From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Tue Mar 04 2003 - 10:16:35 EST
Hans, Howard, and others: I think we have to make more explicit the character of the current struggle not only in terms of inter-imperialist rivalry and the economic crisis in the US and internationally but also in terms of class struggle. Some brief -- and provocative? -- notes in that regard: 1) The context in which this drive to war is taking place has to be understood with reference to the "War on Terrorism" which as John M noted in [8539] has become, amongs other things, a vehicle for the repression of the Left and of workers' movements internationally. Indeed, part of the "War on Terrorism" has been a real war on selected insurgency movements in the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere (was this what Howard had in mind re "national and popular struggles in the Third World" in [8527]?). 2) Yet, this same drive to war has already given rise to a mass movement against the war. This, for our purposes, is more important than the opposition of certain bourgeois governments to war with Iraq at this time. Indeed, *IS IT TOO SOON TO CLAIM THAT WE ARE SEEING THE BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER WORLD-WIDE RADICALIZATION?* This radicalization has both a potentially revolutionary character and, in some parts of the world where it is more closely linked to Islamic fundamentalism, a potentially regressive character. Yet, if we compare the numbers of people worldwide who have been mobilized by the anti-war movement to the numbers of people who were mobilized after Seattle as part of the anti-globalization movement, I think it is fair to say that the current movement has become a truly *MASS* movement. Perhaps more than anything else, the creation of this mass movement may prove to be the "main" contradiction behind the war on Iraq. Solidarity, Jerry
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