Iran and the Left

A theme has developed in the wingnut media, namely, that 'the left' has neglected Iran. This is presumed to indicate either hypocrisy and double standard ('They always criticise Israel!') or tacit sympathy for Ahmedinejad, the Ayatollah, and the mad mullahs who run the regime.

The evidence for this charge lies solely in the claim that leftists have been mute on Iran. They probably have been mute in the News Ltd media, since they don't exist at all within Murdoch empire, but a quick click on the links of my blog, and about thirty seconds googling revealed anything other than silence or complicity when it comes to the Iranian autocracy:

Lenin's Tomb is probably the foremost socialist blog in the UK, if not the world, excluding the large group blogs. Bloggers Richard Seymour and Yoshie have repeatedly tackled the issue of Iran, the elections, and the uprisings. Significantly, this extensive coverage has also encompassed critique of the deceits and conceits perpetuated regarding this crisis by the ruling elites in the Anglophone media.

Slavoj Žižek has published a widely-circulated text supporting the protestors in Iran, and calling for the downfall of the current regime. From a rather different leftist perspective, Chomsky has given this interview on the subject.

In Australia, Mark Bahnisch made some cautious remarks in support of the dissenters. Quiggin looked at things with reference to Obama. Slack @ndy has compiled pro-protestor links, anti-regime, and has criticised a presumed concordance between Ahmedinejad and Chavez. Green Left Weekly expressed solidarity with the dissenters of Iran.

In the US and beyond, there has also been plenty of critical comment on the topic of Iran's sham elections and their aftermath. Minnesota-based Trot Renegade Eye lent his voice of solidarity. Counterpunch has been providing almost daily coverage, including these two pieces. AlterNet had provided a number of pieces on this topic, particularly attacking the lack of freedom of speech. Marxism.com has published multiple pieces int he past week or so - see the link here. Zmag has sharply attacked the democratic pretensions of the regime, as has Socialist Worker.

Now for some general remarks. The above pieces are all well worth reading. Many are sceptical about the possibility of the protestors effecting lasting change. Even greater scepticism is reserved for Ahmedinjad's opponent, Moussavi, whose 'reformist' credentials are regarding by many commenters as dubious, at best. (Interestingly, Žižek is an exception here). All the same, each and every piece is concerned with the welfare of the protestors, and none supports the existing regime in any respect whatsoever.

Another point worth noting is that, roughly speaking, the further left you go, the more decisive the statements you are likely to find in relation to Iraq. Centre-leftists and social democrats such as Bahnisch and Quiggin are far more equivocal than are the socialist and anarchist commenters above.

It goes without saying that everybody of value in the left supports the opverthrow of the existing Iranian regime, and wishes the demonstrators success in their task of liberating Iran.

Finally, the attempt by rightists to pretend that the left are somehow opposed or indifferent to the uprisings in Iran is sheer chutzpah, occasioned by years of controlling both politics and the mainstream press. Not only do these clowns attempt to falsify the past, they are now, increasingly, it seems, trying to distort history as it happens. They must presume that leftist audiences are as stupid and apathetic as their own. It is an ongoing fight to ensure that these deceptions are rectified.

Conservatism and Fascism

The following has been taken from Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism:

Italian and German conservatives had not created Mussolini and Hitler, of course, though they had too often let their law breaking go unpunished. After the Fascists and the Nazis made themselves too important to ignore, by the somewhat different mixtures of electoral appeal and violent intimidation...the conservatives had to decide what to do with them.

In particular, conservative leaders had to decide whether to try to coopt fascism or force it back to the margins. One crucial decision was whether the police and the courts would compel the fascists to obey the law. German chancellor Brüning attempted to curb Nazi violence in 1931-32. He banned uniformed actions by the SA (Sturmabteilung, i.e. brownshirts - THR) on April 14, 1932. When Franz von Papen succeeded Brüning as chancellor in July 1932, however, he lifted the ban...and the Nazis, excited by the vindication, set off the most violent period in the whole 1930-1932 constitutional crisis. In Italy, although a few prefects tried to restrain Fascist lawlessness, the national leaders preferred, at crucial moments, as we already know, to try to "transform" Mussolini rather than to discipline him. Conservative national leaders in both countries decided that what the fascists had to offer outweighed the disadvantages of allowing these ruffians to capture public space from the Left by violence. The nationalist press and conservative leaders in both countries consistently applied a double standard to judging fascist and left-wing violence.

...

Conservative complicites in the fascism's arrival in power were of several types. First of all, there was complicity in fascist violence against the Left...Mussolini's squadristi would have been powerless with the closed eyes and even the outright aid of the Italian police and army. Another form of complicity was the gift of respectability...Alfred Hugenberg, Krupp executive of the party that competed with Hitler most directly, the German National Party (DNVP), alternately attacked the Nazi upstart and appeared at political rallies with him...But while Hugenberg helped make Hitler look more acceptable, his DNVP membership drained away to the more exciting Nazis.

We saw...that the Nazis received less direct financial help from business than many have assumed. Before the final deal that put Hitler in power, German big business greatly preferred a solid reassuring conservative...to the unknown Hitler with his crackpot economic advisors...[B]usiness contributions did not become a major resource for Hitler until after he attained power. Then, of course, the game changed. Businessmen contributed hugely to the new Nazi authorities and set about accommodating themselves to a regime that would reward many of them richly with armaments contracts, and all of them by breaking the back of organized labour in Germany. (pp. 99-100).


On the 'socialist' misnomer:


Fascists had also found a magic formula for weaning workers away from Marxism. Long after Marx asserted that the working class had no homeland, conservatives had been unable to find any way to refute him. None of their nineteenth-century nostrums - deference, religion, schooling - had worked. On the eve of WWI, the Action Française had enjoyed some success recruiting a few industrial workers to nationalism, and the unexpectedly wide acceptance by workers of their patriotic duty to fight for their homelands when WWI began foretold that in the twentieth century Nation was going to be stronger than Class.

Fascists everywhere have built on that revelation...As for the Nazi Party, its very name proclaimed that it was a workers' party...Mussolini expected to recruit his old socialist colleagues. Their results were not overwhelmingly successful. Every analysis of the social composition of the early fascist parties agrees: although some workers were attracted, their share of party membership was always well below their share in the general population. (p. 103).


Also, Wikipedia has some reasonable information about the Nazi's attempt to position themselves as a workers party that aimed to include the middle class, and which utterly rejected Marxism.

And whilst I haven't quoted the relevant passages at length, the final power grabs of both Hitler and Mussolini came courtesy of conservatives attempting to form coalitions. We can conclude that whilst conservative and fascism are not the same thing, neither has anything remotely to do with leftism, and leftism is not implicated in the rise to power of fascists in Italy and Germany.

Ideas - Online Reading Group

I'll be missing in action for the latter months of 2008. When I return, I'd like to set up an online reading group. I envisage that this would be set up on another blog, and would possibly be a group blog. The idea would be for a group of us (and a small group is fine) to work through some meaty texts. Debate and discussion of the text would be encouraged (though not idiotic trolling unrelated to the text), individuals from different backgrounds would be welcome to contribute.

Does anybody have any interest in this sort of idea? If the answer is yes, do you have any proposals as to what it might look like?

Some areas of interest to me are philosophy, politics, history, psychoanalysis, and literature. It seems more worthwhile to me to attempt to work through difficult texts rather than straightforward ones. Having said that, novices are welcome. The aim of all this would be to create a shared online resource, and raise the level of discourse on the blogosphere up a notch or two.

Now whilst I have grand plans of returning late this year to launch into a reading group that looks at Marx's Grundrisse or Lacan's Seminar VII, for instance, I'd like to trial this idea with something much smaller, to see how it works. If it inspires a few dedicated readers in Melbourne, the discussion could also relocate off-line to somewhere suitably scholarly, like a bar. There's also a possibility that discussions could be filmed or audio-taped.

The format I have in mind is that each chapter/passage/few pages would be scheduled in advanced. One reader (probably me in the first instance) could then provide a brief bit of background and response to said chapter/few pages. Everyone else could then respond as they see fit.

Anyway, here are some suggestions for the trial run:

Politics - Maybe a short paper by Marx, or Lenin, or maybe Trotsky's paper on fascism. There are many online resources in this area, which is helpful, as it means people can access the texts for free. Hardt and Negri are also good for a laugh.

Philosophy - Badious and Zizek keep churning out interesting papers on a regular basis, though something a little less contemporary could be an option if people are interested. Some of this stuff is also available online.

Psychoanalysis - Since this area links up with the above two in many ways, as well as a plethora of other areas (sexual politics, anthropology, etc), I think it could be quite interesting if people arrive with an open mind. Some suggestions - Freud's Mourning and Melancholia, for instance, or Lacan's paper on the Mirror Stage.

Literature - I'm less inclined to delve into fiction as the blogosphere (and real world) have lots of reading groups that discuss the latest bestsellers. However, maybe as a trial, we could look at one of Nam Le's recently-published short stories, for instance.

Anyways, I'm very open to suggestions, and I encourage one and all to comment here or email me. A reading group of one is just going to be me taking notes (which I do already), and it's going to be a little sad to broadcast that over the blogosphere. So find something you like, and spare me blushes of embarrassment.

Until then, I'm off to Sydney in a couple of days to spread subversion for a short while. I might check out that bookshop belonging to that Gould chap. I hope to hear from you all in the near-future.

Smackdown, one lunatic at a time

Since the phony war on terror, we've heard plenty of nutters and propagandists invoke the ghost of WWII to justify otherwise indefensible policy by the US. But WWII rhetoric I mean the constant references to 'appeasement', or to 'Islamofascism', intended to conflate to radically different historical situations. In any case, it's nice to see one such winged monkey humiliated for such stupidity:

International Partisan Music

Italian:


Russian:


French:


More French:


Leonard:

Why Wingnuts and Philosophy Don't Mix...

I know I should resist the temptation to see how the other half lives (or mouth-breathes, as it were). But some habits are hard to break, and I've relapsed from time to time.

I tried, at least, not to make these relapses public. To that end, I resisted the urge to ridicule this 'world government' conspiracy theory, of the sort embraced by anti-Semitic bigots and cranks:

The same crowd also believe that 'reptilian bloodlines' rule the world. I figured that the authors of this stuff couldn't possibly believe in all of it.

My resolve was then sorely tested when I saw this post claiming that intellectuals were more or less part of a treasonous alliance between Marxism and Islam. It's nutty, and the author doesn't forward a shred of evidence to support his ridiculous claims, but it's not vastly different to the drivel peddled by more skilled propagandists.

I even bit my tongue when I saw this shameless attempt to besmirch an apparent detractor of Winston Churchill, a great hero to some conservatives. Naturally, the post doesn't deal with some of the many factual criticisms that one might extend to Churchill. This is the same Churchill, Nobel Laureate, who gave us such pearls of wisdom as:

“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good… and it would spread a lively terror…”

And:

"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place."

Unsurprisingly, he championed Zionism, as opposed to 'the schemes of the International Jews' (i.e. Bolshevism). He was not altogether unsympathetic to fascism, either. To quote a comrade blogger, who supplied the above references:

Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world", showing "a way to combat subversive forces". Even Hitler received some Churchillian approbation: "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."

All this I passed by, politely as it were, thinking it unworthy to bring facts to bear against deranged wingnuts. Being stupid, ignorant, or plain delusional is not a moral flaw, however irritating (or unintentionally hilarious) the consequences.

Dishonesty, on the other hand, is a different matter, so I simply couldn't resist this woefully inaccurate, and thoroughly mendacious attack on the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (whose name, incidentally, is misspelled for most of the post).

The author claims that Nietzsche was 'Hitler's hero'. Whilst Hitler read and admired Nietzsche (Nietzsche's sister had edited a posthumous volume of his writings, removing references that condemned Germany's rising anti-Semitism) Hitler had plenty of 'heroes'. Among them were Schopenhauer, for instance, and plenty of other perfectly respectable and bourgeois figures within the West's literary, musical and artistic canon.

Hitler's 'philosophy', if it could even be called as much, does not resemble Nietzsche's in any significant respect. There are innumerable passages in Nietzsche's work that condemn 'mob rule', that condemn German (and other) nationalism, that oppose anti-Semitism, and that attack politics of all stripes: conservative, liberal, and radical. It is perfectly clear that our wingnut author here hasn't read a page of Nietzsche, still less understood any of his philosophy, when she blathers:

The views of Hitler, and his idol, Neitzsche, could be seen as a revealing forerunner for today’s globalizing, centralizing European government as a whole. Neitzsche espoused some views which could come straight out of any Rhodes school or Common Purpose training camp.

Actually, 'globalisation' is the fruit of neoliberal capitalism, and it's difficult to see Nietzsche rallying to its cause. Anybody with even a passing familiarity with Nietzsche's views would know he wouldn't waste his spittle on a 'Rhodes school' or 'Common Purpose training camp'.

So why do we see this wilfully dishonest attempt to smear mad Freddy, rather than to come to terms with his philosophy? So that the author can reach this equally disingenuous conclusion about Hitler:

Adolf was, in actuality, an internationalist and a globalist.

Really? Nothing about Hitler's invasion of other European nations, or persecution of Jews, Gypsies, and communists demonstrated an 'internationalist' perspective. The author concludes:

Neitzsche has been the darling of the Left for decades now. In the current age of globalism and internationalism, is there going to be a surge in Nazism whether overt or tacit? I would say, the surge has already started.

Nietzsche has been the 'darling' of a lot of people, from all sides of politics, and with no discernible political views at all. In many respects (and I am not a technical philosopher), I would have thought Nietzsche's influence was starting to wane. The Nietzschean impetus behind 'deconstruction' (Derrida) or the unravelling of power and discourse (Foucault) is decades-old now, and many of the more prominent Continental philosophers are not Nietzschean in the least. So when our good author warns us of a 'surge', once can only assume she is referring to a growth is crude propaganda, wilful ignorance, and deliberate and blatant lying.

Whack-A-Mole

Many of the unctuous half-wits on the right-side of the blogosphere appear to be concerned with pursuing a kind of cultural hegemony. You can see this in those few who, having well and truly lost the argument, continue to bleat about the beauty and goodness of US invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, for instance.

Another commonplace is the notion that fascism generally, and Hitler, specifically, are somehow 'socialist' or 'leftist'. Unsurprisingly, whenever this claim is made, little evidence is offered in its defence, other than some guilt-by-association remarks about former Democrats (who are neither leftist nor socialist in any case), and some vague statements that Hitler controlled the German economy in a 'socialist' fashion. A young, intellectually-challenged boy illustrated this with some recent comments on my blog:

Hitler was a Socialist at heart. The Nazis controlled the economy and told the companies what to produce, they just didn't sieze them. Hitler was NOT ALL Right-Wing.


It is curious that rightists attack the Nazis on economic grounds, given that this was the only area in which they were somewhat 'successful', and considering that it is for war and genocide, not economic tinkering, that we revile them today.
Furthermore, if economic intervention by governments is definitional of either fascism or socialism, then virtually every post-war Western government must fall into one of the latter categories. Free markets, after all, do not exist except in textbooks (and certain third-world dictatorships, such as Colombia, or Egypt). The Bush administration 'controlled' the economy by contracting the likes of Haliburton and Blackwell to perform various tasks that formerly would have been the domain of the state. In this, the Bush presidency meets the rightard criteria for Hitlerism/socialism on economic grounds, to say nothing of the curtailing of civil liberties, or histrionic 'patriotism'.

We should also remember that, at the time of Hitler, informed leftists were bitterly opposed to fascism, on economic and other grounds. This is clearly demonstrated on the anti-fascist writings of Trotsky, Benjamin, Adorno and others around the time of Hitler's ascendancy. In both Italy and Germany, fascists came to power by way of alliances with a conservative coalition, the aim of both groups being to keep out the socialist left.

Finally, let us look at what an actual historian (Robert Paxton), rather than partisan pundit, has to say about fascism and the economy:

Fascism was not the first choice of most businessmen, but most of them preferred it to the alternatives that seemed likely in the special conditions of 1922 and 1933-socialism or a dysfunctional market system. So they mostly acquiesced in the formation of a fascist regime and accommodated to its requirements of removing Jews from management and accepting onerous economic controls. In time, most German and Italian businessmen adapted well to working with fascist regimes, at least those gratified by the fruits of rearmament and labor discipline and the considerable role given to them in economic management. Mussolini's famous corporatist economic organization, in particular, was run in practice by leading businessmen.

Peter Hayes puts it succinctly: the Nazi regime and business had "converging but not identical interests." Areas of agreement included disciplining workers, lucrative armaments contracts, and job-creation stimuli. (p. 145)

Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left, and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies. (p. 147) (source)

I'm sure that the shameless dissembling of the right will continue, on this topic as on others, but in keeping with the carnival spirit that inhabits this blog, I encourage everybody to continue playing whack-a-mole as often as is necessary.

The Politics of 'Legacy'

It seems that even Melbourne's Herald Sun may be beginning to turn against the Liberals. In today's opinion section, Bernard Salt has a go at Howard for his alleged bias toward Sydney (as opposed to Melbourne). Whilst not groundbreaking stuff, such complaints are somewhat symbolic, given that Howard's rival, Costello, holds a 'blue-ribbon' Liberal seat in Melbourne. Ian McPhedran also criticises the Government's handling of Doctor Haneef.

The Herald Sun is not the most conservative of the Murdoch tabloids, and, to be sure, a couple of anti-Government articles do not count for much in the bigger scheme of things. Nonetheless, the context of these articles paints a different picture, when we consider that the polls once again point to a significant Labor victory, and even the bookmakers are concurring.

Once again, the question of the Liberals' leadership emerges. We might speculate that the polls would be more favourable for the Government had the leadership changed some time ago, but any change now, by an incumbent Government just months from an election, would be tantamount to conceding defeat.

People will no doubt engage in a few 'psychologisms', and aver that Howard has merely clung onto power for the sake of his own 'legacy'. As influenced by psychoanalysis as I am, I think we ought to resist any analysis of current events that boils things down to matters of individual psychology, and instead, rigorously pursue a political interpretation. In any case, as I have said elsewhere, Howard's Liberal Party colleagues give a much better assessment of his 'character' than I ever could.

So what is the political 'legacy' of Howard, as opposed to the speculative psychodrama? This is an enormous question, so I will just touch on a few points.

Howard rose to power in 1996. Whilst Culture War revisionists like to paint his predecessor, Keating, as some kind of arch-leftist, this was not the case. Keating was one of the most conservative Federal Labor leaders that the country had seen, though was portrayed by the media as indulging a range of 'minority groups', such as Asians, Aboriginals, artists, and environmentalists. It is no coincidence that the period of his demise saw the rise of Pauline Hanson's ironically-titled 'One Nation' party, built on a platform of Asian immigration, and also saw a relatively 'moderate' Liberal party move increasingly toward the politics of dog-whistling, and race-baiting. These latter phenomena are part of Howard's legacy as much as anything else, and are now incorporated into the standard political vocabulary of both major parties.

Howard is no 'statesman', even in comparison to Australia's previous Prime Ministers, on both sides of politics. He has ushered in the era whereby oratory is little more than a jingoistic soundbite, though, in fairness, he has been assisted in his cause by a compliant media. To return to what Slavoj Žižek said about Bill Gates (in The Ticklish Subject), Howard attempts to be seen as neither a 'patriarchal Father-Master', nor a 'corporate Big Brother', but rather, as a kind of 'little brother', a clumsy, bespectacled, tinpot 'patriot', whose ideological agenda is belied by his supposed 'ordinariness', and apparent opportunism.

Much is made of Howard's 'economic credentials', though the recent biography of Howard seems to further undermine this piece of mythology, given Howard's poor record as Treasurer. The best that can be said of Howard's fiscal abilities is that he has 'managed' the economy well, particularly for those who were already wealthy from the beginning. At the same time, a significant underclass of the chronically poor has been firmly sedimented in both rural and metropolitan regions during the Howard years, and the Government has shown no indication that it intends to change this state of affairs (other than by punishing 'bad' parents). Housing prices are, of course, a disaster, particularly for young people hoping to buy their first home, and interest rates are high by the standards of the rest of the developed world. At least investors would appear to benefit.

Then there is the Orwellian state of perpetual war to which Howard has enlisted Australia, a country little more than a US colony in economic and military matters. Howard, supposedly 'in touch' with the battlers, completely ignored the many thousands of ordinary Australians, from churchgoers, to unionists, who protested the so-called 'War on Terror'. I don't recall quite the same numbers of Australians protesting for the war.

In matters of foreign policy, Australia tends to take America's lead. Domestically, Howard encourages all immigrants to 'assimilate' to his version of white, middle-class, conservative Australia, and appeared to have a sanguine view of both the Cronulla riots, and Alan Jones' role in agitating for them. For this reason, Australia has been seen as racism in Europe and Asia for the past few years. Our Government is quick to condemn regimes run by friendless tyrants, such as Mugabe, but falls silent on human rights abusers whose allies carry a bit of international clout.

Political discourse has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Whilst dissent is tolerated by the regime, it is quickly isolated by the acquiescent media, and repackaged as 'hatred', or some other pathology. A sane person cannot, apparently, be critical of the Government. When, for instance, Howard cobbles together a hastily-conceived 'intervention' into Aboriginal communities, anybody who forwards an alternative proposal is quickly denounced as an endorser of child abuse. The laughable standard of 'debate' in the mainstream media is echoed in Parliament, where 'Mr Speaker' ensures that Opposition questions go routinely unanswered, and Liberal abuse passes for political comment.

Surprisingly, for a 'conservative' Government, Howard has overseen significant growth in the Federal public sector. Part of his legacy has been to ensure that this sector is also heavily-politicised, from the cowboys running DIMIA, to stacking the ABC board full of hard-right cultural warriors. Perhaps public sector growth is necessary, as it is inversely proportional to political responsibility. Public servants make for suitable, and relatively anonymous 'fall guys' when faced with scandals such as AWB, or children overboard, none of which our Government considers as part of its jurisdiction.

Howard has nominally moved toward some recognition of 'climate change', but then, even that exemplar of the 'loony left', Rupert Murdoch, has publicly acknowledged that this issue is important. At this point, the climate change denialists should be pleased that Howard's commitment to this issue remains strictly rhetorical.

The Culture Wars and History Wars have continued throughout Howard's reign, despite the fact that the 'conservatives' are given air-time for increasingly vacuous and intellectually bankrupt views. Moderate commentators and academics such as Robert Manne are denounced for being left-wing extremist 'elites' - apparently, social class is now conceived along educational lines. Part of these 'wars' has seen a refusal to acknowledge one iota of Aboriginal suffering, and, when travelling abroad, it is not difficult to find foreigners who no more about the plight of Aboriginals than does the average Australian. Howard despises 'symbolic' gestures, such as an apology would be. An elementary grasp of any trauma theory would inform us that symbols are intrinsic to the 'working through' of any trauma, though symbols do not, of course, reverse trauma. It is for this reason that Vietnam Vets, suffering from their war-time experiences, campaigned vigourously for a 'symbolic' recognition of their status as 'traumatised', eventually succeeding in having PTSD made into an 'official' medical/psychiatric diagnosis. For Australia's Aborigines, it is not even worth considering additional services or resources - even as regards mere 'symbolic gestures', for Howard, such people, (and their subjectivity) are beneath recognition. New 'conservatism' is 'big-government' and authoritarian, and, naturally, being conservative means never having to say you're sorry.

Howard's IR laws are probably not worth mentioning, given the ink that has already been spilt on them. Among other things, these laws are intended as a bit of union-busting, partly as a result of Howard's ideological leanings, and partly because the unions constitute Labor's support base. The 'user pays' mentality has crept into a range of other areas, such as VSU, Telstra, and the increasing privatisation of the health and education sectors. Australia's great tradition of socialised public services, many of which were world class, appears to be drawing to a close. Perhaps we can look forward to the privatisation of roads and the like.

Howard quietly managed to change electoral laws, so that voting is now more difficult for the young, the transient, and the imprisoned. This will not be of concern to Liberals, given that these demographics probably would not vote Tory in any case.

Civil liberties have been eroded under Howard. The anti-terror legislation sits dubiously in relation to presuppositions of 'innocence until guilt is proven'. The re-introduction of sedition laws are of particular concern, given that such laws have been used (historically) to criminalise peaceful and democratic dissent. It seems to be a case of 'One more sacrifice, Australians, and we shall "win" this war on terror'.

Howard has cultivated the myth of his 'battlers'. Fortunately, for Melbourne, at least, this remains only a myth, as most of the working class reside in safe Labor seats. I cannot speak for the rest of Australia at the present time, but it is obvious that, if a working class person votes Liberal, they are not only being bent over a barrel, they are providing Howard with the lubricant. The backlash against IR laws may yet shatter this myth, as it is not only the 'elites' who are nauseated by Howard's relentless propaganda, with happy, AWA'd workers invading our television screens. In this era of the decline of Marx, 'Workchoices' should at least serve to drive home a few naked truths about capitalism, namely, that workers are merely commodities, cogs in a machine, means to (somebody else's) ends.

The only principled and courageous policy direction that Howard has taken is his stance on gun control. This is the only instance of him being prepared to finally challenge the whims of a minority, for the benefit of society as a whole. To be sure, underworld figures still have guns, but, more importantly, guns are more difficult to obtain for lone psychopaths (such as Martin Bryant, or Julian Knight), and feature less prominently in 'domestics'.

Many of the issues above are beyond any simplistic left-right distinction. Many Australians, of all political stripes, are concerned with such topics. That such ideology, of limited appeal, should have been relentlessly pushed by Howard only serves as a testament to how unrepresentative our 'representatives' in the political class have been.

Clearly, Howard has left a 'legacy' for all to see. Most likely, his decision to remain as leader was not prompted by history's memory of his deeds, but rather, was a cold political decision, based on raw numbers in Caucus, as well as in polls. Howard has won several elections (albeit, very narrowly, in 1998 and 2001), and there is no reason to believe that he will be replaced prior to the next election.

Whatever happens at the election, Howard will be gone in the near future. As we have seen, the Australia that he leaves behind is diminished in virtually every respect, other than in its preponderance of imported plasma televisions.

Rewriting History

At Australia's very own Department for Historical Truth and Ideological Purity, one Michael Costello has responded to Brendan Nelson's gaffe about oil by blithely asserting that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil:

If control of vital oil supplies were to end up in the hands of our enemies, who
choose to use it to blackmail us and our friends and allies, or to further
causes hostile to us, that would be a disaster for us and many others.
What
is weird, however, is the ludicrous leap of illogic that says that to state this
self-evident proposition is to automatically imply that the real reason we went
to war with Saddam Hussein's regime in March 2003 was oil.
If oil were our
dominant interest, we would have done exactly the opposite. We would have done a
deal with Saddam that accepted the continuation of his brutal regime and we
would have turned a blind eye to his return, with renewed vigour, to the pursuit
of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Recall that while no evidence
of such weapons was found by inspectors after the 2003 attacks, evidence was
found of Saddam's determination to resume those programs as soon as he could
complete the undermining of UN sanctions and remove the UN inspection regime.
What would the US have got in return for accommodating Saddam in this way?
Oil, as much as it wanted, at discount prices.

Costello also cites Bob Hawke, out of context, in defense of the Coalition of the Drilling. In response, I posted a reply to this latest piece of asshattery. I provide it here, in full, should it fail to see the light of day on the News Limited website:

This is an extraordinarily disingenuous article, even by The Australian's standards.

Firstly, Hawke's comments were in a rather different context to the present day, or 2003, for that matter. The invasion of 2003 occurred after years of sanctions, against a country with a heavily-depleted military, surrounded by no-fly zones, and who, in contrast to 1991, had not issued any violent provocation.

Secondly, Saddam was planning to trade oil in Euros, not the greenback, which could have been expected to have had significant ramifications for the US economy.

Thirdly, unlike the other despots with whom the US coquettes, US interests were not in a position to simply make a deal and receive 'discount oil'. The oil was already contracted to a number of nations who opposed the US invasion, such as France, China, and Russia.

Clearly, oil was not the sole motivating factor for Iraq's liberation - other factors include geo-political strategy, the neoconservative ideology of 'failed states' and 'democracy building', and US domestic politics. Nonetheless, to suggest that Iraq's invasion had nothing to do with oil, that it would have been of 'interest' if its chief export were bottle tops, is a monstrous piece of revisionist fiction, the likes of which would make even Stalin blush with shame.

It is not for nothing that Howard, Bush and Blair have all been subject to widespread public cynicism. Irrespective of Howard's frantic back-pedalling, the gaffe-prone Nelson was only confirming what many Australians take as self-evident.


We shall see if it appears.

On Liberty (At Gunpoint), and Collaborators

Only the fanatics and die-hard ideologues persist in apologetics for the Iraq War any longer. Not so in the case of Afghanistan, whom many, including the 'cruise missile liberals', believe is a 'just war', a legitimate response to the events of 11/9. Americans were justifiably upset; unfortunately, the wounds of the terrorist attack quickly festered until somebody, somewhere, hat to be hit. The War on Terror would commence, but to kick it off, some brute vengeance was needed. Afghanistan served as the piñata.

After the crime of September 11, the Taliban, presumed to be hiding Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, were given a series of ultimatums by Bush (20/9/2001):

By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And
tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:
-- Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Qaeda who
hide in your land.
-- Release all foreign nationals, including American
citizens you have unjustly imprisoned.
-- Protect foreign journalists,
diplomats and aid workers in your country.
-- Close immediately and
permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every
terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate
authorities.
-- Give the United States full access to terrorist training
camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are
not open to negotiation or discussion.

Understandably, the Taliban requested some proof of bin Laden's involvement in the crime, prior to opening their borders to foreign troops. This supposed recalcitrance on the part of the Taliban, and the alleged lack of a non-violent means of securing bin Laden, served as the pretext for war. It is now clear that the Taliban were, in fact, prepared to extradite bin Laden to Pakistan for prosecution, a fact usually lost on the Eustonites, and other apologists for murder. The Taliban even offered to try bin Laden under Afghanistan's (Islamic) laws, as the US would no doubt seek to do with its war criminals.

By October 7, 2001, Afghanistan was being bombed. The Taliban again attempted to negotiate with the US, offering to hand over bin Laden should American bombing cease. Bush preferred to keep bombing than to have bin Laden, and added, in relation to the Taliban's request for proof of bin Laden's guilt:'There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty'.

So the war continued, and has to this day, with thousands of civilians killed, and no signs of the imminent capture of bin Laden. Even Al-Jazeera's Kabul offices were destroyed; this is more or less the equivalent of bombing the Fox News Network of the Arab world, assuming that Fox had actual journalists.

Yet what a history lessons when a war is 'just', particularly a good, democratising, humanitarian war? With shades of Noel Pearson's comments last week, namely, that critics of the Iraq war were 'willing failure', so too did Christopher Hitchens aver that America's Democratic Party, and other critics of the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are apparently 'defeatists' who are 'rooting for bad news'.

It is in that light, then, that the past few days have brought more bad news, and certainly more 'rooting'. US and NATO forces have even killed more Afghan civilians this year than the insurgency:

Maj. John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance
Force, blamed the insurgents for hiding in areas populated by civilians, who are
then killed during attacks against militants, but he said "that does not absolve
ISAF of the responsibility of doing all it can to minimize civilian
casualties."
On Saturday, [Afghan President] Karzai accused NATO and U.S.-led
troops of carelessly killing scores of Afghan civilians and warned that the
fight against resurgent Taliban militants could fail unless foreign forces show
more restraint.
"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as
such," Karzai said angrily.
The mounting toll is sapping the authority of the
Western-backed Afghan president, who has pleaded repeatedly with U.S. and NATO commanders to consult Afghan authorities during operations and show more
restraint.
Karzai also denounced the Taliban for killing civilians, but
directed most of his anger at foreign forces. (source).

More humanitarian intervention was evidenced during recent air bombardments in the southern province of Helmand, where it is estimated that over 50 civilians died. Meanwhile, the CIA continues to dole out millions in cash and arms to Afghan warlords, and the decidedly undemocratic Pakistani government, and Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, pledged that Australia's involvement in the region would be for 'as long as necessary'. He noted (and dismissed) the recent spate of civilian casualties:

It is very, very foolish for any person of goodwill to try to create some
sort of moral equivalence between NATO and what the Taliban does. (source).

Naturally, the equivalence is not to be found: the Taliban are a brutal regime who do their killing via bombs, and hand-to-hand fighting; whilst the US and NATO do it 'surgically', with tanks and planes. Moral outrage at 'Western' brutality, is therefore quite out of the question, especially as regards this, the most 'just' and 'necessary' of humanitarian interventions.

It is apt that the chicken hawks who condemn any anti-war Westerner invoke pre-World War II analogies, by referring to their ideological opponents as appeasers. Putting aside the fact that the Nazi war machine was nothing remotely like the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, perhaps we who oppose these wars could accurately term the chickenhawks as 'collaborators', propagandising invasion and ongoing invasion, in the manner of the most contemptible Vichy stooge.

Leaving Afghanistan for the moment, and turning to Iraq, two US soldiers have been charged for these charming little incidents:

Staff Sergeant Michael Hensley was charged with three counts of
premeditated murder, obstruction of justice and of wrongfully placing weapons
beside the dead bodies in an apparent attempt to cover up the crimes.
Specialist Jorge Sandoval was charged with one count of premeditated murder
and with putting a weapon by the body. (source).

But hey, who said democracy was meant to be easy? Perhaps, with a view to avoiding charges of 'moral equivalence', the US might consider having the said soldiers tried by the Iraqis themselves. But this would imply a degree of moral reciprocity, and for a Coalition that assumes its exceptionalism is self-evident and axiomatic, such things simply won't do.

Afghanistan remains on the brink of being a 'failed state', even according to the Americans, and bin Laden and the Taliban are still at large. At least the US thirst for post 11/9 vengeance was sated, albeit temporarily, and 'power' implied in the name of the world's last 'superpower' finally had an opportunity to vaunt itself.


UPDATE: The Age has a few things to say about Afghanistan and civilian casualties.

Don't know much 'bout history, Don't know much 'bout geography...

Polling at the commencement of the Iraq War found that a majority (75%) of Americans supported the invasion. When the same polling occurred in April 2007, a majority (58%) said that the invasion was 'a mistake'. Public opinion around the world was even less favourable about Bush's war.

With this in mind, take a look at another recent survey, this one by Newsweek. The survey examined the views and beliefs of 1001 Americans aged 18 or older. The results were not flattering.

Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in
10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly
involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11,
even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection.

The work of Republican speechwriters and Faux News has obviously paid off, then. One wonders what support for the invasion would be like if that 41 percent had their facts correct.

A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a
multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were
born. Just 43 percent got it right—and a full 20 percent thought most came from
Iraq.

The pollsters don't speculate as to why this might be: perhaps it is because Iran's (soon-to-be-invaded?) theocracy has taken the limelight from Saudi Arabia's brutal Wahhabist regime. The latter regime is, of course, of great concern to human rights organisations, but of much less concern to our bearers of 'Democracy', who count the Saudis among their allies.

And perhaps because most (85 percent) are aware that Osama bin Laden remains at large, roughly half of the poll’s respondents (52 percent) think that the United States is losing the fight against his terror group, Al Qaeda, despite no military defeats or recent terrorist attacks to suggest as much.

No military defeats (the Iraq War was declared 'mission accomplished' 4 years ago) and no recent terrorist attacks, yet the War on Terror is being lost; more cause for Washington (or Canberra) fear-mongering, no doubt. It is amusing to ponder the responses of the 15 percent who believe that bin Laden isn't actually at large. Osama's doing Elvis gigs in Vegas, perhaps?

Other results of the poll are also embarrassing:

Roughly half (53 percent) are aware that Judaism is an older religion than
both Christianity and Islam (41 percent aren’t sure). And a quarter of the
population mistakenly identify either Iran (26 percent) or India (24 percent) as
the country with the largest Muslim population. Only 23 percent could correctly
identify Indonesia. Close to two thirds (61 percent) are aware that the Roman
Empire predates the Ottoman, British and American empires.

It would be easy to interpret these results as evidence of 'dumb' Americans, and make reference to anecdotes of crass and boorish US travellers. After all, anyone in America (or Australia) with the inclination and resources can readily obtain a few basic facts about the world. Yet I think we should resist the 'only in America' interpretation, and sketch some possible explanations.

When discussing political matters, I often take the media to task. The reason for this is that, all that most people know about politics is what media agencies choose to tell them. Entire speeches are routinely condensed into soundbites, and state propaganda is allowed to pass unfiltered through a complicit media. This phenomenon has been discussed at length by the likes of Chomsky, who argued that US propaganda is as effective and pervasive as anything the Soviets employed with Pravda. Faux News and Australia's own Government Gazette differ from Politburo literature only in their sophistication. Clearly, the constant linking of Iraq and 11/9 by Governments and the media is a possible explanation for the results above.

Yet this is not the full story. Another recent (June 2007) poll that I found (courtesy of Ken L) found that respondents generally did not trust the media in America. Only 23% said that they had a 'great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in television news. The figure was 22% when applied to the print media. State indoctrination cannot be the only explanation here. We might perhaps say of supporters of the war, after Žižek, that this is a case of 'they know what they are doing, yet they are doing it all the same'.

The next obvious target for criticism would logically be the education system, which, despite the bleatings of 'cultural warriors' here and in the States, has blatantly failed to educate its citizens with information that is damaging for the reigning regimes. Supposedly 'post-modern' teaching of history cannot be blamed for an ignorance of basic facts.

Whatever the explanation, it is likely that history shall remember the twin destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as the most significant political event of the early 21st Century. Like Lady Macbeth's spot, the stain of blood spilled for conquest is not easily washed off, even in the face of pervasive ignorance. This is especially true when the 'spot' of blood is often more reminiscent of a torrent.

Shakespearean analogies aside, the significant distortion of history by our pro-Government, chickenhawk cheer-squads ensures that where there would be tragedy, there is instead farce.

I am not optimistic, but perhaps a little knowledge would go a long way to slowing America's sabre-rattling towards Iran. The Venezualans too fear that the Coalition will seek to 'democratise' them. Whilst it may seem a little too interventionist for the weak-stomached libertarians out there, perhaps the following should be distributed to the public, as a kind of war prophylactic:

Engage in a bit of self-harm.

This is old news, but still worth a cheap laugh or two.



A magazine called, rather touchingly, Human Events, (described by Wiki as a 'weekly conservative magazine'), regularly puts out a series of 'Top Ten' lists, written with the US far-right agenda firmly in mind.



Several of them are chuckle-worthy, but one that I found quite revealing of a particular mindset was entitled 'Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries'. Let's see if we can catch a glimpse of America's finest 'conservative' reasoning at work - the list of modern literature's most diabolical creations is as follows:



1. The Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels)
This one is no surprise. After all, everybody knows that it's only right-wing evangelical Christians who are the revolutionary class these days. They describe Engels as 'the original limousine leftist'. I guess these days, we Australian would simply call him a 'latte leftist', or 'chardonnay socialist'. Topping the list by a long way, this little book:

(E)nvisions history as a class struggle between oppressed workers and
oppressive owners, calling for a workers’ revolution so property, family and
nation-states can be abolished and a proletarian Utopia established. The Evil
Empire of the Soviet Union put the Manifesto into practice.

Actually, the 'Evil Empire' didn't, but that's history for you.

2. Mein Kampf (Hitler)
I haven't actually read this one, in fairness, and I doubt it has anything of value in it. I doubt history would have altered one iota had Hitler not published, given that I've heard it described as 'turgid' and 'vacuous'. Still, budding Nazis used to hand copies of this out as wedding gifts (what happened to coffee makers?), and I'd be surprised if it wasn't filled with all kinds of racist, anti-democratic, anti-leftist ranting. One for the Alan Jones set, I suppose.

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
As the fundies put it:

Aided by compulsory distribution in China, billions were printed. Western
leftists were enamored with its Marxist anti-Americanism. “It is the task of the
people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression
perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism,” wrote Mao.

Billions? China's a populous place, but I hope you're not exaggerating there, guys. And so what if Mao spoke out against 'US imperialism'? It obviously didn't work.

4. The Kinsey Report
From a psychoanalytic perspective, I can't think of anything worse than sitting down to read some 'sexologists' bloated musings on sexual behaviour, backed up by half-arsed statisticising. Still, calling it harmful is a bit of a stretch. The Righteous explain the source of their concern:

“Kinsey’s initial report, released in 1948 . . . stunned the nation by
saying that American men were so sexually wild that 95% of them could be accused
of some kind of sexual offense under 1940s laws,” the Washington Times reported
last year when a movie on Kinsey was released.

Apart from the fact that the newspaper report about the book, rather than the book itself, is examined by the rightards, I think the above quote tells us that there's more wrong with America's 1940s laws than with Kinsey's report.

5. Democracy and Education (Dewey)
Think of evil, and I'm guessing that for most people, philosopher and education reformer John Dewey isn't the first name that comes to mind. Then again, Human Events tells us that 'He signed the Humanist Manifesto and rejected traditional religion and moral absolutes'. Yep, those damned Humanists, with their cross-burnings, and wars and...I mean, with their manifestos, and books, and with the signings, and such.

His views had great influence on the direction of American
education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton
generation.

Gasp! Not Clinton! The semi-competent president who was marginally less conservative than Reagan and the Bushes! If only he had offered Lewinsky a cigar instead of a harmful book...

6. Das Kapital (Marx)
Very impressive Karl - you've got two gongs already. If that's not a glowing reference, I don't know what is. But isn't Das Kapital a bit too wordy and philosophical to be truly harmful? Not according to Human Events, because this book is about:

portraying capitalism as an ugly phase in the development of human society
in which capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the
cheapest possible wages to earn the greatest possible profits.

This is obviously false, when capitalism is really about fairness and bunny rabbits, and capitalists are generous, and Kris Kringle-like. Just ask free-market Colombia, or capitalist paradise Djibouti.

Marx theorized that the inevitable eventual outcome would be global proletarian
revolution.

Er, not in any of the four volumes of Das Kapital, he didn't.

He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society
based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over
envy and seek to emulate.

Ha ha ha! Great satire, guys!

7. The Feminine Mystique (Friedan)
Here, feminism rears its ugly, equality-demanding head. Our brilliant authors at Human Events manage, in a showcase of brevity and wit, to sum up Friedan's life work:

Her original vocation, tellingly, was not stay-at-home motherhood but
left-wing journalism.

Enough said.


8. The Course of Positive Philosophy (Comte)
We've had feminists, communists, and humanists, so, for the sake of completeness, we needed at least on French philosopher on the list. Unfortunately, these guys seemed to have picked the one French philosopher unlikely to be read by anybody outside of a Sorbonne philosophy course, with a major in obscurantism.

Comte's shtick ('Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal') was to abandon organised religion in favour of science. This was only mildly racy in 19th Century France, but is apparently harmful to 21st Century America, because whilst Comte espoused universal principles of reason:

He did so while theorizing that the human mind had developed beyond
“theology” (a belief that there is a God who governs the universe), through
“metaphysics” (in this case defined as the French revolutionaries’ reliance on
abstract assertions of “rights” without a God), to “positivism,” in which man
alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to
be.

Ah, those pesky metaphysicians, wasting their time on 'abstract assertions' of human rights 'without a God'. No wonder the UN doesn't work!

For the record, I think that positivism is crap. Still, it looks pretty smart when compared to 'Intelligent Design'.

9. Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche)
One of my favourites, the authors offer little in the way of reasons to consider Nietzsche 'harmful', except for this quote from the text:

“Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the
strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one’s own forms,
incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation,” he wrote.

Nietzsche is possibly quite wrong here, and could have been corrected if 'life' was replaced with 'consumer capitalism'...The authors point out, correctly, that the Nazis were fans of Nietzsche. They failed to point out that the Nazis could only produce a sympathetic reading of Nietzsche by cherry-picking through his quotes in a grotesquely self-serving manner, and omitting vast amounts of his work. A bit like the way a conservative 'reads' the Bible: Christ apparently was, after all, a homophobe, who, um, drank little wine, and who may not really have saved the alleged adulteress from death by stoning.

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Keynes)
One of the more ghastly of the evil tomes, this one advocates, (wait for it!), government intervention in the economy! Obviously, only the most reckless of parents would allow their innocent children to read something like this.

A number of other books got 'honourable mentions' from the conservatives. Here is a round up of the highlights:

What Is To Be Done by V.I. Lenin: What! They don't like Lenin...

Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno: He wasn't that big on capitalism. Or authoritarians.

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill: The title is reason enough to avoid this subversive trash.

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: Down with biology.

Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault: How is this harmful? He's French; case closed.

Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader: He's a consumer advocate, and not a Republican. Pure villainy and scum, in other words.

Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir: More feminist claptrap. Every fundie knows that women are not the second sex, but the third. After mules.

Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci: God only knows what a communist would get up to in prison.


Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon: You stand up for the third world, you deserve to be called harmful.

Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud: Whoops, with all the Marx, Nietzsche, and now Freud, I've been triple-harmed. But let's face it, the Three Essays on Sexuality are much saucier.

The Greening of America by Charles Reich: A dirty hippie. Decadent society. If books of this sort continue, we will inevitably see a social revolution, like women smoking unaccompanied at the opera. Or Woodstock.

Descent of Man by Charles Darwin: That's two for Darwin. Sure, the guy was a big Anglican. But we all know, the only 'descent' in Darwin's work was his descent into immorality and science.

That's the list done - I bet their top ten 'most helpful' books would make for an enlightening read...But that's enough for conservatives on literature - time for a shower.