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The Benignimizer

First time as tragedy, second time as farce

The new SDS:

Held August 4th-7th and attended by an estimated [?] 200 students [how many schools?] and
activists from as far away as Washington State, Vermont, and Arizona, the
convention was the first national event held by SDS since its re-inception
just 7 months ago on Martin Luther King Day. The original SDS of the
1960s, before it collapsed into various competing factions (the final,
disastrous convention in 1969 was also held in Chicago), is remembered as
part of a powerful movement that funneled thousands of young students
Southward to the front lines of the struggle for Civil Rights, and as one
of the first and steadiest voices demanding the unconditional withdrawal
of U.S. troops from a place called Vietnam. 40 years later, while the
nation is embroiled in a conflict over the civil rights of immigrants, and
the American military is trapped in yet another foreign quagmire, a
sentiment of disinterested cynicism, even hopelessness, has thus far
maintained a firm grip on much of America's youth. Meanwhile, the
national organizations leading the fight against the rising tide of
imperialism have been a regrettable combination of internet-based lobby
groups soliciting funding from wealthy donors, along with sectarian groups
stuck in the mid-60s strategy of massing bodies to clog city streets for
one afternoon.

...

One of the first, most unique features that one notices about the new SDS
is its intergenerational character. In every SDS gathering, amidst the
students and youth you will find a healthy representation of "first
generation SDSers," friendly people who insist they are not trying to
guide or lead the new organization, but are present to provide help and
experience whenever necessary. In fact, SDS is organized into two
distinct components, the student and youth component, Students for a
Democratic Society, and MDS, or Movement for a Democratic Society, which
is a vehicle for original SDS members and other non-students. The two
groups appear to coexist harmoniously, as the older folks, while providing
much-needed financial aid and some lengthy motivational speeches, seemed
content to spend most of the convention manning tables and occasionally
leading panel discussions, while largely allowing the younger members to
be the loudest and most decisive voices [ie., grunt work is done by original-SDSers, students can talk a lot]. Save a few examples, most
members, young and old alike, viewed the intergenerational nature of SDS
as a strength.

Al Haber, founder of the original SDS and drafter of the Port Huron
Statement, headlined the "Opening Plenary" Friday night and received the
most thunderous applause of the evening (and a standing ovation).
According to Al, at age 70, he's now "officially done with the '60s."

Strengths and Weaknesses

On Saturday the workshops began, with such diverse topics as "New Orleans:
Organizing to Rebuild," "Class Privilege: A Burden or a Tool?," "Building
the Palestine Solidarity Movement," "The Modern Sex Workers' Rights
Movement" and "Creating and Sustaining an Anarchist Revolution."

The best workshop I attended was entitled "Direct Action on Campus," in
which everyone participated in a mock confrontation between students and
administrators (I was selected to play a bewildered police officer). Not
only were theoretical and strategic considerations reviewed, but the
participants were given a hands-on application of their newly-learned
skills.

Not all of the convention ran so smoothly. The schedule as drafted
allotted time for caucuses to meet, including a "Queer/Trans Caucus," a
"People of Color Caucus," a "Feminist Caucus," an "Environmental Caucus"
and both "Anarchist" and "Marxian" Caucuses as well, but they were all
scheduled for the same time. Therefore people who self-identify as, for
example, a person of color and queer, would have to choose which caucus to
attend and which identity to represent [!].

Upon noticing this oversight, several students hastily organized a
re-scheduling of the caucuses, spreading them out over the weekend, but
some caucuses met with low attendance because they were pushed back to
Monday, and the Anarchist and Marxian Caucuses still gathered at
conflicting schedules, on opposite sides of the hallway. Meanwhile, the
People of Color Caucus was scheduled to meet Sunday during breakfast, but
when they arrived at Cobb Hall they found the building's doors locked and
were forced to wait until lunchtime (concurrently with the Anarchist and
Marxian caucuses - ensuring a white audience for the ideological
gatherings).

But it was Sunday afternoon when some of the inherent contradictions
facing the new group became painfully evident. Clearly the most important
workshop of the convention, called "National Structure Discussion," had
been slotted just one and a half hours time and located in a room capable
of handling no more than 35 people. Of course, over 70 showed up, and the
three facilitators found themselves completely unable to manage and focus
the conversation on topic. Instead, what began as a calm brainstorming
session on the relative merits and dangers of creating a national
structure quickly devolved into a frustratingly disorganized and strident
argument, such that reinstating a functional meeting structure itself
became the focus of debate, overtop subtle fears that if any individual
was given excess authority over the running of the meeting it might lead
to the creation of an authoritarian structure for SDS itself. Therefore a
desperate chaos ruled, and the shouting soon silenced all non-male
voices... something that was eventually pointed out by a woman.

Just when worry of repeating the original SDS's sexism hit everyone in the
face, the knockout blow walked right into the room. Through the doorway
emerged the People of Color Caucus, wearing sullen faces and armed with a
devastating statement. By this point, the Structure meeting had been
going on for over an hour and a half, yet the 15 members of the POC Caucus
had not been present the entire time, and in fact had been meeting next
door for the last 3-4 hours, to apparently no one's recognition [!!]. When
ashamed and confused murmuring in the white audience subsided, the People
of Color delivered their statement. "As People of Color, we have
witnessed that being at this conference was an alienating experience..."
They were discouraged by the convention's white-dominated atmosphere and
expressed the worry that SDS was making the same mistakes which have
divided and crippled the progressive Left of the U.S. for the past 40
years. They demanded to know whether SDS would be yet-another white
radical organization, or if it would actively strive to be multiracial and
all-inclusive, not only sensitive of racial lines, but gender and sexual
orientation lines as well.

There could be no adequate response [a clear sign of a helpful intervention]. Beyond applause, each member of the
white-dominated audience struggled and squirmed to find some way to
reassure the People of Color of their good intentions while admitting
their failures and mistakes. In truth, the kind of conscious, sensitive
and reflective discussion that the white members of SDS need to do around
this difficult issue simply could not occur immediately following the
statement, especially after such a demoralizing set of events. No one
knew what to do next.

At this point the panelists whose scheduled workshops were now more than
one hour past their starting times demanded that the next session begin
immediately, because they had to travel home before Monday. The roomed
buzzed with confusion and people began to file out the door en masse,
while some still shouted desperately that no decisions on national
structure had been made. The convention gasped and nearly choked; all
feared the new SDS was stillborn.


Solidarity Building

Yet, walking around the campus, it was clear that life was slowly
breathing back in, simply through relaxed and friendly discussions that
united the scattered students. Whatever animosity had existed in that
room dissipated as the young radicals casually hung out together in
Chicago.

This points to what was undoubtedly the most positive thing to come out of
the convention: all the personal connections made. For the students to
meet one another and share their experiences of how they've struggled in
their own communities and campuses, trying to tackle problems which face
all of us, was not only self-affirming but points to the real possibility
that a national organization can affect change simply by bringing people
together.

On Monday, the final day of the convention, with only 60 of the original
estimated 200 attendees still around, the convention ended positively. In
the first plenary of the day, entitled "Resisting Empire from Within: SDS
and the Antiwar Movement," SDSers brainstormed plans for a week of action
this coming Fall semester called "Iraq Week," hoping to spur the campuses
to once again become hotbeds of militant resistance to what currently
appears to be an endless war in Iraq and the Middle East. According to
the panelists, this would be accomplished through "direct actions on
campus and beyond [that] boldly illustrate the connections between
educational institutions, war profiteers, and political elites within the
imperialist establishment." Finally, the "Closing Plenary" functioned as
a concluding and unifying discussion, in which, with the help of clearly
designated facilitator, note-taker, and stack-keeper, along with rules
decided upon at the outset, some clear decisions could be made by
consensus. Perhaps most important among the resolutions passed was an
answer [sic] to the previous day's drama, an affirmation that SDS will strive to
"ensure that people of color, women, LGBTQ, and all other oppressed groups
have a direct role in decision-making," such that not only is the
leadership of SDS representative, but that the atmosphere is welcoming to
everyone [and ponies for all!].

It was also decided that SDS will be a national network tying together
chapters, but that real power lies at the grassroots level in local
campuses and communities. The next SDS conventions will be regional
rather than national, so that people can meet one another without
traveling across the country. It was suggested that each area should hold
two regional conferences within the next year, with the second being
focused on determining goals for a potential SDS constitution. Decisions
regarding that constitution will then be confirmed at the 2nd National
Convention, to be held next summer, location TBD.

When the discussion ended with unanimous agreement, there was a little
applause and a very big sense of relief.

I hate to be sectarian but the amount of attention that this group gets simply for its name, most of it seeming to presume that if any new student movement will arise, this must be it, is absurd. Ignore the apologetic phrasing in the article, and you have the worst aspects of 60s SDS at all stages grouped together, without the upsides of originality, independence, size, or momentum.


UPDATE:

I didn't know when I posted this that the title is a Marx quote, from the 18th Brumaire. That fact is one of the very very few substantive points in Thomas Good's response to critics in the "Next Left Notes" - and its relevance is typical of the piece, which is on the whole an interspersal of vacuity and redbaiting. But read it along with the article above and draw your own conclusions.

Liberalism

"We can't interrupt John Ashcroft with heckling, no matter how much damage he has done to women, people of color, and free speech itself. He has a right to be heard, just like we have a right to disagree." "There can be no moral equivalence between Israel and Hezbollah, however many civilians they kill, because Israel does not target civilians, but that is Hezbollah's strategy. Collateral damage is not the same as a war crime, no matter the scale." "Obrador's street demonstrations are dangerous for democracy, as expressed in the election. There is a process for judging the fairness of the vote count, monitored by international observers, and it must be followed. A resort to the streets is authoritarian, whatever the evidence of fraud."

These arguments - all paraphrases, not genuine quotations, but nevertheless nearly identical to dozens of arguments I have heard or read - have a basic common feature. They imply that there are certain rules that must be followed in politics regardless of the circumstances. The process is prior to the ends. This position is more often implicit than explicit, but it is explicitly defended by the likes of John Rawls, who argues for a "lexicographical ordering" in which liberties like freedom of speech, religion, and personal property can never be limited for the sake of economic justice, and Isaiah Berlin, who argues - or at least is often popularized as arguing - that concepts of freedom can be divided into two categories, the "negative" which are only absence of constraint (e.g. freedom of speech, etc.), and the "positive" which involve self-mastery (e.g. freedom from commodification and exploitation), and that the former must come first to avoid totalitarianism. These formulations fall somewhere between the ethical and the political, in the disciplinarily nebulous realm of social justice. Those components might be usefully disentangled, but not for the purposes of this post, because the same argument works against both.

This kind of argument - which is might be simply referred to as "liberalism," and is at least one of its most important components - is very often nothing more than a thinly disguised defense of the status quo for being the status quo. The usual rationalizations for a fear of populism, for example, really express nothing more than a fear of serious change - you see, if people start coming out into the streets, avoiding nice predictable electoral politics, why anything might happen. But even when the rationalizations are a little more sophisticated, the result is similar. The universal defense of property rights, however even-handed, helps the multimillionare capitalist a lot more than the debt-ridden worker. The universal defense of free speech helps the media magnate and the well-publicized politician much more than the student leftist. Requiring the opposing sides to wear uniforms helps the United States Air Force a great deal more than it does the Iraqi resistance. As Anatole France put it more than a century ago, "the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." The symmetric treatment of an assymmetric reality, vastly unequal economic and power relations, is not neutral or fair but a defense of inequality.

However, though this is a quite strong indictment of liberalism, it's not enough to stop there. That would leave open the possibilities that we can rely on liberal rights for protection, and that redistributionist reform might remedy the world' s wrongs. And those possibilities are illusionary. It is not simply the case that symmetry protects the status quo, but also that the symmetry is itself false (not in the sense that it is unreal, but in the sense that guarantees nothing) . The powerful determine not only the rules but what counts as following them; some restrictions of those classic liberal rights to freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press are recognized as restrictions, while others are not. This occurs at every level from constitution-writing to legislation to interpretation and enforcement. And the problem is not merely the hypocrisy of our rulers, but is structural to liberalism. In really existing capitalism and any that could potentially exist means and ends that are supposed to be on seperate ordered levels of priority are and must be weighed against each other. We make trade-offs that are supposed to be illegitimate every day, accepting the need to not only restrain our speech but lie about everything from our beliefs and desires to the quality of our products in order to earn cash to live; everything is for sale under capitalism despite the pretense of regulation by a neutral state or law. The lack of economic liberties implies a lack of negative liberties which is just as real as their "direct" removal; I have absolutely as little control over the content of the New York Times as if it were censored by the state. More starkly, a civilian decapitated in an Israeli precision bombing of a Hezbollah storage point and a baby dead of AIDS because lifesaving drugs remain patented are just as innocent and just as dead as any 9/11 victim. The dividing line between freedoms which are protected and freedoms which are routinely violated is entirely arbitrary from any ethical perspective, whether the bullshit moral distinction which supposedly provides it with a basis is that between rights requiring action or only inaction, that between those which are exclusive and those which are complementary, or that between the political and the economic. The supposedly clear division is always and structurally indeterminate; whose freedom of speech comes first - the demonstrator's or the platform speaker's? Which property right takes priority, mine to pollute or yours to preserve the value of your property? What about when the right to own a newspaper conflicts with the right to have a public voice? Which trumps the other, the national right to self-defense or the obligation to avoid civilian casualties? Liberal theory cannot answer these questions except to ask us to find a least-worst balance - which in liberal practice means, and because of the impossibility of weighing incommensurable absolute rights must mean, that the balance of power decides. Under capitalism, however liberal, if we want freedom, we better seize power.

We must recognize the hollowness of liberal universal rights and not be bamboozled by them, even while we point out our enemies' deviations in order to expose their hypocrisy. Some comments of Ken McLeod's on international law are more broadly applicable to this form of liberalism: "In its pedantic, casuistic jesuitry it still stinks of the cringing, quibbling fusspots who invented it, and retains too its usefulness to a useless and barbaric ruling class. It does nothing whatsoever to restrain their behaviour. Its only function is to befuddle those who oppose, protest and fight them. It justifies every horrific, predictable consequence of imperialist assault as an unintended consequence, and condemns every horrific, predictable consequence of resistance to that assault as an intended consequence... The doctrine itself is false. Its preaching should be regarded as a crime against humanity. We are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of our wilful acts." The young Karl Marx offered the solution long ago: reject the alienation of our human needs into the abstract realm. Demand real, economic as well as political justice, without using either as an excuse to postpone or reject the other. "Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his 'own powers' as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished."

A few end notes. In rejecting the ethical component of liberal interpretations of liberty I don't need to argue for a simple consequentialism, but only that there is no such thing as a means no ends can justify. That there is no means that cannot be weighed as possibly legitimate against some end does not mean that we must ignore the difference between means and ends or treat them equally. And in rejecting the political component I don't need or want to argue that the means are unimportant or do not shape the ends, to reject as liberal for example all anarchist worries about organization, but only to argue that there is no process or guideline which should not be abandoned if it produces sufficiently brutal results. Lastly this is of course still not a full Marxist critique of liberalism, even in brief outline. For that one would have to go later in Marx and perhaps to thinkers like Pashukanis in order to discuss the material basis of liberalism, the reason why since the hegemony of capitalism it has been, in one form or another, the dominant political ideology, challenged only temporarily and in limited areas by fascism and Stalinism and only incompletely by various forms of religious politics...

Lebanon factsheet

Most of this isn't new, but I thought a comprehensive sheet of basic facts available even in the corporate media might be useful.

The Israeli invasion is a war of aggression, not self-defense. "Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah... said Hezbollah's rocket attacks would stop if Israel halted its attacks in Lebanon. 'Any time you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city,' he said." [Chicago Tribune 8.04.06] Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers was not the start of the war. "Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern. In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire... Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area [claiming it is Syrian], while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon." [Anders Strindberg in the Christian Science Monitor 8.01.06] "A major incident fueling the latest cycle of violence was a May 26, 2006 car bombing in Sidon, Lebanon, that killed a senior official of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah. Lebanon later arrested a suspect, Mahmoud Rafeh, whom Lebanese authorities claimed had confessed to carrying out the assassination on behalf of Mossad... on May 28, Lebanese militants in Hezbollah-controlled territory fired Katyusha rockets at a military vehicle and a military base inside Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes against Palestinian camps deep inside Lebanon, which in turn were met by Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks on more Israeli military bases, which prompted further Israeli airstrikes... the commander of Israel’s northern forces, boasted that 'our response was the harshest and most severe since the withdrawal' of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000... This intense fighting was the prelude to the all-out warfare that began on July 12, portrayed in U.S. media as beginning with an attack out of the blue by Hezbollah." [FAIR 7.28.06] The Israeli invasion was planned years in advance. "When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers [June 25], the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly. 'Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared,' said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. 'In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board.' More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail." [San Francisco Chronicle 7.21.06]

The Israeli invasion is not destroying Hezbollah. "Israel has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won't work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither apolitical party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982... Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israelitargets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks... involved 41 suicide terrorists... Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon." [Robert Pape in the New York Times 8.03.06] Rather, the Israeli invasion is strenthening Hezbollah. "According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hizbullah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, is the level of support for Hizbullah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis. Lebanese no longer blame Hizbullah for sparking the war by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers, but Israel and the US instead." [Christian Science Monitor 8.28.06]

Israel has declared a policy of attacking civilians indiscriminately. "A very high ranking military officer said [on July 12] that if the soldiers were not returned in good condition, Israel would turn Lebanon back 20 years by striking its vital infrastructure." [Jerusalem Post 7.12.06] "A high-ranking IAF officer... told reporters [on July 24] that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation to every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa." [Jerusalem Post 7.24.06] Israel has announced in public statements and leaflets dropped on Lebanon that it will bomb everyone in southern Lebanon - and also that it will bomb all means of transport in and out to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying. "Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel's justice minister said [on July 27]... 'Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. Our great advantage vis-a-vis Hizbollah is our firepower, not in face-to-face combat.'" [Telegraph (UK) 7.28.06] Yet, "as night fell, Israel declared a curfew in southern Lebanon, warning that all vehicles apart from humanitarian traffic would be at risk... Israel also threatened to attack UN peacekeepers... UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies. According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge." [Guardian (UK) 8.08.06] Attacks on civilians cannot be blamed on a Hezbollah policy of using them as shields, but are part of a strategy of collective punishment and of the ethnic cleansing of Hezbollah's southern Shiite support base. "Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians like the plague. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been." [Mitch Prothero in Salon 7.28.06]

Israel has carried out that murderous policy. "Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon... The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes... The report is based on extensive interviews with victims and witnesses of attacks, visits to some blast sites, and information obtained from hospitals, humanitarian groups, security forces and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, assessing the weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Human Rights Watch researchers found numerous cases in which the IDF launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians." [Human Rights Watch 8.03.06] Targets have included houses, apartment blocks, the "Jiye power station... electricity generator hit in Sibline... Four gas stores hit; 17 fuel stores destroyed; 12 petrol stations bombed... Water treatment plant hit in Dair al-Zahrani... Two trucks with water drilling equipment... Beirut airport out of action... Qoleiaat in the north and Riyaq military airport in Bekaa severely damaged. All main civilian and military radar stations out of action... Three main seaports - Beirut, Tripoli and Jamil Gemayel... 38 main roads severely damaged from the air... 55 bridges destroyed... Two hospitals hit, one in Nabatiyeh and one in the southern suburbs of Beirut; at least one destroyed (Mayss al-Jabal)... Convoy of donated medical goods hit near Zahle... Liban Lait milk plant in Bekaa... Tissue paper factory in Sidon... Paper mill in southern Beirut... Medical supplies company in southern Beirut... grain silos hit at port." [Guardian (UK) 7.21.06] Israel has attempted to hide its crimes by destroying communications equipment. "Israeli warplanes hit TV transmission towers on Saturday in Lebanon, knocking the nation's leading private network off the air and cutting phone links to some regions... Three missiles hit a transmission station at Fatqa in the Keserwan mountains, leaving antennas burning on the ground. Another airstrike crippled a transmission tower at Terbol in northern Lebanon, where relay stations for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., Future TV and Hezbollah's Al-Manar are located." [AP 7.22.06] Israel has also attacked international observers, eventually killing 4. "Israeli aircraft attacked a convoy of 26 Red Cross ambulances which the UAE was sending by road into Lebanon. Israeli warplanes fired close to UNIFIL, or the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, positions on at least fifteen occasions." [Malaysia Sun 7.19.06] As of August 7, "93... Israelis [had been] killed, including 45 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians. Israel's attacks on Lebanon [had] killed at least 591 people, including 509 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and 53 Hezbollah guerrillas... Israeli officials said they have confirmed 165 dead guerrillas." [AP 9.06.06] As of July 24, "Up to a million people [had] been displaced from their homes in the south of [Lebanon], according to the UN." [BBC 7.24.06]

The U.S. government and both major parties are culpable. "The Israeli government is the largest recipient of US financial aid in the world, receiving over one-third of total US aid to foreign countries, even though Israel’s population comprises just .001% of the world’s population and has one the world’s higher per capita incomes." [Palestine Monitor 11.27.01] "Israel is the biggest recipient of US military aid in the world. It is the only state in the world that can make purchases directly from US arms companies without US government oversight, just as if it was an internal department of the US administration. It is the only state in the world that can use US military aid to purchase from non-US arms firms. It is the only state in the world that can use non-military US aid for military purchases." [Socialist Worker (UK) 8.12.06] "Israel's latest military operations reflect a fighting machine bolstered by U.S. weaponry, jet fuel and technology transfers -- and more is on its way. From 1971 through 2005, U.S. aid to Israel has averaged more than $2 billion a year, two-thirds of which has been military assistance, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service. U.S. military grants to Israel totaled $2.28 billion in fiscal 2006 ending Sept. 30... The U.S.-supplied arsenal includes F-16 Falcon fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co.-built F-15 Eagle fighters and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters... Such warplanes have been battering targets in Lebanon... The Pentagon notified Congress [July 14, two days after the start of the Lebanon invasion] that it planned to sell Israel JP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $210 million to help its aircraft 'keep peace and security in the region.'" [Reuters 7.19.06] "The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said [July 21]." [New York Times 7.22.06] "Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are rushing to offer unalloyed support for Israel's offensive against Hezbollah fighters, reflecting a bipartisan desire to not only defend a key U.S. ally but also solidify long-term backing of Jewish voters and political donors in the United States, according to officials and strategists in both parties. With Israel intensifying its air and artillery attacks on Lebanon and warning of a protracted war, the Senate [July 18] unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution endorsing Israel's military campaign and condemning Hezbollah and its two backers, Iran and Syria. A few hours earlier, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) delivered his most strident defense of Israel since the conflict erupted... The House [was] expected to pass a similarly pro-Israel resolution" July 19, and did. [Washington Post 7.19.06]



Demonstrate this Sunday, August 12, in Washington, DC. ANSWER buses are available from many cities.

The American Way

From Kirkpatrick Sale's history of SDS, p. 320:

The psychology of granting wide choice under pressure to take action is the American or indirect way of achieving what is done by direction in foreign countries where choice is not permitted.

(Quoting, of all things, a Selective Service System document, which explained that the purpose of the student deferment was to coerce young Americans into productivity, one way or another - either providing cannon fodder for war or "developing more effective human beings in the national interest.")

Lebanon demonstrations

I missed the demonstration in Buenos Aires on July 27 against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I am disconnected from the Left here and didn't find out about it till afterwards. This is not acceptable. I'll be tracking http://www.organizacionislam.org.ar/ daily now...

Addendum to Bolshevism in the information age

John Robb responds to my email:

...what happens when the tactics used by guerrillas, while locally successful
and therefore imitated, are strategically conflicting on a larger scale?
It seems to me like most of your discussions of the dynamics of open source war,
bazaar war, etc, assume that individual guerrilla actions will in general be
complementary. How does a network force deal with a situation in
which this is not the case? Can it?

With the following:

Thanks for the note. Conflicting strategies are OK. However, if this
path is followed, then thegroup won't get reinforcement of the approach from the
community. If the difference isfundamental, there is a fork and a second
community develops.

In other words, conflicts will just lead to open splits. Presumably then one network community will triumph and the other will be defeated, in the long term. This is, true, basically the same as with democratic centralist organizations, but at least there the possibility exists that a conflict will be resolved without one. At least in theory, a democratic centralist organization should split only over a fundamental programmatic divergence, where a network movement will split over sufficiently important tactical or strategic conflicts. In practice, of course, unprincipled splits are all too common. But still, advantage, centralism, although I'll concede that it's certainly not a unique problem for network forms of organizing. Edited: thinking about it, that's not a genuine distinction. So is the case of Iraq only a refutation of a utopian claim of H&N;'s, and not an actual disadvantage for network organizing? Well, not quite. A movement with a recognized spokesgroup can repudiate tactics and make a split clear, while it's harder and perhaps impossible for a network to do so. If a split in the community isn't reflected visibly interference may continue. But then, post-split interference (or worse) is possible with centralist organizations too. Since this takes a different form, however, not based on a confusion of identity, it's hard to compare the impact. Still, perhaps not the fatal disadvantage for networks I imply below.