Excerpts, minor edit by
Carolyn Bennett
U.S. domestic imperialist “Left”
“For more than twenty years,” WSWS editor David Walsh
writes, “one wave after another of former radicals and liberals has signed up
for Western intervention in the Balkans,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Haiti, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Libya, Syria
and elsewhere to forestall ‘genocide,’ avert ‘mass atrocities,’ block the
use of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘chemical weapons,’ stop the spread of ‘Islamo-fascism,’
bring ‘democracy’ and ‘stability’ to various global flashpoints, and so forth.
“These social forces, whose task is to confuse and benumb
the population with arguments that falsely make use of ‘left’ terminology and
phrases, have become prominent mouthpieces for imperialist policy.…”
However, Walsh
concludes, “genuine political health and wisdom begin in the U.S. and
internationally … by separating and demarcating oneself as firmly and distinctly
as possible from the phony ‘human rights’ campaigners, the feminist moralizers,
and the pro-imperialist ‘left.’”
U.S. international imperialist “Left”
WSWS writer Alex Lantier commenting on a recent “‘Open
letter on the future of Ukraine’ issued by a group of Western academics and
foreign policy operatives” calls it “a vile defense of the ongoing far-right
protests in Ukraine supported by Washington and the European Union (EU).” This letter, he says, “peddles the old lie,
repeated over nearly a quarter century of imperialist wars and interventions in
Eastern Europe since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991: that U.S. and EU policy is driven only by a disinterested love of
democracy and human rights.”
Some of the signers of this open letter “are top diplomats
or ‘non-governmental’ imperialist operatives … [but most] are academics and
intellectuals who are lending their names to give credibility to far-right
reaction in Ukraine, through a foul combination of learned ignorance and
historic blindness.…
“After decades of intellectual war on Marxism in
universities and the media,” Lantier concludes, “cultural life is in a
disastrous state … and these layers [of Western academics and foreign policy
operatives] are left unmoved by imperialist crimes — the destruction of Fallujah during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the
drone murder campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, their pens
spring into action when EU politicians excite their moral glands by denouncing
regimes targeted for imperialist intervention. They can be led by the nose,
even behind fascists, with a few empty invocations of human rights.”
Sources and notes
“In latest ‘human rights’ crusade, NY Times’ Kristof
promotes allegations against Woody Allen” by David Walsh, February 5, 2014, http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/05/alle-f05.html
“Ukraine and the Pro-Imperialist Intellectuals” by Alex
Lantier, Global Research, February 5, 2014, World Socialist Web Site [Region:
Europe, Russia and FSU], http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-and-the-pro-imperialist-intellectuals/5367496
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/05/pers-f05.html
Alex Lantier writes regularly for the World Socialist Web
Site and his articles have appeared in a variety of other news sources online, including
Global Research (Ca.), Countercurrents and Axis of Logic.
Writer and journalist David Walsh is arts editor of the
World Socialist Web Site and writes about film, the arts, politics and
history.
http://www.indiewire.com/critic/david_walsh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walsh_(writer)
_______________________________________________
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
_______________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment