Platkin D., NEO-LIBERALISM ALIVE BUT NOT-SO-WELL, Appendix

APPENDIX:  MAKING THE LEAP FROM ANALYSIS TO ACTION

Local anti-Imperialist Responses:  Our job is not just to expose elected official who talk the language of inclusion in order to promote acceptance of greater personal sacrifice by both machines, but to make sure their role in preparing the public and local government for intensified imperialist war is  blocked.  Some of the strategies open to us include the following:

1)   Municipal Autonomous Zones?  The local equivalent of autonomous zones, such as co-housing, offers little help in opposing the immediate impacts of the war machine.  While they may give modest relief to those who can forge a cooperative life style, they do not alter any of the domestic or foreign component of imperialism.  In effect, they accept the bad hand dealt local government since the second Nixon administration of 1968-1972 through cutbacks and deindustrialization.  Instead they offer modest alternatives to simply play this bad hand better, to survive on less.  What they do not do is challenge local budget priorities, nor the cheerleading of local officials for U.S. military escapades.

2)   Local anti-War Movements:   Participation in local mass anti-war movements may seem tiresome, but we know that this is the gateway for many people to move into more intensive anti-imperialist organizations and activities.  Unlike elections, mass movements and mass mobilizations offer people a much richer exposure to critical ideas and contact with anti-imperialist organizations.  Furthermore, mass movements have the potential for sustained political opposition to imperialism.  They make a sharp contrast to elections, in which there is rarely an anti-war much less an anti-imperialist alternative to vote for.  Finally, mass movements may fade away, but they do not abruptly end like elections, leaving those drawn into their short-term campaigns adrift and forlorn once the ballots are counted.  And, even when activists occasionally support a winner, they are often deflated when the lesser-evil fails to deliver or, like Lyndon Johnson in 1965, immediately renege on their anti-war promises.

3)   Opposition to all Forms of Imperialism:  Whether we are in mass movements or small organizations, we need to be clear in our advocacy that our opposition is to all forms imperialism, not just US imperialism, much less particular US imperialist forays, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.  This means that those anti-imperialist outlooks which only oppose preventative invasions of other countries, like Iraq,  need to be critiqued.  Usually associated with the “multilateralists” (e.g, Zbigniew Brzezinski), this camp only opposed the tactics of the Bush administration in its invasion and occupation of Iraq.  In fact, these multilateralists, including the Los Angeles City Council, which approved a motion criticizing unilateral war, dropped criticism of the Iraq War once the invasion began.  Now, over two years later, they are still silent.  For example, the new mayor is one of those who voted for the resolution, but who never mentions the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  When pressed, states he is opposed to them, but they have nothing to do with government.  Ironically, this is the exact argument used by the small pro-unilateralist war faction of the City Council is arguing against the resolution.

4)   Oppose more that the excesses of U.S. imperialism:  Clear advocacy also means that we need to go beyond two formulations which leave the bulk of US imperialism in place by only focusing on its excesses, in particular Iraq.  One of these formulations calls for the United States to either leave Iraq immediately or according to a fixed time table.  While this is well and good, it is nothing more than a “cut our losses” sequel to the eventual opposition by liberal Democrats to the Vietnam war.  It is an approach which leaves the US military budget at its fully bloated level and all non-Iraqi military expenditures in place.  One of its intents is to make sure that one component of the Vietnam Syndrome, passive popular opposition to US military activity, is not reborn as an Iraq Syndrome.  In combination, the two syndromes would make future imperialist wars, such as an attack on Iran, a harder political sell by Washington.

5)   Retrenchment is not enough:   Somewhat to the left of the US-out-of-Iraq-now position are the moderate anti-imperialists, such as Chalmers Johnson, who contend that the US is an overextended or overstretched empire which needs to contract to avoid wide spread antagonisms and blowback to the United States, as well as domestic implosion from collapsing local government infrastructure and services.  Their formula is to retrench the world-wide network of US bases and to reduce many weapons systems and troop levels. While admirable goals, and reminiscent of the critique of British imperialism offered by John Hobson, their approach is unscientific wishful thinking.  

From the standpoint of capital, imperialism is essential because of the greater profitability of foreign investment.  “Overextension” is therefore an essential cost and risk of doing business.  Since maximization of profit is inherent to capitalism, all mature capitalist countries – not just the United States – will engage in both the economic and militaristic aspects of imperialism.  In fact, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman -- quite ironically – made this argument as follows:

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.  McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." -- Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree

Historically, Friedman’s analysis applies to all previous colonial empires.  And, after the collapse of U.S. hegemony, as predicted by Johnson and others, the successor hegemons will also be bound by the same demands.

6)   Examples of local anti-imperialist activities.  Each local community creates many opportunities to engage in anti-imperialist and related work which allows us to act locally, but demonstrate through these local actions, that we are linked to and hurt by the foreign components of U.S. imperialism.  Some examples are:

o        Resistance to cutbacks.  Nearly all levels of state and local government have been subject to rigorous cutbacks, and there is every indication that they will increase.  We not only need to be opposed to cutbacks but oppose them in such a way that our fellow protesters will understand that these cutbacks are blowback from a $451 Pentagon budget, from over $300 billion spent so far to invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, and from $50 billion per year spent on Homeland Security.  In short, our job is to connect the dots by making sure that every article about cutbacks and that every political action against cutbacks reminds readers and participants that this is one of the major prices the public pays for imperialism.

o        Opposition to recruitment. Sophisticated opposition to recruiters on high school and college campuses is essential.  It is not enough to deny recruiter mailing addresses, to confront them, and to rebut their claims.  Our job is to make sure that students fully understand why the Iraq war happened and why it has made military recruitment so difficult.  We also need to tell the story of the Vietnam War, and how the domestic anti-war movement spread its arguments and sometimes its members into the military – with phenomenal success in ending that war.

o        Soldier coffee houses.  For those already in the military, whether by choice or a victim of deceit, we need to reestablish the large network of coffee houses near military bases.  This time they not only need to offer good coffee, they also need to provide a range of books and articles on imperialism which soldiers can read or even take with them in order to bring the anti-imperialist movement into the military.

o        Draft Counseling:  When the draft starts again, we also need to participate in draft counseling centers and make sure that question of imperialism gets placed front and center to the counselees.  They deserve more than pacifism.  This is because the small trickle of progressive young people kept out of the military through draft counseling will not stop the war machine, while a vibrant anti-imperialist movement among both civilians and soldiers can.

o        Educators against the War:  Several months ago a group of local New York City teachers unions joined together to create Educators Against the War.  Their New York City conference attracted over 750 teachers and students from the east coast, and the organization is now expanding to other cities.  Since teachers appear to be the most progressive element of organized labor, and since most teachers are unionized, this is one of the few ways in which the labor movement can be mobilized, at the local level to organize against imperialism.   If you are in an educators union or have friends who are, this may be one of the most promising tactics to disperse a criticism of imperialism to a critical element of the population: students and their teachers. 

All of these suggestions, which are only the tip of the iceberg, have a common theme: direct actions.  They are all non-electoral strategies which evade the swamp of lesser-evil politics and remove good people from mesmerizing grip of neo-liberal politicians.  The latter have mastered the art of negative campaigning, to convince many progressive people to leave the streets and to make the voting booth their focus, never to be heard from again. 

This is a call to avoid that trap, to keep the political focus of local anti-imperialist actions on day-to-day direct activities despite the politicians and their neo-liberal and increasingly neo-conservative agendas