headers
Ed George | 1 Jun 2003 01:45
Picon

Frankenstein and the Monster (Part I)

Frankenstein and the Monster

The Spanish State Left after the Elections of 25 May

  'There is a tide in the affairs of men
  Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
  Omitted, all the voyage of their life
  Is bound in shadows and in miseries.'

      --Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3

On 25 May local elections [1] were held in the Spanish state: a
veritable rehearsal for the general elections scheduled for next spring.
And for the first time since 1993, PSOE, the Spanish Socialist Party,
won more votes across Spain that the neo-clerical [2] conservative
Partido Popular (PP), in power in Madrid since 1996. A cause for
celebration? A sign of change for the future? Not a bit of it. Although
PSOE managed to win a marginal lead over the PP in terms of total
municipal votes cast, the very narrowness of this lead fell far short of
both the party's and popular expectations. The other left force,
Izquierda Unida, failed to increase its vote. Viewed in context this was
a truly miserable performance on the part of Spanish-state social
democracy, a performance, moreover, in its contours utterly predictable.
Why this should be the case forms the substance of what follows below.

AZNAR'S WINTER OF DISCONTENT

To say that Spanish State Prime Minister [3] José María Aznar has had a
difficult last six months would seem to be stating the obvious.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Ed George | 1 Jun 2003 01:46
Picon

Frankenstein and the Monster (Part II)

THE UNFULFILLED PROMISE OF THE TRANSICIÓN

At the end of 1975, as the octogenarian dictator Franco lay dying, [12]
whatever the differences that existed within the ranks of the regime's
apparatus and base, there was near unanimity on one point. The previous
year, in neighbouring Portugal, the Caetano dictatorship had fallen in
full-blown revolutionary crisis. That was not going to happen in Spain.
What did in fact happen - universally an accurately subsequently dubbed
la transición - was a remarkably seamless and bloodless process of
self-reform of the Francoist state apparatus. The fundamental fact was
that the dictatorship, having accomplished its mission of modernising
the Spanish social structure (a modernisation carried out on the back of
a defeat of crippling proportions for the Spanish state working class
[13]) was deemed in effect no longer necessary, and reformed itself out
of existence.

When Franco died, a transitional government, incorporating regime
hard-liners and reformers alike, was rapidly assembled around Adolfo
Suárez, the former general secretary of the Movimiento (previously
Falange), the official - and only permitted -  political party under the
dictatorship; and the king, Juan Carlos, Franco's personally chosen
heir. This government oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, and
the first free elections since the days of the Second Republic in the
1930s. But it is significant to note that this reform process was
carried out entirely under the tutelage of the old Francoist state
bureaucracy: there was no revolution, no tumultuous overthrow of the old
order; neither was there any kind of calling to account of anyone for
the terrible suffering inflicted on the Spanish people during the civil
war and dictatorship. And fundamental to the success of this operation
was the enthusiastic support lent to the new regime by the Spanish
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Ed George | 1 Jun 2003 01:47
Picon

Frankenstein and the Monster (Part III)

'BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE CAPTURED GUNS?'

In August 1914, as the German armies rolled across Belgium and France
practically unopposed presaging a stunning military victory in only a
matter of days, in the German High Command in Berlin the Chief of
General Staff, Helmuth Moltke, was worried. 'But where are the
prisoners?' he would ask his junior officers. 'Where are all the
captured guns?'

The Spanish transición is a little like this. In a way surprisingly but
absolutely unforeseen (dogmatic thinking has weighed especially heavy on
the Spanish state workers' movement) the Francoist state apparatus
effected a seamless process of self-reform and ushered in a
bourgeois-democratic system virtually indistinguishable - understood in
both positive and negative senses -  from those obtaining elsewhere in
western Europe. To say that this caught the left unawares would be to
severely understate the matter. Unguarded, the left found itself at the
mercy of bourgeois democracy at most clinically efficient.

That bourgeois rule follows the path of least resistance has become
something of a truism on the left, but it reveals a profound truth.
Bourgeois democracy is no mere sop to the workers, a compromise
dispensed by a grudging bourgeoisie. For the parliamentary system
operates something as does the sand-trap on a motorway. It absorbs the
momentum of the runaway vehicle, leaving it stranded and with nowhere to
go. If the Spanish transición stands as a model of anything, it
illustrates with unprecedented clarity how effective a measure bourgeois
democracy is at absorbing popular radicalisation and mobilisation. The
efficiency with which Spanish-state parliamentarism was brokered stopped
any radicalisation of the transición period dead in its tracks. [23]
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Louis Proyect | 1 Jun 2003 02:11
Picon
Favicon
Gravatar

Sean Penn still going strong

Kilroy's still here

Osama bin Laden's agenda is being furthered by our fear, as we hack away at 
the soul of our own civil liberties.

Editor's note: This text was first published as a paid advertisement in the 
May 30 edition of the New York Times.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sean Penn

May 31, 2003  |  In early October of 2002 -- when the radio sputtered and 
whined with accusations by the Bush Administration declaring a direct link 
between the terrorist activity of Al-Qaida and the brutal dictator Saddam 
Hussein; I was sitting beside my 11-year-old daughter in a car. It 
continued, with charges that Hussein's Iraq possessed weapons of mass 
destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions.

"It's a sunny afternoon in Northern California," the weatherman 
interrupted, "puffy white clouds resting upon a beautiful blue sky." We sat 
in the car eating french fries in the parking lot of our local burger 
joint. President George W. Bush had just rebuffed the United Nations' push 
to re-introduce weapons inspection teams into an Iraq where even a 
deservedly humiliated Saddam Hussein had expressed willingness to accept 
them. Tightening in my gut, on this otherwise fab day, were troubling 
questions about our nation's understanding of this pending conflict. Its 
most accessible information sources were the corporately sponsored and 
largely conservative media outlets. Indeed, in my gut were my own troubling 
questions, not only about our Administration's unilateral military 
posturing, but also about what effect U.S. decisions today might have on my
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Tom O'Lincoln | 1 Jun 2003 06:14
Picon

Re: Foster-Panitch debate on the relevance of "imperialism"

Haven't had time to absorb the new posts on this property, but I wanted to
say it is an important topic. There are some other people who seriously
question where there is such as thing as imperialism, eg a small but
sophisticated current led by Nigel Harris, ex-member of the British SWP and
quite a serious writer. He is supporter by a couple of Australian
academics, Andrew Milner and David Lockwood.

Whenever I read them I feel they ask serious questions, and I tend to agree
that the concept is poorly theorised. Despite that, I've gone right on
talking about imperialism, because what the hell else do you call it when
America trashes Iraq in order to control oil and restructure a whole
regional strategically? And I keep promising myself to try to theorise the
whole matter better... but I haven't got around to it yet. :-)

BTW in passing Lou makes a derisory comment about some of us who posted
articles about whether there is "super-exploitation" of labour in the 3d
World:

<<To paraphrase Keynes, you will be dead-- but in the short run. 
There is no greater form of exploitation than early death,
inadequate food, shelter or medical care.<<

In that case, there was super-cxploitation in the old stone age. Personally
I think it's more scientific to see exploitation as Marx does, in terms of
the extraction of surplus value.
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
john enyang | 1 Jun 2003 07:02
Picon

Re: Feedback from Warren Wagar


Lou Proyect writes:
>
> From the point of view of the German ruling class, the
> Versailles treaty did not leave Europe in a balance of power after WWI.
> It was legitimate grievances against British and American
> heavy-handedness that allowed Hitler to gain a hearing.
>
To which Warren Wagar replies:
>
> The heaviest hand against Germany in 1919 and throughout the 1920s
> was wielded by France.
>
The heavy hand was actually that of the USA whose government insisted,
throughout the 1920's and into the 1930's on the full repayment by
France, Britain and the smaller European states of the inter ally war
debts which had no reflection in European productive capacity (though the
first war, through these loans, did provide a giant stimulus to the
expansion of North American industry and agriculture). During the 1920's
the US weilded these debts to weaken Europe in much the same way that
Europe, North America and Japan use dollar claims to cripple the South
today.\

While the US denied any connection between the inter ally war debts and
reparations, the European states, lacking the means to pay their debts to
the US (since the US restricted European industry's access to the North
American markets, and hence denied Europe the dollars with which to pay
these debts), could only squeeze Germany by way of reparations to meet the
demands of the US. Being itself locked out of the North American markets,
Germany in turn was forced to borrow dollars from Wall Street private
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Fred Feldman | 1 Jun 2003 07:53

Ruling on Lebanon bombing ups war drive vs. Iran

The ruling also lays basis for prosecuting resistance to US
occupation, attacks (both of which were taking place in Lebanon at the
time, as violations of US law.
Fred Feldman

Story last updated at 9:32 a.m. Saturday, May 31, 2003

Judge rules Iran behind Marine barracks bombing
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON--A federal judge in Washington ruled Friday that Iran was
behind the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed
241 American servicemen, clearing the way for more than 600 of their
relatives to collect financial damages against the Islamic republic.

In a 30-page decision that resulted from a lawsuit filed by the
families, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that the terrorist
group Hezbollah carried out the attack at the behest of Iran and its
Ministry of Information and Security.

"The approval of both the Ayatollah Khomeini and President Rafsanjani
was absolutely necessary to carry out the continuing economic
commitment of Iran to Hezbollah, and to execute the Oct. 23 attack,"
the judge wrote. "Given their positions of authority, any act of these
two officials must be deemed an act of the government of Iran."

Steven Perles, an attorney in the case, hailed the decision, saying it
was the first time a judicial ruling had linked Iran to the bombing.

"The fact that Iran has taken on the role as the pre-eminent sponsor
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Bryan Atinsky | 1 Jun 2003 13:04
Picon

More about them there US Jews and Yees-raw-ail: "Israel not high on young U.S. Jews' agenda"

This is from today's Ha'aretz:

Israel not high on young U.S. Jews' agenda   

By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent 

  
WASHINGTON - Young American Jews can no longer be
expected to supply sweeping support for Israel nor
to refrain from expressing criticism of it,
according to a new study on their involvement in
the Jewish community and their concern with Israel
in particular. 

The study, conducted by Frank
Luntz, a leading Republican
pollster who visited Israel
recently, indicates that 80
percent of American Jews of
university age have no
connection to the life of the
Jewish community or to Israel.
In fact, their attitude toward
Israel is closer to that of

other Americans their age than to that of their
parents. 

They define themselves as "American Jews" with the
emphasis on American, and do not automatically
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
John M Cox | 1 Jun 2003 13:51
Picon

Argentines Cheer Castro


Thousands of Argentines crowd Buenos Aires boulevard to
hear Cuba's Fidel Castro speak

KEVIN GRAY, Associated Press Writer

May 26, 2003

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=
/news/archive/2003/05/26/international0006EDT0402.DTL

(05-26) 21:06 PDT BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) --

To the cheers of thousands of screaming Argentines,
Cuban leader Fidel Castro criticized U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East and Latin America in a speech
Monday.

Castro, who attended Sunday's inauguration of President
Nestor Kirchner, was on his first trip to this
economically troubled South American country since
1995.

Dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, Castro drew shouts
of "Ole! Ole! Ole!" and "Fidel! Fidel!" as he spoke for
more than two and a half hours outdoors on a crisp
winter night.

Castro began by paying homage to Argentina-born
revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who served as one
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Charles Brown | 1 Jun 2003 15:36
Picon
Favicon

Foster-Panitch debate on the relevance of "imperialism"

From: Louis Proyect <lnp3 <at> panix.com>

Lou,

I'm glad you raise this. I have been in so many discussions of this
issue since being on these lists.

One point I would ask is did Lenin's formulation claim that the
imperialist centers did not export capital to other impeialist centers
?  I am not sure that he did. To say that there is a shift with
imperialism from exporting goods to exporting capital to the
_colonies_is not necessarily to comment on the relationships between
the capitalist centers. He may only have been talking about a change
in the relationship with the colonies, and not saying that "more"
capital was exported to the colonies than to the other centers.
Russia was an imperialist power and a recipient of a large amount of
capital export from Germany and England , I believe, at that time.

I agree with you that it is very important to take into account the
concrete developments since 1919, especially, the existence and
dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the wave of political
independence of the paleo-colonial world.  Lenin is well known for
concrete analysis, and of course would not expect his analysis of 1919
to become a dogma , of all things ! Also, ironically , of course, he
could not take account the impact of the existence of the very Soviet
Union that he played such an important role in bringing about.

Many times on this "thread" I have argued that the one principle of
the definition that Lenin gives, that must be modified is
interimperialist rivalry, exactly because , as you say, the
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane