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[OPIRG-EVENTS] Fw: no_to_nato Fw: From Stan Goff (fmr officer US Army) regarding "response".


<Date: September 16, 2001 10:52 AM
Subject: no_to_nato Fw: From Stan Goff (fmr officer US Army) regarding
"response".


>PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
>
>A Former US Army Officer turned radical has responded to the opinion that we
>must scale back our political activism.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@tao.ca>
>To: <vancouver@lists.tao.ca>; Socialist Register
><SOCIALIST-REGISTER@YorkU.CA>; Project X <project-x@sfu.ca>
>Cc: <marxist@yahoogroups.com>; <aut-op-sy@lists.village.virginia.edu>;
><pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>; <anti-capitalism@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 9:56 AM
>Subject: [anti-capitalism] From Stan Goff (fmr officer US Army) regarding
>"response".
>
>
>> (Non-list addresses are BCC'd )
>>
>> In reply to another Rad-Green listmember who believes we need to scale
>back our
>> demands/actions in face of what is coming- stating that we have no real
>power
>> based on the situation (as it currently is) here and in America. Retired
>US Army
>> Veteran-come radical Stan Goff speaks on what we must do. I ask people to
>> forward this far and wide- it is important right now, and Stan is (as
>usual)
>> helping find clarity during a blackout.
>>
>> I urge you all to get people reading this.
>>
>> Macdonald Stainsby
>>
>> -------
>> -------
>> I couldn't possibly disagree more.
>>
>> Since the savage attacks of September 11th, we have seen the unfolding of
>a
>> national ritual denunciation of this crime that is much more than an
>expression
>> of outrage and sadness.
>>
>> If the ritual is performed incompletely or incorrectly, one risks the
>charge of
>> heresy.
>>
>> It's the new McCarthyism, and this is the new loyalty oath.
>>
>> A disciplined military-financial-industrial press is harmonizing us, and
>the
>> orchestra director is our de facto executive branch.
>>
>> Heresies include:
>>
>> (1) the failure to call for war or support out "leaders" when they call
>for war,
>> (2) the denial that this can be reduced to a test between good and evil,
>> (3) the refusal to accept official explanations,
>> (4) the temerity to suggest that our own rulers have committed equally
>offensive
>> actions,
>> (5) and finally, that our own financial, political, military, and
>intelligence
>> establishments bear a portion of the blame.
>>
>> I retired from the Army in February, 1996, after some 24 years of service.
>>
>> "Special operations" was my field.
>>
>> That gives me a perspective on this military-macho posturing that seems to
>have
>> seized the whole country.
>>
>> The military, industrial, and political establishment are cashing in on
>this
>> tragedy, and it shouldn't serve as an excuse to be stupid.
>>
>> This can not be allowed to provoke a retreat by progressives.
>>
>> The admirable and poignant solidarity of New Yorkers, and many across the
>> nation, is being contaminated by a military fetish, a mindless phallic
>> nationalism, and instead of seeking solutions, we are seeking enemies.
>>
>> And we'll find them.
>>
>> History sent us a warning, but we're not listening.
>>
>> Herr Hitler announced with a familiar combination of grief-stricken
>solemnity
>> and manly outrage, on February 27, 1933, "Gentlemen, the Reichstag is on
>fire."
>>
>> We ought to pay attention to this.
>>
>> We've got to interrupt this war talk, and we've got to do it aggressively
>and on
>> a mass scale, because MUCH is at stake.
>>
>> And we've got to interrupt it with more than an appeal against xenophobia
>and
>> the abrogation of civil liberties.
>>
>> We are responsible to shift attention from the motives of "Usama bin Laden
>and
>> his legions of demonic followers" to the motives of the Bush
>Administration and
>> the capitalist governments of Europe.
>>
>> I've come to assume, from my own experience, that anything I hear from the
>State
>> Department or the FBI is apt to be... less than truthful.
>>
>> Officialdom doesn't make statements to represent reality.
>>
>> It constructs stories to pursue interests.
>>
>> Whether those stories conform to reality is incidental.
>>
>> This attack will benefit the militarists in this country far more than it
>will
>> benefit anyone else, and I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
>>
>> Progressives in the US have reason to be afraid.
>>
>> This unforgivable act of inhumanity will be used as an excuse to crack
>down on
>> dissent here, to engage in military aggression against other peoples, and
>to
>> whip up an already more-than-latent anti-Muslim xenophobia.
>>
>> But the key thing to understand here is that this is pulling a lot of
>political
>> and economic cookies out of the fire, or so dangerous buffoons like Bush
>> believe, and is leading us to disaster.
>>
>> There is quite simply no security system in the world that can not be
>bypassed,
>> and there is no way to protect absolutely against these kinds of attacks.
>>
>> When we accept this premise, we have to conclude that overwhelming
>violence in
>> retaliation for these kinds of acts will not bring such acts to an end,
>but
>> escalate the levels of overall violence.
>>
>> An Israeli-like response will bring with it an Israeli-like situation, on
>a
>> global level.  In a very short step, we can tumble from chauvinism into
>the
>> abyss of repression and tribalism.
>>
>> U. S. military might and the willingness to use it is not only not the
>solution,
>> it's a powerful contributing factor to terrorism, when it is combined with
>the
>> arrogance and impunity of our foreign policies.
>>
>> We have the capability to overwhelm any conventional military force in the
>> world, so no one in the world has the option to oppose those forces in a
>> conventional way.
>>
>> When those forces or allied forces are the ultimate guarantors of
>intolerable
>> situations, or when the sovereignty of nations is swept aside,
>unconventional
>> means will inevitably be employed.
>>
>> If I would rather die fighting than go on living as I am, and I can't
>build a
>> Tomahawk Cruise missile, then I can learn to fly a Boeing 767.
>>
>> Progressives can't withdraw from the scene.
>>
>> I urge people to revisit the post by Mark Jones on the world energy
>system.
>>
>>
>> QUOTE  "The extremely finite nature of petroleum reserves was always the
>> Achilles heel of industrial capitalism, and even now it is the great blind
>spot,
>> the great point of denial at the heart of the priesthood's theology of
>growth
>> and accumulation.
>>
>> "World oil is already in sharp and irreversible decline. We remain more
>than
>> ever dependent on Saudi and Iraqi oil reserves. Everything else is being
>or has
>> already been, used up. Yet it is precisely here in this volatile
>geopolitical
>> tinderbox that America and its allies are now planning to wage new,
>intensified
>> war. It is hard to imagine a more suicidal course of action. As often
>before in
>> history, the hubris of ruling classes conceals some real stupidity.
>>
>> "War in the Middle East and South Asia and Afghanistan is ultimately going
>to be
>> a war for control over oil. WHAT SEEMS TO BE IN PROSPECT IS A MILITARY
>> OCCUPATION OF THE OIL FIELDS BY THE MAJOR CAPITALIST STATES [Stan's caps],
>> against the will of the masses there and in the teeth of furious
>resistance.
>> This does not look like a promising way to guarantee long-term and vital
>energy
>> supplies. Without Persian Gulf oil, world capitalism will be snuffed out
>quicker
>> than the Mayan empire was. Waging war against the local population seems
>to be
>> the one surefire way to lose Arab oil forever." CLOSE QUOTE
>>
>> That's why action, even action with risks, is so critical.
>>
>> Mark further pointed out that events are out of the control of the global
>> bosses, who are now blundering from one reaction to the next in a system
>that
>> was already incredibly unstable.
>>
>> We were already, before this catalytic event, somnambulating into the
>hell-hole
>> of this global ecological, economic, and political crisis.
>>
>> I think it's absolutely certain, with the course we're now on, that there
>WILL
>> be massive dislocation, suffering, and degradation-and we shall not be
>spared
>> this time.
>>
>> This attack on September 11th did not happen in a social or historical
>vacuum.
>>
>> If the conceit of our rulers is contributing directly to the bewilderment
>of the
>> people, this implies to me that for clarity among the masses, the solution
>is
>> not support for this priesthood of the market, and not acquiescence to
>this de
>> facto political leadership, but on the contrary, its replacement.
>>
>> The struggle is not for justice, but for survival.
>>
>> These loons are talking about WWIII, because in their undying hubris they
>really
>> believe they can win it, because they think it will bolster the economy,
>and
>> because they see what looks like an opportunity.
>>
>> If we are to fight for sanity and survival, it's our duty now to be
>stubborn and
>> have the courage of our convictions.
>>
>> Now is not the time to go silent and wait this out.
>>
>> It's not going to blow over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>
>> >From a purely tactical standpoint, NOW is the best opportunity we will
>have to
>> fight back, NOT after this madness has had more time to develop.
>>
>> And given the climate that will develop if this madness progresses, there
>will
>> be risks.
>>
>> There will be witch-hunts.
>>
>> Ironically, we are now in the same position, I think, as the pilots of
>those
>> planes that were hijacked, forced to choose between bad and worse.
>>
>> Denial of this dilemma only contributes to the problem.
>>
>> Right now is the time for progressives to show up and grow up.
>>
>> Audre Lorde summed up our situation about as nicely as anyone I can
>imagine, so
>> I'll close with her statement:
>>
>> "Your silence will not protect you."
>> -------------------------------------------
>> Macdonald Stainsby
>> Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
>> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
>> ----
>> Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin.
>> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
>> ----
>> In the contradiction lies the hope.
>>                                      --Bertholt Brecht
>>
>>
>>
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