Boycotting Zionism

vimothy

yurp
Small in numbers, perhaps, but not necessarily small in potential. Elsewhere on this thread somone refered to the Arab-Israeli conflict as the world's most important because it could possibly spark WWIII (or IV, depending on how you're counting them). Islamism is obviously a large part of that.

Perhaps this is the leftist (if that's what Gek is) "disavowal" - Zionism (blue team) is a planetary threat; Islamism (red team) is not significant.

In any case the Bolshies didn't need that many men to take control of the Russian Empire and set up their own, which lasted for the best part of a century. I don't think that an Islamist vanguard need be that large either, to acheive something similar.
 

vimothy

yurp
The threat must be acknowledged as what it really is, not by inflating it into a battle of civilizations. It must be dealt with in a sensitive, subtle and insidious manner, not in a primitive out-of-date "war" (think 3GW stuff upwards).

Interesting to hear you side with the 4GW people - generally some of the most conservative and reactionary commentators around. (It never fails to amuse me that Lind posts on anti-war.com. As if William Lind is anti-war)! It's a respectable position in some respects, but I feel that it suffers from a tendency towards isolationism, American exceptionalism and the realist foreign policy of Kissenger et al (of course, you might not think this a bad thing).

A lot of what you say is pure bull tho Vim, tantamount to claiming that we must not give succour to our intractable foe, that we must silence the voice of the traitors in our western societies. For or against y'know?

No - I'm not prescribing policy or actions, but noting some possible outcomes of what other people have recommended, i.e. extensive critique of Western states in order to bring change to the Middle east. Do you think what I said was plausible?

Though it was intriguing to note how Bin Laden's most recent anniversary communiques were clearly aimed at a Western audience, trying to hit certain anti-capitalist and environmentalist buttons. I'm unconvinced that anyone would actually take his message at face value however (although maybe he is really talking not to convince the white liberal Westerner, but rather the Islamic westerner... hmm...)

Well, yeah ...
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
No - I'm not prescribing policy or actions, but noting some possible outcomes of what other people have recommended, i.e. extensive critique of Western states in order to bring change to the Middle east. Do you think what I said was plausible?

I think critique is not enough, is insufficient. Many problems in the middle East have been historically created by poorly thought out Western interventions in the past. However, it is true that now we are in the present and it is no good to whine endlessly about colonialist activities gone, when their impact is now vested in Middle Eastern individuals themselves. However, a total reform in how the West meddles in the Middle East and elsewhere in the third world is essential for whilst we gain in the sort term it never ever fails to bite us on the ass in the long run. In terms of pure real politik most of our interventions (be they military or economic or whatever) are ultimately not even in the geopolitical interests of the Governments making them. From my standpoint they are stupid, even extracting my own politics and thinking abstractly in the self interest of the nation states involved. SO we intervene again in a hamfisted short term unsubtle manner to fix a problem created by some previous intervention to fix some other short term problem 30 years before. Its like a bad bad comedy. We must learn from the past, endless recriminations are not strictly necessary, correct, but clear lessons must be identified by analysing the errors of history.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Small in numbers, perhaps, but not necessarily small in potential. Elsewhere on this thread somone refered to the Arab-Israeli conflict as the world's most important because it could possibly spark WWIII (or IV, depending on how you're counting them). Islamism is obviously a large part of that.

Perhaps this is the leftist (if that's what Gek is) "disavowal" - Zionism (blue team) is a planetary threat; Islamism (red team) is not significant.

In any case the Bolshies didn't need that many men to take control of the Russian Empire and set up their own, which lasted for the best part of a century. I don't think that an Islamist vanguard need be that large either, to acheive something similar.

Whoah! Hold yr horses. I've never argued that Zionism was a global threat! To me Zionism (political meaning of the term as the aim for an ethno-religiously Jewish state) is subsumed and intractable from the broader forces at work, of neo-liberalism considered more generally. Whilst I view the Jewish state as historically legally illegitimate as a point of order, its continued existence is a political fact, and must be dealt with as such. The conflict which it is a part of is an engine of disorder in the region that is true, but the causes of that can be identified as existing further up the chain...
 

vimothy

yurp
I think critique is not enough, is insufficient. Many problems in the middle East have been historically created by poorly thought out Western interventions in the past. However, it is true that now we are in the present and it is no good to whine endlessly about colonialist activities gone, when their impact is now vested in Middle Eastern individuals themselves. However, a total reform in how the West meddles in the Middle East and elsewhere in the third world is essential for whilst we gain in the sort term it never ever fails to bite us on the ass in the long run. In terms of pure real politik most of our interventions (be they military or economic or whatever) are ultimately not even in the geopolitical interests of the Governments making them. From my standpoint they are stupid, even extracting my own politics and thinking abstractly in the self interest of the nation states involved. SO we intervene again in a hamfisted short term unsubtle manner to fix a problem created by some previous intervention to fix some other short term problem 30 years before. Its like a bad bad comedy. We must learn from the past, endless recriminations are not strictly necessary, correct, but clear lessons must be identified by analysing the errors of history.

So you're still saying that Saddam was the West's fault? Most of the problems in the Mid East (ultimately stemming from bad governance, IMO) are the West's fault?

I think there's still some important stuff to be extracted from all this. After the weekend, perhaps.
 

vimothy

yurp
Whoah! Hold yr horses. I've never argued that Zionism was a global threat!

No, not you, sorry - it was wheninrome. But it's still interesting, since that was the only other reason (besides saying "we've more chgance of being heard", which I don't think I believe) anyone could give me for focusing the majority of our attention on the Israeli-Arab conflict and regarding that as the conflict most in need of resolution. I was just trying to sum up the dissensus consensus (ahem), if you will.


But still -

Red team (globalised neo-liberalism (not as a philosophy, but as a sinister cabal)) is a planetary threat; blue team (Globalised Islam) is not.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
No, not you, sorry - it was wheninrome. But it's still interesting, since that was the only other reason (besides saying "we've more chgance of being heard", which I don't think I believe) anyone could give me for focusing the majority of our attention on the Israeli-Arab conflict and regarding that as the conflict most in need of resolution. I was just trying to sum up the dissensus consensus (ahem), if you will.


But still -

Red team (globalised neo-liberalism (not as a philosophy, but as a sinister cabal)) is a planetary threat; blue team (Globalised Islam) is not.

I think few view neoliberalism as a cabal. Its strength rests at the level of a decentralised ideology. Same with Islamism. These are ways of viewing the entire world, not conspiracies sent in motion by limited numbers of individuals.
 

vimothy

yurp
I think few view neoliberalism as a cabal. Its strength rests at the level of a decentralised ideology. Same with Islamism. These are ways of viewing the entire world, not conspiracies sent in motion by limited numbers of individuals.

But you don't appreciate classical liberalism honestly - so how can you claim that?

Liberalism is an ideaology, and not a very popular one for sure (no political party of note) but it is also a set of institutions that allows things like this - fee speech across the internet.

And it's not true that few view neo-liberalism as a conspiracy. I work in Education and that view goes across the board, even amongst people who should really know better.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
So you're still saying that Saddam was the West's fault? Most of the problems in the Mid East (ultimately stemming from bad governance, IMO) are the West's fault?

I think there's still some important stuff to be extracted from all this. After the weekend, perhaps.

Not entirely so of course. And the blame game is a slippery one to play with the contingent nature of history as it evolves across centuries. But Iran can be put firmly at the feet of America, surely? To fix the problem of democracy in a time of soviet expansion (and the nationalisation of UK controlled oil technology) they install the Shah, eventually to be overthrown by a theocratic dictatorship? There are many elements in play here, but the significant role of meddling cannot be entirely disavowed even by you Vim.

Even without total blame, it is clear that short-term cack-handed interventions (economic, diplomatic, regime change and full scale military) lead over time to only a radicalisation of anti-Western forces at work in the developing world, and at present a tendency to merge liberation struggle with the most regressive strains of political Islamism. Subtracting any bias for or against, merely at the level of self interest for the UK and USA they have to learn from these errors, see how the forces they set in motion work out. Also see South America- the rise of left wing indigenous socialism therein is clearly traceable back to a reaction against the American led economic interventions of the 70s onwards. So from the western governmental perspective lessons need to be learnt, surely?

The role of the 3rd world individual as political subject is important, and it is a valid point that you raise in emphasising their own agency, and the possibility of falling into a Westernocentric racist viewpoint of identifying them only as primitive deterministic puppets of more sophisticated and advanced nations. But the exocentric pressures put onto previously extant situations as rupture in the nature of their original indigenous political situation cannot merely be brushed aside. Indeed what is clear is that such interventions are the product of states with a naive sense of their own power, and that in the face of the realities of the complexities of the societies they shatter open with such attempts such a superiority complex is endlessly challenged.
 

vimothy

yurp
Not entirely so of course. And the blame game is a slippery one to play with the contingent nature of history as it evolves across centuries. But Iran can be put firmly at the feet of America, surely? To fix the problem of democracy in a time of soviet expansion (and the nationalisation of UK controlled oil technology) they install the Shah, eventually to be overthrown by a theocratic dictatorship? There are many elements in play here, but the significant role of meddling cannot be entirely disavowed even by you Vim.

Iran? Oh please. This is exactly what I was talking about. If the Iranians hadn't wanted a revolution, it never would have happened. One can help either side, and it is not only going to be the Americans doing that, of course other states will be trying to protect their interests, but one can't magic these things out of thin air.

And although, of course, helping install a dictator is a thoroughly shameful crime, I wonder if there aren't Iranians alive today who would be rather swap.
 

vimothy

yurp
Even without total blame, it is clear that short-term cack-handed interventions (economic, diplomatic, regime change and full scale military) lead over time to only a radicalisation of anti-Western forces at work in the developing world, and at present a tendency to merge liberation struggle with the most regressive strains of political Islamism. Subtracting any bias for or against, merely at the level of self interest for the UK and USA they have to learn from these errors, see how the forces they set in motion work out. Also see South America- the rise of left wing indigenous socialism therein is clearly traceable back to a reaction against the American led economic interventions of the 70s onwards. So from the western governmental perspective lessons need to be learnt, surely?

Also a failure to take into account any changes in policy. The IMF wasn't always a "neo-lib", you know. (You are aware of this, right)? In its origins it was thoroughly statist & socialist, as were, in economic terms at least, most governments at the time (inc. USA and Britain). This is why I find it hard to take your vision of neo-liberalism seriously.
 

vimothy

yurp
The role of the 3rd world individual as political subject is important, and it is a valid point that you raise in emphasising their own agency, and the possibility of falling into a Westernocentric racist viewpoint of identifying them only as primitive deterministic puppets of more sophisticated and advanced nations. But the exocentric pressures put onto previously extant situations as rupture in the nature of their original indigenous political situation cannot merely be brushed aside. Indeed what is clear is that such interventions are the product of states with a naive sense of their own power, and that in the face of the realities of the complexities of the societies they shatter open with such attempts such a superiority complex is endlessly challenged.

Perhaps this is the key difference betweeen left and right today, and their opposing views of change in the third world.

I wonder, however, if we're being a bit myopic. Haven't leftists been involved as well at a policy level - and are they therefore neo-liberal agents of Western hegemony by default?
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Also a failure to take into account any changes in policy. The IMF wasn't always a "neo-lib", you know. (You are aware of this, right)? In its origins it was thoroughly statist & socialist, as were, in economic terms at least, most governments at the time (inc. USA and Britain). This is why I find it hard to take your vision of neo-liberalism seriously.

Perhaps so when it was founded. But by the 70s its policies were anything but socialist.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Perhaps this is the key difference betweeen left and right today, and their opposing views of change in the third world.

I wonder, however, if we're being a bit myopic. Haven't leftists been involved as well at a policy level - and are they therefore neo-liberal agents of Western hegemony by default?

My viewpoint does not exclude such possibilities. Examples please? I mean we could look at Soviet interventions pre 1990s. Or perhaps China today? (whatever we take China to be politically-- totalitarian capitalist perhaps?) But the interesting point is the way in which China intervene- softly softly, don't show/don't tell, they market their economic interventionism and investment strategies as entirely "other" to that of the West. For obvious reasons, obviously.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Iran? Oh please. This is exactly what I was talking about. If the Iranians hadn't wanted a revolution, it never would have happened. One can help either side, and it is not only going to be the Americans doing that, of course other states will be trying to protect their interests, but one can't magic these things out of thin air.

And although, of course, helping install a dictator is a thoroughly shameful crime, I wonder if there aren't Iranians alive today who would be rather swap.

Why did they want a revolution?

Why did their revolution take a Theocratic basis?

It is the arrogance of Western interventionism that underlines that it is not so much leftists who view the 3rd World political subject as an immobile puppet to be pulled this way and that by the hands of white-faced Gods, (though they are indeed guilty of such views at times too) but rather the neo-lib interventionists WHO STILL don't get the real limits to their power, limits founded in the responsiveness of 3rd world political subjects to their interventions.
 
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Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Gek, don't you understand that desire is ontologically based, it is not produced by anything but spouts from the pure undiluted subject's head spontaneously, much like Athena emerging from Zeus's scalp.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
Islamo-fascism Awareness Week

Vim, this should hearten you:

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.

The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out. But nothing could be more important for American students to hear. In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an "Islamophobe." According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are "oppressors."

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to oppose these lies and to rally American students to defend their country.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamo-fascism-awareness-week/

Organized by Horror-witz himself. Hopefully this group will stamp out the unfair sullying of anti-Islamo-fascist activism (and global warming apologism as well -- two birds etc etc)
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Vim, this should hearten you:



http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamo-fascism-awareness-week/

Organized by Horror-witz himself. Hopefully this group will stamp out the unfair sullying of anti-Islamo-fascist activism (and global warming apologism as well -- two birds etc etc)

The global warming shit here is un-fucking-believable. It demonstrates exactly what HMLT explained re: psychic necessity of supressing a real trauma with a constructed foe.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
The global warming shit here is un-fucking-believable. It demonstrates exactly what HMLT explained re: psychic necessity of supressing a real trauma with a constructed foe.

Yes, this as well:

According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are "oppressors."

Unattributed quotations, misrepresented strawmen, disingenuously attaching liberal goals (tolerance) to programs that obviously promote the opposite... why, it's like reading Vimothy's posts!
 
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