still baffled

Randy,

I think your position has shifted from one of suggesting that those
powers that do not commit atrocities on the urban populations of the
core
are, to that  extent, better than powers that do to a position that
concedes that this is true primarily if one adopts a racist point of
view that values the lives of workers elsewhere less than the lives of
workers closer to where one lives. I have other disagreements,
particularly about the history of the Soviet Union (the main difference
between the "gulags" and the U.S. prison system is that those in the
U.S.
prison system are almost exclusively from the most disadvantaged segment

of workers; the U.S. imprisons far more than the Soviets ever did and
has
a huge system of prison labor), but these can be left for another time.

Paul

On
Sun, 30 Apr 2000, The McDonald Family wrote:

> At 08:51 AM 4/30/2000 -0500, you wrote:
> >So the issue is "what is the political significance of what the
> >"residents" (workers? capitalists?) of those countries thought.
>
> It's the ideology that gained preeminence among the governing elite,
and
> seems to have been supported by many among the working and middle
classes,
>
> >And what
> >is the political significance of whether "totalitarianism" (your
word,
> >not mine, a horrible word that lumps together the Nazis who committed
the
> >holocaust with the Soviet-led international partisans and Red Armymen
who
> >defeated the Nazis)
>
> I've already stated that unlike the Nazi regime in Germany, the
Communist
> regime in the Soviet Union and its satellite states did have _some_
durable,
> positive achievements. Nazi Germany only destroyed; the Soviet Union
also
> created.
>
> But still, there were the gulags, and the famines (as artificial as
the
> Potato Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1848, or the Bengal famine under
the
> Rajh in 1943). And the Soviet conquest of the Baltic States, for
instance,
> was as blatantly imperialist as the Nazi absorption of the
Sudetenland.
>
> >is one place rather than another?
>
> As I have said already, it is of significance mainly to those people
living
> in countries that felt that imperialism is the only way to survive
power
> differentials with other aggressive states, particularly totalitarian
> states. It is of significance since in the future, the Triad's
component
> regions, along with the more ambitious of the Second World states, may
turn
> again to imperialism as a perceived refuge against the horrors that
may grow
> up worldwide if the Kondratieff up-cycle doesn't lead to a greater
> dispersion of wealth. It is of significance since most people, when
> presented with a choice -- false dichotomy or otherwise -- between
> oppressing people living outside of their national/regional in-group
and
> oppressing in-group members, they'll go for out-groups.
>
> ?You must say why you
> >think any of this has significance for what we should do to fight for
the
> >interests of workers everywhere. If you make a distinction between
> >workers in one place and those in another and imply that this is
> >important, you must say why. As I said, the obvious account of its
> >significance is a racist one.
>
> I am reporting on the distinction, not advocating it. It _is_ a racist

> distinction, though not necessarily so -- why isn't it possible to
imagine a
> non-Western nation-state engaging in a kind of defensive imperialism
against
> the West, or a part thereof? If most of the world's wealth is
concentrated
> in the Triad and a few favoured Second World partners, then
imperialism may
> well come into vogue as a means of supposed self-defense. It'll
probably end
> up in blood and fire, but that may not stop imperialism's resurgence.
It
> will lead to a racist world, very probably one that will be the
perfect
> tinder for global socialist revolution.
>
> What should be done to ward of this possibility? Well, we should try
to
> generate more wealth worldwide, and to ensure that it gets distributed
with
> a reasonable amount of equity on national, regional, class, ethnic,
gender
> terms. A good way to do that is to oppose exploitative economic
institutions
> such as the IMF, and to favour the adoption of fair trade measures and

> perhaps even a global keynesianism/social democracy. If Kerala can do
it,
> then why not the entire world?
>
> >Paul
>