against the Mullahs are not the US-backed monarchists--who have little support--but, instead, the communists. The recent upsurge of rebellion on university campuses across Iran have been pushed forward by the reds. As the Bush regime seeks to destabilize the mullahs for its own strategic ends, it has to confront the fact that their stooges are politically irrelevant within Iran. The following article suggests that the US is aware of this, and is entertaining the idea of using communists for their own ends--I suspect they won't be successful.
US finds a communist ally against Iran
By B Raman
The United States, which used Islamic fundamentalists against communism in Afghanistan in the 1980s, has embarked on an operation to use communists to bring about the end of the Islamic regime in Iran.
The dozens of anti-cleric and secular Iranian exile groups operating from the West against the Islamic regime in Tehran broadly fall into the following categories:
The left-oriented Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK - People's Mujahideen) and elements allied with it in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). They mainly operate from West Europe, with headquarters in France.
The monarchists, mainly operating from the US, with the help of neo-conservative and Jewish lobby groups.
The remnants and new adherents of the old pro-Moscow Communist Party of Iran, called the Tudeh Party, and other communist factions, mainly operating from the United Kingdom.
The MEK, which has in the past indulged in acts of terrorism inside Iran from sanctuaries provided by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under a 1996 US law. Until recently, this precluded any Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assistance to or even contacts with it. However, it would seem that after the occupation of Iraq by the US forces, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have been allowed to establish contact with MEK elements in Iraq and West Europe for using them against the Teheran regime. This decision was reportedly taken to preempt any Iranian meddling in Iraq.
The MEK has had the ability in the past to organize acts of terrorism in Iranian territory, mainly because of the operational assistance provided by the Iraqi intelligence. As of now, the CIA does not have a similar operational capability inside Iran. Moreover, the Bush administration would not like to be seen by the international community as sponsoring terrorism in Iran. Its present cultivation of the MEK is meant more to exercise psychological pressure on the Teheran regime and to keep before it the specter of a US-backed operation one day for a regime change, with the MEK spearheading the operation with US assistance. The French action earlier this week to round up the leaders and activists of the MEK and the NCRI in France was meant to preempt the CIA's covertly using its territory and the large number of Iranian exiles there for a destabilization operation in Iran.
The US-based monarchists, who have been financially the most well-endowed and the most articulate against the Tehran regime, have the least following inside Iran. Till recently, they were reportedly the recipients of maximum funds and patronage from the US intelligence community.
The post-1999 student unrest in Iran made the CIA realize that while the MEK and the monarchists were making loud, but often unprovable claims about their following and successes inside Iran, it was the remnants and the new adherents of the Communist Party/factions who had been operating silently and effectively inside Iran and built up a number of anti-cleric, secular and progressive secret cells. It is these cells which have been largely responsible for the growing student unrest in Iran since 1999 and for the current wave of student demonstrations, which have rocked not only Tehran, but also other cities for nearly 10 days now.
The demonstrations initially started as a protest against a move to privatize certain universities. Students belonging to middle and lower middle class families feared that this could make university education costly and deny them its benefit. They have since assumed a much larger agenda, calling for the end of the clerical rule and for the introduction of secularism and genuine democracy in Iran.
The number of students involved in these demonstrations is not very large - an average of about 3,000 per affected town, but what is remarkable is the clandestine networking, tenacity of purpose and the ability to evade detection of their cells by the Iranian intelligence agencies displayed by the organizers. Neither the MEK nor the monarchists have exhibited such capabilities in the past. Though the monarchists have been trying to claim credit for what has been happening, the evidence available suggests that the credit for the anti-cleric movement should largely go to the communists and other leftists.
After the Islamic revolutionaries seized power in Iran in 1979, Iranian intelligence promoted the formation of a number of Student Islamic Associations and Offices for Consolidation of Islamic Unity in the universities and other educational institutions to keep a watch on student activities and to prevent any movement against the clerics. Iranian students, many of them members of the Tudeh Party, had played an active role against the dictatorial regime of the Shah of Iran and in making the success of the Ayatollah Khomeni-led Islamic revolution possible. They were also in the forefront of the anti-US campaign, with many of them playing an active role in the raid on the US embassy in Teheran and the taking of US diplomats as hostages soon after the clerics came to power. The clerics, therefore, knew and feared the potential power of the students in Iran, particularly the fierce motivation of the communists and other leftist supporters among them. After seizing power with the help of the communist students, the clerics ruthlessly suppressed the communists, arresting and executing many of them. Those who escaped arrest and death at the hands of the clerics managed to flee to West Europe and started organizing their activities from there. The lead in this was taken by the London-based Worker-Communist Party of Iran (WCPI).
Until 1998, the Student Islamic Associations and Offices for Consolidation of Islamic Unity held sway in the universities and the communist cells were unable to make any headway. The situation started changing in favor of the communists from 1999 due to growing dissatisfaction among the students over the repressive rule of the regime. The communist cells organized their activities around demands for freedom of expression, respect for the human rights of political prisoners, end of the execution of political prisoners, restoration of genuine democracy, secularism, right to employment etc.
The communists issued calls for the unity of all progressive students under the banner of socialism and worker-communism and clandestinely circulated the writings of Mansoor Hekmat, an ideologue of the communist students, who had written, "'In a religious capitalist tyranny, a misogynist, anti-life, anti-intellect and uncivilized regime, the university is a natural ground for the growth of communism." One of the articles circulated by them in the university campuses said, "The more lucid, clear and radical the slogans and demands of the progressive movement for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, the more the masses of the workers, teachers, women and progressive people will support these demands. The communist students must recognize these circumstances and be aware of its profound potential."
Among the various pro-communist organizations that started operating in the universities, one could mention the Union of Islamic University Associations, headed by Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, which started a journal called "Payam-e Daneshju", since banned by the conservative judicial authorities. It reflects the views of Iranian dissident scholar Abdul Karim Sorush, who argued that Islam and democracy are compatible and called for an end to the clergy's near monopoly on political power. Another nationwide university organization is the Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat (Office for Strengthening of Unity) which, while calling for greater political freedom, distanced itself from the call for removing the clergy from the corridors of political power. The pro-communist organizations supported President Mohammad Khatami during his election campaigns, but have since become disillusioned over his reluctance to assert himself against the clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
There was a fresh outbreak of student unrest in Tehran and other places in November, 2002, which was indicative of the organizing capability of the secret cells and of the anti-cleric and even anti-Khatami turn it was taking. On November 18, about 5,000 students of the Sharif University held a protest rally, which was joined by some workers from the Iran National Car Factory and Iran Sypa Motor Manufacturing . About 1,500 students of the Esfahan University also held a demonstration and shouted, "Down with dictatorship"; "Iran is not Chile" and "Both in Kabul and Tehran, down with the Taliban!"
There is as yet no evidence to corroborate the allegations of the Iranian authorities that the US intelligence has been behind the current wave of student unrest. However, it appears to be true that, after repeatedly seeing the potential and clandestine operational capability of the pro-communist students of the universities, the CIA has started shifting its bets to them rather than placing them on the monarchists and the MEK for destabilizing the Tehran regime.
Certain Western-based students' organizations, such as the Students' Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, which do not appear to be directly associated with the communists, have already been in receipt of financial assistance and guidance in agitprop methods from the CIA in the past. Now, an increasing part of this assistance is being diverted to those directly associated with the communists.
The CIA's assistance to the anti-cleric elements in Iran started even under the Clinton administration. This largely consisted of the supply of funds for propaganda through radio stations and the Internet. Even now, the CIA's assistance is confined to these fields. There is as yet no evidence of para-military training being imparted to these elements anywhere.
On May 19, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback announced at a press conference that he would introduce a bill to be called the Iran Democracy Act, asking for US$50 million to promote democracy in Iran and to fund Iranian opposition groups. There is a debate among Iranian dissident groups, particularly the leftist-oriented, about the advisability of accepting financial or other assistance from the US. Many argue that acceptance of US assistance would give them the kiss of death and damage their credibility in the eyes of the Iranian people. They say that open statements of support to the protesting students by President George W Bush and other US leaders and officials has already done harm to their movement.
The US views the students' protests as an "Allahsend". It has presently no plans for any military action in Iran. Hopefully, it has learnt the right lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq about the counter-productive and backlash effect of overt military interventions, particularly in Islamic countries, to achieve national security objectives. Moreover, the need to avoid more body bags in the months preceding next year's presidential elections should rule out an American military foray into Iran.
Not only the US leadership, Democrat or Republican, but also large sections of the American public opinion have serious concerns, which they consider legitimate, over the perceived role of the clerical regime in Iran as the spoiler of peace and stability in the region and over its nuclear program. US public opinion would strongly back any action taken by the administration to neutralize the perceived threats from Iran without getting militarily involved on the ground. In the US view, a well-orchestrated and effective covert action, even if it involves the resurgence of communism in Iran, would be a better option for digging the grave of the clerical regime.
Effective covert action demands bases from which one could relay broadcasts and telecasts, disseminate printed propaganda, interact with dissident elements inside Iran without their having to travel to the West for this purpose, and train the surrogates in clandestine operations. The CIA was hoping to use Iraqi and Pakistani territory for this purpose. The deterioration in the internal security situation in Iraq has ruled out the use of its territory for the present.
As a result, the importance of Pakistan has increased manyfold in the CIA's perception. That is why the CIA strongly advised its government to tickle the ego of President General Pervez Musharraf by receiving him in Camp David instead of in Washington in his upcoming visit and to shower him with the kind of honors no other Pakistani leader has received before - not even Zia ul-Haq during the Afghan war of the 1980s.
Since his last bilateral visit to the US in February last year, Musharraf has already ordered his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to covertly collaborate with the US intelligence agencies for the collection of intelligence about Iran. It was unhappiness over this, which led to the resignation of Abdul Sattar, his Foreign Minister, ostensibly on health grounds.
During the recent visit of Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq, director-general of the ISI, to Washington, the subject of expanding this cooperation was reportedly further discussed. According to unconfirmed reports, James Woolsey, former director of the CIA under Clinton, who has been acting as adviser to the Iranian monarchist groups, called on Haq. This subject is expected to be on the top of the agenda for Musharraf's talks with Bush. It is said that the CIA is interested in re-activating the Sunni Balochis in Iran against the Tehran regime and in shifting the MEK dregs presently in Iraq to Pakistani Balochistan so that they can operate from there without causing embarrassment to the US occupation authority in Baghdad.
Pakistani sources claim that while Musharraf may be inclined to allow the relaying of clandestine broadcasts and telecasts from Pakistani territory, he is against re-activating the Iranian Balochis, which could boomerang on Pakistan's Balochistan.The Bush administration is expected to dangle before him the lollipop of another debt write-off and F-16 aircraft if he goes the whole hog in becoming the US's covert frontline ally against Iran.
The unhappiness over Musharraf's perceived willingness to collaborate with the US against Iran is not confined to Pakistan's Foreign Office. Some army officers, such as General Mohammad Aziz, a fundamentalist Kashmiri officer belonging to the Sudan tribe of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), also reportedly expressed their misgivings during discussions at general headquarters. Aziz is presently chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee. They have also referred to the dangers of the move causing alienation amongst the Shi'ites in the armed forces. The Pakistan air force, in particular, has a large number of Shi'ites at the lower and middle levels in the cadres of technicians.
It is reported that Musharraf has reassured them by projecting that his present intelligence collaboration with the US is against the terrorists operating from Iranian territory and not against the Iranian regime. He has described it as part of the war against international terrorism by the international coalition under the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373. He has reportedly reiterated that he would not agree to any other cooperation which may be directed against the clerical regime. But their concerns have not subsided. They have noted that since the recent visit of Ehsanul Haq to the US, Musharraf's enthusiasm for a gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan has decreased.
Musharraf wants to go down in Pakistan's history as the leader who achieved Pakistan's objective in Jammu and Kashmir. If he calculates that by collaborating with the US to bring down the Tehran regime, he might achieve this objective, he may not hesitate to do so. New Delhi and Tehran should be prepared for surprises.
B Raman is Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and presently director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; former member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India. E-Mail: corde [at] vsnl.com. He was also head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research & Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, from 1988 to August, 1994.
Jun 21, 2003
US finds a communist ally against Iran
By B Raman
The United States, which used Islamic fundamentalists against communism in Afghanistan in the 1980s, has embarked on an operation to use communists to bring about the end of the Islamic regime in Iran.
The dozens of anti-cleric and secular Iranian exile groups operating from the West against the Islamic regime in Tehran broadly fall into the following categories:
The left-oriented Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK - People's Mujahideen) and elements allied with it in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). They mainly operate from West Europe, with headquarters in France.
The monarchists, mainly operating from the US, with the help of neo-conservative and Jewish lobby groups.
The remnants and new adherents of the old pro-Moscow Communist Party of Iran, called the Tudeh Party, and other communist factions, mainly operating from the United Kingdom.
The MEK, which has in the past indulged in acts of terrorism inside Iran from sanctuaries provided by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under a 1996 US law. Until recently, this precluded any Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assistance to or even contacts with it. However, it would seem that after the occupation of Iraq by the US forces, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) have been allowed to establish contact with MEK elements in Iraq and West Europe for using them against the Teheran regime. This decision was reportedly taken to preempt any Iranian meddling in Iraq.
The MEK has had the ability in the past to organize acts of terrorism in Iranian territory, mainly because of the operational assistance provided by the Iraqi intelligence. As of now, the CIA does not have a similar operational capability inside Iran. Moreover, the Bush administration would not like to be seen by the international community as sponsoring terrorism in Iran. Its present cultivation of the MEK is meant more to exercise psychological pressure on the Teheran regime and to keep before it the specter of a US-backed operation one day for a regime change, with the MEK spearheading the operation with US assistance. The French action earlier this week to round up the leaders and activists of the MEK and the NCRI in France was meant to preempt the CIA's covertly using its territory and the large number of Iranian exiles there for a destabilization operation in Iran.
The US-based monarchists, who have been financially the most well-endowed and the most articulate against the Tehran regime, have the least following inside Iran. Till recently, they were reportedly the recipients of maximum funds and patronage from the US intelligence community.
The post-1999 student unrest in Iran made the CIA realize that while the MEK and the monarchists were making loud, but often unprovable claims about their following and successes inside Iran, it was the remnants and the new adherents of the Communist Party/factions who had been operating silently and effectively inside Iran and built up a number of anti-cleric, secular and progressive secret cells. It is these cells which have been largely responsible for the growing student unrest in Iran since 1999 and for the current wave of student demonstrations, which have rocked not only Tehran, but also other cities for nearly 10 days now.
The demonstrations initially started as a protest against a move to privatize certain universities. Students belonging to middle and lower middle class families feared that this could make university education costly and deny them its benefit. They have since assumed a much larger agenda, calling for the end of the clerical rule and for the introduction of secularism and genuine democracy in Iran.
The number of students involved in these demonstrations is not very large - an average of about 3,000 per affected town, but what is remarkable is the clandestine networking, tenacity of purpose and the ability to evade detection of their cells by the Iranian intelligence agencies displayed by the organizers. Neither the MEK nor the monarchists have exhibited such capabilities in the past. Though the monarchists have been trying to claim credit for what has been happening, the evidence available suggests that the credit for the anti-cleric movement should largely go to the communists and other leftists.
After the Islamic revolutionaries seized power in Iran in 1979, Iranian intelligence promoted the formation of a number of Student Islamic Associations and Offices for Consolidation of Islamic Unity in the universities and other educational institutions to keep a watch on student activities and to prevent any movement against the clerics. Iranian students, many of them members of the Tudeh Party, had played an active role against the dictatorial regime of the Shah of Iran and in making the success of the Ayatollah Khomeni-led Islamic revolution possible. They were also in the forefront of the anti-US campaign, with many of them playing an active role in the raid on the US embassy in Teheran and the taking of US diplomats as hostages soon after the clerics came to power. The clerics, therefore, knew and feared the potential power of the students in Iran, particularly the fierce motivation of the communists and other leftist supporters among them. After seizing power with the help of the communist students, the clerics ruthlessly suppressed the communists, arresting and executing many of them. Those who escaped arrest and death at the hands of the clerics managed to flee to West Europe and started organizing their activities from there. The lead in this was taken by the London-based Worker-Communist Party of Iran (WCPI).
Until 1998, the Student Islamic Associations and Offices for Consolidation of Islamic Unity held sway in the universities and the communist cells were unable to make any headway. The situation started changing in favor of the communists from 1999 due to growing dissatisfaction among the students over the repressive rule of the regime. The communist cells organized their activities around demands for freedom of expression, respect for the human rights of political prisoners, end of the execution of political prisoners, restoration of genuine democracy, secularism, right to employment etc.
The communists issued calls for the unity of all progressive students under the banner of socialism and worker-communism and clandestinely circulated the writings of Mansoor Hekmat, an ideologue of the communist students, who had written, "'In a religious capitalist tyranny, a misogynist, anti-life, anti-intellect and uncivilized regime, the university is a natural ground for the growth of communism." One of the articles circulated by them in the university campuses said, "The more lucid, clear and radical the slogans and demands of the progressive movement for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, the more the masses of the workers, teachers, women and progressive people will support these demands. The communist students must recognize these circumstances and be aware of its profound potential."
Among the various pro-communist organizations that started operating in the universities, one could mention the Union of Islamic University Associations, headed by Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, which started a journal called "Payam-e Daneshju", since banned by the conservative judicial authorities. It reflects the views of Iranian dissident scholar Abdul Karim Sorush, who argued that Islam and democracy are compatible and called for an end to the clergy's near monopoly on political power. Another nationwide university organization is the Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat (Office for Strengthening of Unity) which, while calling for greater political freedom, distanced itself from the call for removing the clergy from the corridors of political power. The pro-communist organizations supported President Mohammad Khatami during his election campaigns, but have since become disillusioned over his reluctance to assert himself against the clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
There was a fresh outbreak of student unrest in Tehran and other places in November, 2002, which was indicative of the organizing capability of the secret cells and of the anti-cleric and even anti-Khatami turn it was taking. On November 18, about 5,000 students of the Sharif University held a protest rally, which was joined by some workers from the Iran National Car Factory and Iran Sypa Motor Manufacturing . About 1,500 students of the Esfahan University also held a demonstration and shouted, "Down with dictatorship"; "Iran is not Chile" and "Both in Kabul and Tehran, down with the Taliban!"
There is as yet no evidence to corroborate the allegations of the Iranian authorities that the US intelligence has been behind the current wave of student unrest. However, it appears to be true that, after repeatedly seeing the potential and clandestine operational capability of the pro-communist students of the universities, the CIA has started shifting its bets to them rather than placing them on the monarchists and the MEK for destabilizing the Tehran regime.
Certain Western-based students' organizations, such as the Students' Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, which do not appear to be directly associated with the communists, have already been in receipt of financial assistance and guidance in agitprop methods from the CIA in the past. Now, an increasing part of this assistance is being diverted to those directly associated with the communists.
The CIA's assistance to the anti-cleric elements in Iran started even under the Clinton administration. This largely consisted of the supply of funds for propaganda through radio stations and the Internet. Even now, the CIA's assistance is confined to these fields. There is as yet no evidence of para-military training being imparted to these elements anywhere.
On May 19, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback announced at a press conference that he would introduce a bill to be called the Iran Democracy Act, asking for US$50 million to promote democracy in Iran and to fund Iranian opposition groups. There is a debate among Iranian dissident groups, particularly the leftist-oriented, about the advisability of accepting financial or other assistance from the US. Many argue that acceptance of US assistance would give them the kiss of death and damage their credibility in the eyes of the Iranian people. They say that open statements of support to the protesting students by President George W Bush and other US leaders and officials has already done harm to their movement.
The US views the students' protests as an "Allahsend". It has presently no plans for any military action in Iran. Hopefully, it has learnt the right lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq about the counter-productive and backlash effect of overt military interventions, particularly in Islamic countries, to achieve national security objectives. Moreover, the need to avoid more body bags in the months preceding next year's presidential elections should rule out an American military foray into Iran.
Not only the US leadership, Democrat or Republican, but also large sections of the American public opinion have serious concerns, which they consider legitimate, over the perceived role of the clerical regime in Iran as the spoiler of peace and stability in the region and over its nuclear program. US public opinion would strongly back any action taken by the administration to neutralize the perceived threats from Iran without getting militarily involved on the ground. In the US view, a well-orchestrated and effective covert action, even if it involves the resurgence of communism in Iran, would be a better option for digging the grave of the clerical regime.
Effective covert action demands bases from which one could relay broadcasts and telecasts, disseminate printed propaganda, interact with dissident elements inside Iran without their having to travel to the West for this purpose, and train the surrogates in clandestine operations. The CIA was hoping to use Iraqi and Pakistani territory for this purpose. The deterioration in the internal security situation in Iraq has ruled out the use of its territory for the present.
As a result, the importance of Pakistan has increased manyfold in the CIA's perception. That is why the CIA strongly advised its government to tickle the ego of President General Pervez Musharraf by receiving him in Camp David instead of in Washington in his upcoming visit and to shower him with the kind of honors no other Pakistani leader has received before - not even Zia ul-Haq during the Afghan war of the 1980s.
Since his last bilateral visit to the US in February last year, Musharraf has already ordered his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to covertly collaborate with the US intelligence agencies for the collection of intelligence about Iran. It was unhappiness over this, which led to the resignation of Abdul Sattar, his Foreign Minister, ostensibly on health grounds.
During the recent visit of Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq, director-general of the ISI, to Washington, the subject of expanding this cooperation was reportedly further discussed. According to unconfirmed reports, James Woolsey, former director of the CIA under Clinton, who has been acting as adviser to the Iranian monarchist groups, called on Haq. This subject is expected to be on the top of the agenda for Musharraf's talks with Bush. It is said that the CIA is interested in re-activating the Sunni Balochis in Iran against the Tehran regime and in shifting the MEK dregs presently in Iraq to Pakistani Balochistan so that they can operate from there without causing embarrassment to the US occupation authority in Baghdad.
Pakistani sources claim that while Musharraf may be inclined to allow the relaying of clandestine broadcasts and telecasts from Pakistani territory, he is against re-activating the Iranian Balochis, which could boomerang on Pakistan's Balochistan.The Bush administration is expected to dangle before him the lollipop of another debt write-off and F-16 aircraft if he goes the whole hog in becoming the US's covert frontline ally against Iran.
The unhappiness over Musharraf's perceived willingness to collaborate with the US against Iran is not confined to Pakistan's Foreign Office. Some army officers, such as General Mohammad Aziz, a fundamentalist Kashmiri officer belonging to the Sudan tribe of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), also reportedly expressed their misgivings during discussions at general headquarters. Aziz is presently chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee. They have also referred to the dangers of the move causing alienation amongst the Shi'ites in the armed forces. The Pakistan air force, in particular, has a large number of Shi'ites at the lower and middle levels in the cadres of technicians.
It is reported that Musharraf has reassured them by projecting that his present intelligence collaboration with the US is against the terrorists operating from Iranian territory and not against the Iranian regime. He has described it as part of the war against international terrorism by the international coalition under the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373. He has reportedly reiterated that he would not agree to any other cooperation which may be directed against the clerical regime. But their concerns have not subsided. They have noted that since the recent visit of Ehsanul Haq to the US, Musharraf's enthusiasm for a gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan has decreased.
Musharraf wants to go down in Pakistan's history as the leader who achieved Pakistan's objective in Jammu and Kashmir. If he calculates that by collaborating with the US to bring down the Tehran regime, he might achieve this objective, he may not hesitate to do so. New Delhi and Tehran should be prepared for surprises.
B Raman is Additional Secretary (ret), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and presently director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai; former member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India. E-Mail: corde [at] vsnl.com. He was also head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research & Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, from 1988 to August, 1994.
Jun 21, 2003
Haven't we been down this road before? Some self-proclaimed smart people proclaim themselves ruler and design a political and economic system for the citizens. It never works very well, the people hate it, they start roughing up the citizenry, the rulers inevitably get corrupt (with no entity to check their power).
And so on and so on...
Same story. Different players. I thought we moved past this bullsh*t.
And so on and so on...
Same story. Different players. I thought we moved past this bullsh*t.
I would marginally take comunism over islamic totalitarianism.
besides, it is good to see the right against the left as it is supposed to be as opposed to the two of them forming an unholy alliance against democracy.
besides, it is good to see the right against the left as it is supposed to be as opposed to the two of them forming an unholy alliance against democracy.
Ah yes, communism has done so well for the people of the world! Why look at all it's successes in the FORMER Soviet Union...
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See the well fed people of North Korea (if they only could eat their nuclear wepons)...
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See the successes in Congo & Zimbabwe...
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See how well the dissent writers are treated in Cuba!
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!
Really now - see how all the "new" east European countries run to democracy. See how China is rapidly becoming more capitalistic - it is desperate to moderize. Look at how the Iranians crave freedom and democracy - why saddle them with a failed idea for a government?
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See the well fed people of North Korea (if they only could eat their nuclear wepons)...
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See the successes in Congo & Zimbabwe...
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
See how well the dissent writers are treated in Cuba!
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!
Really now - see how all the "new" east European countries run to democracy. See how China is rapidly becoming more capitalistic - it is desperate to moderize. Look at how the Iranians crave freedom and democracy - why saddle them with a failed idea for a government?
The Iraqis want democracy too - see:
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
That wasn't communism. That was state monopoly capitalism.
"That wasn't communism. That was state monopoly capitalism."
Please explain how your ideal of communism would work. What if I had an idea for a new type of synthetic rubber that would cost a little more, but if used for tires, would allow for longer wear and for slightly improved fuel economy.
In the system you support, explain how I would turn this idea into a product (the financing, the production, the marketing, what happens to the current producers, etc).
I thank you for your attention,
Rearden
Please explain how your ideal of communism would work. What if I had an idea for a new type of synthetic rubber that would cost a little more, but if used for tires, would allow for longer wear and for slightly improved fuel economy.
In the system you support, explain how I would turn this idea into a product (the financing, the production, the marketing, what happens to the current producers, etc).
I thank you for your attention,
Rearden
it's still a horse.
State monopoly communism vs. theoretical communism?
Still communism, no matter how you term it, with a central organisation....
That may start out with noble ideals - but still ends up badly for those underneath it.
State monopoly communism vs. theoretical communism?
Still communism, no matter how you term it, with a central organisation....
That may start out with noble ideals - but still ends up badly for those underneath it.
Interesting argument in that THESE countries called themselves "communist".... and that is how the world perceived them. As a matter of fact, in the Preface to the English edition of the Manifesto of 1888, Engels explains that when the Manifesto was first published, the word "socialist" meant "utopians" and "quacks", whereas those workers who wanted "a total social change," called themselves "Communists". The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, & China all qualified under Engel's definition.
The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, & China and every other "communist" state that has existed are all examples of what happens when people try to create communist utopias. Communism is fundamentally flawed. It requires the abolition of private property and economic inequality, but it also destroys objective pricing systems and creates economic inefficiencies which reduce the standard of living - for everyone. It requires people to accept the "Man lives for the State" doctrine, but ignores human nature. It would create, in theory, the Worker's Paradise.
It creates, in reality, Hell on Earth.
And the proof of that are the many countries who have renounced communism.
Why would any one want to repeat THAT failed experiment?
The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, & China and every other "communist" state that has existed are all examples of what happens when people try to create communist utopias. Communism is fundamentally flawed. It requires the abolition of private property and economic inequality, but it also destroys objective pricing systems and creates economic inefficiencies which reduce the standard of living - for everyone. It requires people to accept the "Man lives for the State" doctrine, but ignores human nature. It would create, in theory, the Worker's Paradise.
It creates, in reality, Hell on Earth.
And the proof of that are the many countries who have renounced communism.
Why would any one want to repeat THAT failed experiment?
... and regardless of whether it actually works or not anywhere else, it still doesn't change an important fact about the context in which communism (as loosely defined as possible) developed. namely, if capitalism was really so good, if capitalism did not have it's own problems, failures and shortcomings, there never would have been any room or reason for "communism".
i resist triumphalism and boasting about capitalism, or claims of it's perfection, or the whole "well since communism is so terrible, that must mean capitalism is perfect end of story" line. it's nothing more than the best of the worst. SO FAR. humanity could do a lot better. it's just that nobody has the answer yet.
back to reality. i think that "pure capitalism" or "pure communism" are complete and total impossibilities. pipe dreams. i can't find one example of either anywhere. if anything, on this earth today, to a greater or lesser extent in any one country, even here in america, there is a mixture of capitalism and socialism. i think that should tell people something...
i resist triumphalism and boasting about capitalism, or claims of it's perfection, or the whole "well since communism is so terrible, that must mean capitalism is perfect end of story" line. it's nothing more than the best of the worst. SO FAR. humanity could do a lot better. it's just that nobody has the answer yet.
back to reality. i think that "pure capitalism" or "pure communism" are complete and total impossibilities. pipe dreams. i can't find one example of either anywhere. if anything, on this earth today, to a greater or lesser extent in any one country, even here in america, there is a mixture of capitalism and socialism. i think that should tell people something...
"The emergence and reinforcement of Islamic forces in a region in which Islam had never really had a hold is the product of the same conditions described above. Their growing influence came about by their advantage of not having revealed their role in the heat of events, as did the other nationalist parties. Moreover, to understand the development of their numbers, it is necessary to take into account that these organisations are financially supported by various agents of world Capital in order to openly confront communism.
The Islamic movements in Iraq, as in other countries in the region, take advantage of a situation in which discontent and struggle against imposed living conditions affect a large number of proletarians and where, paradoxically, organisation and class unity are still weak. They take advantage of a situation in which the majority of proletarians have lost all illusions about the policies of the traditional bourgeois forces. How to trust parties who for decades, in the name of one or other democratic policy, in the name of national liberation or socialism, have touted charitable projects and promises which they are incapable of keeping and which always conclude in a blood bath?
For a long time social-democrats and other Leninists have been able to impose their capitalist programme in the name of a better world (1); today, in a period in which communism is still facing enormous difficulties in imposing itself as a perspective, it is the Islamists who, although they have no difference in nature from their atheist bourgeois colleagues, brandish their programme in the name of humanity. Their celestial pseudo-alternative appears just as radical for the fact that it is not based on national and immediate reform, but on a far more universal perspective.
In addition to these socio-political factors, Islamists dispose of that particular weapon that is the religious weapon, a weapon different to all others because in the context of an after-life to which there is only access after death, it is not necessary for them to propose solutions for the real and present world. Allah will sort everything out up there! Religious ideology thus plays a particularly effective role for the bourgeoisie, to the extent that they even lie about the existence of their after-life, as they make no promises to reform and improve the world down here, sparing them any criticism of not keeping to their word. Their political decisions, their religious consultations, their "Fatwa", come from their material and earthly beings, but they present them as being orders from God, which gives them the hope that they will not have to account for their criminal acts. They craftily plead that "We will all be returned to God and it is He who will judge"! But it is jumping the gun a bit to imagine they can keep the benefits of these arguments to hide their anti-proletarian nature for long."
From "Nationalism and islamism against the proletariat"
http://www.geocities.com/icgcikg/communism/c11_natislam.htm
The Islamic movements in Iraq, as in other countries in the region, take advantage of a situation in which discontent and struggle against imposed living conditions affect a large number of proletarians and where, paradoxically, organisation and class unity are still weak. They take advantage of a situation in which the majority of proletarians have lost all illusions about the policies of the traditional bourgeois forces. How to trust parties who for decades, in the name of one or other democratic policy, in the name of national liberation or socialism, have touted charitable projects and promises which they are incapable of keeping and which always conclude in a blood bath?
For a long time social-democrats and other Leninists have been able to impose their capitalist programme in the name of a better world (1); today, in a period in which communism is still facing enormous difficulties in imposing itself as a perspective, it is the Islamists who, although they have no difference in nature from their atheist bourgeois colleagues, brandish their programme in the name of humanity. Their celestial pseudo-alternative appears just as radical for the fact that it is not based on national and immediate reform, but on a far more universal perspective.
In addition to these socio-political factors, Islamists dispose of that particular weapon that is the religious weapon, a weapon different to all others because in the context of an after-life to which there is only access after death, it is not necessary for them to propose solutions for the real and present world. Allah will sort everything out up there! Religious ideology thus plays a particularly effective role for the bourgeoisie, to the extent that they even lie about the existence of their after-life, as they make no promises to reform and improve the world down here, sparing them any criticism of not keeping to their word. Their political decisions, their religious consultations, their "Fatwa", come from their material and earthly beings, but they present them as being orders from God, which gives them the hope that they will not have to account for their criminal acts. They craftily plead that "We will all be returned to God and it is He who will judge"! But it is jumping the gun a bit to imagine they can keep the benefits of these arguments to hide their anti-proletarian nature for long."
From "Nationalism and islamism against the proletariat"
http://www.geocities.com/icgcikg/communism/c11_natislam.htm
>State monopoly communism vs. theoretical communism?
That's not what I said. Don't put words into my mouth, It's rude. It's dishonest. It's very bad form.
I said "state monopoly capitalism." The USSR was the USSR Inc. It was nothing but a big company town.
> a central organisation....
Capitalism is centrally controlled. A few thousand men make all the decisions. A boss is a boss is a boss. Whether you call him a commisar or a CEO is irrelevant.
That's not what I said. Don't put words into my mouth, It's rude. It's dishonest. It's very bad form.
I said "state monopoly capitalism." The USSR was the USSR Inc. It was nothing but a big company town.
> a central organisation....
Capitalism is centrally controlled. A few thousand men make all the decisions. A boss is a boss is a boss. Whether you call him a commisar or a CEO is irrelevant.
Again, what ever lable you place on them - THESE countries called themselves "communist".... and that is how the world perceived them.
As a matter of fact, in the Preface to the English edition of the Manifesto of 1888, Engels explains that when the Manifesto was first published, the word "socialist" meant "utopians" and "quacks", whereas those workers who wanted "a total social change," called themselves "Communists". The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, & China all qualified under Engel's definition.
Therefore - they were COMMUNIST countries.
As a matter of fact, in the Preface to the English edition of the Manifesto of 1888, Engels explains that when the Manifesto was first published, the word "socialist" meant "utopians" and "quacks", whereas those workers who wanted "a total social change," called themselves "Communists". The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, & China all qualified under Engel's definition.
Therefore - they were COMMUNIST countries.
Mr 'anti-capitalist',
When you have a minute, please answer my earlier question above. I am interested to see how it all works. Thanks!
When you have a minute, please answer my earlier question above. I am interested to see how it all works. Thanks!
is that what people say doesn't count. Only what they do counts. The USSR practiced a form of capitalism. What they chose to call it is irrelevant.
America calls itself "free." If you think that makes it a free country, you haven't read the provisions of the PATRIOT Act very closely.
Talk's cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
America calls itself "free." If you think that makes it a free country, you haven't read the provisions of the PATRIOT Act very closely.
Talk's cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
Better still, I'll explain how it *does* work among people who practice it.
On second thought, it's already been explained in the Bible, in the second chapter of Acts:
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
See also: Matt 19:21, Acts 4:34
On second thought, it's already been explained in the Bible, in the second chapter of Acts:
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
See also: Matt 19:21, Acts 4:34
"America calls itself "free." If you think that makes it a free country, you haven't read the provisions of the PATRIOT Act very closely."
So... let's see.
In the Worker's Paradise of Cuba, dissent is punished by long-term imprisionment, or death.
In the Capitalist Hellhole of the United States - vocal dissent is punished by... what?
I can post that King George Bush is a moron and a drooling idiot and ... nothing happens. No midnight raids, no black vans dragging myself and my family off to a gulag in the SW... Why, I can even go to the local mall's food court, stand on a table and shout it out - and the most that would happen would be a ticket for disturbing the peace. (And I'd maybe get ketchup on my feet.)
I don't think I'd have that same freedom if I tried to yell that Castro's a senile idiot in Havana. Or if I were to yell in Tehran that Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i fucks sheep when he can't get little boys. (Then again, I might be completely ignored because I can't speak Farsi or Persian.)
You're worried about the Patriot act? Take a look at real repression, kid.
---------------------
TEHRAN — The Iranian government said on Tuesday that it would not allow any protests meeting to be held in the future outside universities.
Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the official spokesman for the government said, in answer to questions concerning the anniversary of the student's anti-regime revolt of July 9, 1999, "no further demonstrations would be allowed outside universities' campuses."
"The Interior Ministry is opposed to any gathering outside university campuses and no permit has been issued by the government for holding special commemoration meetings, Ramezanzadeh stated, adding that however, the government "will not interfere in any gathering held inside universities."
The question was referring to the students' protest movement that started as a peaceful demonstration at the dormitories against the closure of the daily Salam, the pioneer of the independent and reformist newspapers and publications that mushroomed afterward — and were all shut down on orders from the leader of the regime, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i - but turned into the first major anti-regime demonstrations that lasted six months, before being crushed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia and plainclothes men of the thugs controlled by the conservatives.
Meanwhile, as the protest movement is slowing down in Tehran, it continued in a sporadic way in most major cities, with police putting the number of arrested people in the past 10 days of daily anti-regime, anti-clerical demonstrations at 470 people.
Informed sources outside Iran say, based on information they received from Tehran, that the conservatives, with Ayatollah Khameneh'i at their head, in order to create fear in the society, are pressing the authorities for the public executing of some of the arrested students
-------------------------
Public execution of students for dissent against Khameneh'i....
THAT is repression. Like you said - talk's cheap.
Actions speak a LOT louder than words.
So... let's see.
In the Worker's Paradise of Cuba, dissent is punished by long-term imprisionment, or death.
In the Capitalist Hellhole of the United States - vocal dissent is punished by... what?
I can post that King George Bush is a moron and a drooling idiot and ... nothing happens. No midnight raids, no black vans dragging myself and my family off to a gulag in the SW... Why, I can even go to the local mall's food court, stand on a table and shout it out - and the most that would happen would be a ticket for disturbing the peace. (And I'd maybe get ketchup on my feet.)
I don't think I'd have that same freedom if I tried to yell that Castro's a senile idiot in Havana. Or if I were to yell in Tehran that Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i fucks sheep when he can't get little boys. (Then again, I might be completely ignored because I can't speak Farsi or Persian.)
You're worried about the Patriot act? Take a look at real repression, kid.
---------------------
TEHRAN — The Iranian government said on Tuesday that it would not allow any protests meeting to be held in the future outside universities.
Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the official spokesman for the government said, in answer to questions concerning the anniversary of the student's anti-regime revolt of July 9, 1999, "no further demonstrations would be allowed outside universities' campuses."
"The Interior Ministry is opposed to any gathering outside university campuses and no permit has been issued by the government for holding special commemoration meetings, Ramezanzadeh stated, adding that however, the government "will not interfere in any gathering held inside universities."
The question was referring to the students' protest movement that started as a peaceful demonstration at the dormitories against the closure of the daily Salam, the pioneer of the independent and reformist newspapers and publications that mushroomed afterward — and were all shut down on orders from the leader of the regime, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i - but turned into the first major anti-regime demonstrations that lasted six months, before being crushed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia and plainclothes men of the thugs controlled by the conservatives.
Meanwhile, as the protest movement is slowing down in Tehran, it continued in a sporadic way in most major cities, with police putting the number of arrested people in the past 10 days of daily anti-regime, anti-clerical demonstrations at 470 people.
Informed sources outside Iran say, based on information they received from Tehran, that the conservatives, with Ayatollah Khameneh'i at their head, in order to create fear in the society, are pressing the authorities for the public executing of some of the arrested students
-------------------------
Public execution of students for dissent against Khameneh'i....
THAT is repression. Like you said - talk's cheap.
Actions speak a LOT louder than words.
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
Your definition of comunism is not a government per se but a religion. Your religion will not make a sensible form of government until you have converted the vast majority of the people to it. In the same way that we would probably feel quite unhappy if strict islamic law was enforced upon the USA.
You notice all of the above is based upon the concept that all the people involved believe in it and do ot by their own choice. And then implicitly that this does not significantly change their working behaviour etc (unless it is to make it more efficient in some unknown way).
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
Your definition of comunism is not a government per se but a religion. Your religion will not make a sensible form of government until you have converted the vast majority of the people to it. In the same way that we would probably feel quite unhappy if strict islamic law was enforced upon the USA.
You notice all of the above is based upon the concept that all the people involved believe in it and do ot by their own choice. And then implicitly that this does not significantly change their working behaviour etc (unless it is to make it more efficient in some unknown way).
>In the Capitalist Hellhole of the United States - vocal dissent is punished by... what?
I, personally, have been beaten, robbed, and thrown in jail for something I didn't do. And I got off easy. I'm white. They shot Fred Hampton through the damn wall.
I, personally, have been beaten, robbed, and thrown in jail for something I didn't do. And I got off easy. I'm white. They shot Fred Hampton through the damn wall.
It is neither.
>You notice all of the above is based upon the concept that all the people involved believe in it and do ot by their own choice.
That is anarchism, by definition.
>And then implicitly that this does not significantly change their working behaviour etc (unless it is to make it more efficient in some unknown way).
Indeed it does.
See:
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/38.html
(snip)
In fact the worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job. In part this is because just cutting the boss out of the equation means a lot more money for everyone else; in part this is because the people who actually do the work have a far better idea of what it actually entails than any boss ever could. The boss only knows what people tell him and everyone lies to their boss. As the old anarchist proverb says, "If you want to know how many widgets to order for next month, don't ask the boss. Ask the widgeteer."
(snip)
>You notice all of the above is based upon the concept that all the people involved believe in it and do ot by their own choice.
That is anarchism, by definition.
>And then implicitly that this does not significantly change their working behaviour etc (unless it is to make it more efficient in some unknown way).
Indeed it does.
See:
http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/38.html
(snip)
In fact the worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job. In part this is because just cutting the boss out of the equation means a lot more money for everyone else; in part this is because the people who actually do the work have a far better idea of what it actually entails than any boss ever could. The boss only knows what people tell him and everyone lies to their boss. As the old anarchist proverb says, "If you want to know how many widgets to order for next month, don't ask the boss. Ask the widgeteer."
(snip)
Ahh management structures efficiency.. an expert? you bet I am. I wrote the book on it.. no kidding I actually did...
" In fact the worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job"
Research shows that depends on the task. However on the whole It is not true.
Nessie has also made some assumptions about what type of boss is the alternative.
At any rate a lot of economic inefficiency is created by lack of direction or lack of caring as opposed to inefficiency.
In my own personal experience that sort of group forms quite often and nothing seems to happen until someone makes themselves the boss and takes responsibility for its direction.
" In fact the worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job"
Research shows that depends on the task. However on the whole It is not true.
Nessie has also made some assumptions about what type of boss is the alternative.
At any rate a lot of economic inefficiency is created by lack of direction or lack of caring as opposed to inefficiency.
In my own personal experience that sort of group forms quite often and nothing seems to happen until someone makes themselves the boss and takes responsibility for its direction.
"I, personally, have been beaten, robbed, and thrown in jail for something I didn't do. And I got off easy. I'm white."
Oh? What is the thing you didn't do? Vandalize a starbucks? Break into a bank to protest? Throw rocks at the cops? Spraypaint all over business fronts?
No, don't tell me, let me guess. You were standing on a streetcorner, hugging your koala teddy bear, when this guy ran by and handed you a backpack full of molotov cocktails - and the cops were right behind him!
Yeah, uh, that's the ticket...
As far as Fred Hampton goes... he was a member of a party vocally dedicated to violently overthrowing the government. You can find more info at ...
http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/panther/hamptonsr.html
Was that right? No. But the idea that an action over 25 years back can be equated to the suppression in dictatorial regimes going on today, and somehow shows that the US is WORSE than a regime that PUBLICLY threatens student dissidents with execution, or that PUBLICLY condems to death folks who disagree with Castro is laughable and REALLY kicks the legs out from under the case you're making.
Oh? What is the thing you didn't do? Vandalize a starbucks? Break into a bank to protest? Throw rocks at the cops? Spraypaint all over business fronts?
No, don't tell me, let me guess. You were standing on a streetcorner, hugging your koala teddy bear, when this guy ran by and handed you a backpack full of molotov cocktails - and the cops were right behind him!
Yeah, uh, that's the ticket...
As far as Fred Hampton goes... he was a member of a party vocally dedicated to violently overthrowing the government. You can find more info at ...
http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/panther/hamptonsr.html
Was that right? No. But the idea that an action over 25 years back can be equated to the suppression in dictatorial regimes going on today, and somehow shows that the US is WORSE than a regime that PUBLICLY threatens student dissidents with execution, or that PUBLICLY condems to death folks who disagree with Castro is laughable and REALLY kicks the legs out from under the case you're making.
>Oh? What is the thing you didn't do? Vandalize a starbucks? Break into a bank to protest? Throw rocks at the cops? Spraypaint all over business fronts?
What I didn’t do, was sell pot to an undercover agent.
>No, don't tell me, let me guess. You were standing on a streetcorner, hugging your koala teddy bear, when this guy ran by and handed you a backpack full of molotov cocktails - and the cops were right behind him!
The day I was alleged to have made the sale, I was driving around in a van, collecting food for the free Thanksgiving dinner we served to four thousand hungry people on the steps of the welfare office. Three weeks later, 28 of us were rounded up. The ones considered to be ring leaders were given bogus drug charges. This was a common COINTELPRO tactic. Of course, I didn't know it was COINTELPRO at the time because it was years before the existance COINTELPRO was exposed. One can only wonder what is really happening right now, that wont be exposed for years.
But that’s how COINTELPRO worked. If you were white, and able to part with enough money, you were sometimes permitted to squirm out of it. If you weren’t white, or couldn't come up with enough money, you were SOL. That’s how the court system works in America. “Geronimo” Pratt did twenty seven years on a bogus murder charge. Leonard Peltier is still in prison on an equally bogus murder charge. The list goes on.
And if you think that the only people who ever get framed by the government are wild eyed revolutionaries, click here:
http://www.defraudingamerica.com/political_prisoners.html
>As far as Fred Hampton goes... he was a member of a party vocally dedicated to violently overthrowing the government. You can find more info at ...
So what? He hadn’t broken any laws. He was murdered in cold blood because he was vocal and Black..
> an action over 25 years back can be equated to the suppression in dictatorial regimes going on today,
Absolutely. Nothing has changed except that which has gotten worse. In those days, at least Americans could expect habeus corpus. Those days are over. Bad as it was back then, it’s worse now, and not just for radicals. As country music star Merle Haggard has been recently quoted as saying, he had more freedom as an ex-convict on parole in 1960 than the average American has today.
>and somehow shows that the US is WORSE than a regime that PUBLICLY threatens student dissidents with execution, or that PUBLICLY condems to death folks who disagree with Castro is laughable and REALLY kicks the legs out from under the case you're making.
(1.) Shouting does not make what you say be true. It only makes you look childish.
(2.) Cuban society is flawed and imperfect, and the Cuban people are not free, either. But in a number of very basic ways, it’s better than America’s. Every one there has a roof over their head. No one goes hungry. Everyone gets an education. No one lacks access to health care. That’s more than Americans can honestly say about our own country. As a famous teacher once put it, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 'Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye' and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam in thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
(3.) The people you are referring to were not condemned to death for “disagreeing with Castro.” Do you even know what their crime was? If so, please inform us.
What I didn’t do, was sell pot to an undercover agent.
>No, don't tell me, let me guess. You were standing on a streetcorner, hugging your koala teddy bear, when this guy ran by and handed you a backpack full of molotov cocktails - and the cops were right behind him!
The day I was alleged to have made the sale, I was driving around in a van, collecting food for the free Thanksgiving dinner we served to four thousand hungry people on the steps of the welfare office. Three weeks later, 28 of us were rounded up. The ones considered to be ring leaders were given bogus drug charges. This was a common COINTELPRO tactic. Of course, I didn't know it was COINTELPRO at the time because it was years before the existance COINTELPRO was exposed. One can only wonder what is really happening right now, that wont be exposed for years.
But that’s how COINTELPRO worked. If you were white, and able to part with enough money, you were sometimes permitted to squirm out of it. If you weren’t white, or couldn't come up with enough money, you were SOL. That’s how the court system works in America. “Geronimo” Pratt did twenty seven years on a bogus murder charge. Leonard Peltier is still in prison on an equally bogus murder charge. The list goes on.
And if you think that the only people who ever get framed by the government are wild eyed revolutionaries, click here:
http://www.defraudingamerica.com/political_prisoners.html
>As far as Fred Hampton goes... he was a member of a party vocally dedicated to violently overthrowing the government. You can find more info at ...
So what? He hadn’t broken any laws. He was murdered in cold blood because he was vocal and Black..
> an action over 25 years back can be equated to the suppression in dictatorial regimes going on today,
Absolutely. Nothing has changed except that which has gotten worse. In those days, at least Americans could expect habeus corpus. Those days are over. Bad as it was back then, it’s worse now, and not just for radicals. As country music star Merle Haggard has been recently quoted as saying, he had more freedom as an ex-convict on parole in 1960 than the average American has today.
>and somehow shows that the US is WORSE than a regime that PUBLICLY threatens student dissidents with execution, or that PUBLICLY condems to death folks who disagree with Castro is laughable and REALLY kicks the legs out from under the case you're making.
(1.) Shouting does not make what you say be true. It only makes you look childish.
(2.) Cuban society is flawed and imperfect, and the Cuban people are not free, either. But in a number of very basic ways, it’s better than America’s. Every one there has a roof over their head. No one goes hungry. Everyone gets an education. No one lacks access to health care. That’s more than Americans can honestly say about our own country. As a famous teacher once put it, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 'Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye' and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam in thine own eye, then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
(3.) The people you are referring to were not condemned to death for “disagreeing with Castro.” Do you even know what their crime was? If so, please inform us.
the people's paradise of Cuba. Can't have that - might give folks the wrong idea!
And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
"Relations with the EU have deteriorated rapidly since Havana imprisoned 75 activists in April and put to death three ferry hijackers who had tried to make it to the United States. Cuba accused the 75 dissidents, imprisoned for an average 19 years, of working with the United States to undermine the government of Castro, who has been in power since a 1959 revolution."
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/163/nation/Cuba_warns_EU_not_to_support_internal_dissidents+.shtml
You might want to switch off the binary thinking in that if there's any flaw in the US it's irredeemably corrupt, while any flaw overseas (which if it were present in the US would be seen as proof of irredeemable wrong) is excused by other factors.
There's hope for you, at least - at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
"Relations with the EU have deteriorated rapidly since Havana imprisoned 75 activists in April and put to death three ferry hijackers who had tried to make it to the United States. Cuba accused the 75 dissidents, imprisoned for an average 19 years, of working with the United States to undermine the government of Castro, who has been in power since a 1959 revolution."
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/163/nation/Cuba_warns_EU_not_to_support_internal_dissidents+.shtml
You might want to switch off the binary thinking in that if there's any flaw in the US it's irredeemably corrupt, while any flaw overseas (which if it were present in the US would be seen as proof of irredeemable wrong) is excused by other factors.
There's hope for you, at least - at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
>They tried to ESCAPE
They were terrorist hijackers. Try that here and see what happens.
>And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
They were paid agents of a hostile foreign power. Try that here and see what happens.
>at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
Neither are we.
They were terrorist hijackers. Try that here and see what happens.
>And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
They were paid agents of a hostile foreign power. Try that here and see what happens.
>at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
Neither are we.
"Free Thinker" refers to Zimbabwe as an example of the failure of communism--what a surprise that would be to all the millions of Zimbabwean workers and poor that have been victimized by IMF austerity and "structural adjustment programs" that he's administered going back to the late 80s! What could be more capitalist then administering the edicts of the global bankers?
Of course, Mugabe isn't the only "communist" to have imposed capitalist austerity on "his" working class. Milosevic, Ceaucescu of Romania, Jaruzelski of Poland, and the Sandinistas, to name only a few of many examples, were all solid allies of the global financial elite. Capital doesn't care if its managers adorn themselves in the red flag, so long as they foster conditions in which surpluses are funneled to it. Take one example, Poland: when the state capitalists there suppressed Solidarity in the early 80s, international financiers breathed a big sigh of relief. The red bourgeoisie was doing a good job as far as they were concerned.
"Free Thinker" also refers to the Congo under Kabila as another example of communism's failure. What a laugh. Tell that to all the capitalists today making a fortune looting the Congo's wealth. Just like they did under the long-reign of that wonderful kleptomaniac and US-stooge, Mobuto.
"Free Thinker" will no doubt point to Kabila's status as a self-avowed commie in the 60s and 70s or some shit. What he won't tell us is that anyone set on taking power in Africa then (and to a perhaps lesser extent, today) had to call himself a socialist to have any chance of garnering support. Didn't stop the US ruling class from funneling support to these "socialists" when it deemed it necessary. Remember the US' military backing to Savimbi--a self-avowed Maoist--in Angola in the 80s and early 90s?
Of course, Mugabe isn't the only "communist" to have imposed capitalist austerity on "his" working class. Milosevic, Ceaucescu of Romania, Jaruzelski of Poland, and the Sandinistas, to name only a few of many examples, were all solid allies of the global financial elite. Capital doesn't care if its managers adorn themselves in the red flag, so long as they foster conditions in which surpluses are funneled to it. Take one example, Poland: when the state capitalists there suppressed Solidarity in the early 80s, international financiers breathed a big sigh of relief. The red bourgeoisie was doing a good job as far as they were concerned.
"Free Thinker" also refers to the Congo under Kabila as another example of communism's failure. What a laugh. Tell that to all the capitalists today making a fortune looting the Congo's wealth. Just like they did under the long-reign of that wonderful kleptomaniac and US-stooge, Mobuto.
"Free Thinker" will no doubt point to Kabila's status as a self-avowed commie in the 60s and 70s or some shit. What he won't tell us is that anyone set on taking power in Africa then (and to a perhaps lesser extent, today) had to call himself a socialist to have any chance of garnering support. Didn't stop the US ruling class from funneling support to these "socialists" when it deemed it necessary. Remember the US' military backing to Savimbi--a self-avowed Maoist--in Angola in the 80s and early 90s?
“>They tried to ESCAPE - They were terrorist hijackers. Try that here and see what happens.”
Sounds like you would agree with Cuba’s view that terrorists should be put to death. I too believe that terrorists should be put to death and in fact we have, Timmothy McVay and potential Al-Queda members in Guantamino Bay and Ramzi Omar.
“>And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
They were paid agents of a hostile foreign power. Try that here and see what happens.”
It has, or did you forget John Ashcroft and the INS rounding up immigrants and detaining them for several months? Some of those people detained ended up being connected to hostile foreign powers and will be incarcerated for an indefinite period of time. Sounds like you support Ashcroft style round ups in order to rid agents of a hostile foreign power.
“>at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
Neither are we.”
Is anyone truly free? Or do we all live in countries and societies were there are rules and regulations?
Sounds like you would agree with Cuba’s view that terrorists should be put to death. I too believe that terrorists should be put to death and in fact we have, Timmothy McVay and potential Al-Queda members in Guantamino Bay and Ramzi Omar.
“>And the others - an average of 19 years for being a dissident.
They were paid agents of a hostile foreign power. Try that here and see what happens.”
It has, or did you forget John Ashcroft and the INS rounding up immigrants and detaining them for several months? Some of those people detained ended up being connected to hostile foreign powers and will be incarcerated for an indefinite period of time. Sounds like you support Ashcroft style round ups in order to rid agents of a hostile foreign power.
“>at least you admit that the people in Cuba aren't free.
Neither are we.”
Is anyone truly free? Or do we all live in countries and societies were there are rules and regulations?
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