Left and Right Against the Military Industrial Complex

That's the nature of capitalism: In the unbridled persuit of riches, it causes its own (and everyone and everything else's) destruction. We need Mother Earth to survive; Mother Earth doesn't need us to survive.

If you're referring to me, I'm an athiest with Buddhist leanings.

I used the Mother Earth imagery in contrast to capitalism, materialism, greed, war, violence, paranoia, seeking after power and control, etc., which (in my opinion are "masculin") the pursuit of these "masculin endeavors" results in us raping the earth and the planet on which we live and fellow human and other beings we share this world with.

thanks wrote:

-acknowledge bolshevik abuses, acknowledge current Russian abuses, acknowledge backroom deals of western rightists with eg. Stalin when they bought grain stolen from dead peasants.

As far as I'm concerned, the Bolsheviks were never leftists; they were only believed to be so for a time, until they pulled their midnight coup and began repressing the left in Russia. Which resulted in the revolution refocussing on the Bolsheviks in the Third Russian Revolution aka the Left Wing Uprising, really just a continuation of the same revolution, and ultimately brutally stomped down by Bolshevik thugs. They even slaughtered the exact people who had stormed the Winter Palace and enabled them to come to power in the first place, during the Kronstadt Uprising, and then had the audacity to sip champagne and celebrate the bicentennial of the Paris Commune the next day - while the original revolutionaries were having their fingernails pulled out and being lined up before firing squads.

They certainly weren't Marxist - being that they wiped out the worker-controlled Factory Committees in favour of state-sponsored organizations, something that Marx utterly loathed (see "Critique of the Gotha Program"), spoke in favour of a personal dictatorship (again, Marx spits at this) and imposed wage labour on groups already implementing Marx's system of labour certificates (an outright attack on Marxist practice). Incidentally causing a catastrophic economic collapse. They just liked to use Marx's name and photo and the catchphrases associated with the movement to brand themselves, but the remnants of the Marxist movement they labelled "Kautskyism" and dismissed.

Finally they were notorious exploiters of not only the peasants, but the proletariat too. Lenin at one point even threatened to execute workers in Bolshevik print shops by decimation (one in ten to be shot) because, he claimed, they were lazy shirkers. Even the worst capitalists, at least in the industrialized world, didn't go that far.

Wrapping oneself up in red flag and tacked a photo of Karl to one's forehead is just a branding exercise, an usurpation.

The right may frequently criticize the Bolsheviks in a sophomoric way, but the most powerful, informed and damning criticisms actually tend to come from the left. I've seen supporters of Lenin or Trotsky who know their stuff trounce some very good right-wing debaters, simply because the right doesn't really have a very powerful critique of Bolshevism and they were left floundering without the facts. Similarly, I've seen Marxists eat defenders of Lenin etc for breakfast.

Daedalus wrote:

Finally they were notorious exploiters of not only the peasants, but the proletariat too. Lenin at one point even threatened to execute workers in Bolshevik print shops by decimation (one in ten to be shot) because, he claimed, they were lazy shirkers. Even the worst capitalists, at least in the industrialized world, didn't go that far.

In fact capitalists and their hirelings in cosmetic governments went much further in the war on democracy.

was going to say that we probably should call the 'Military industrial complex' the 'Military-industrial Finance-Insurance-Real-Estate-energy- media- security Complex.' =  Mi Fire 'ems Complex.  Fire' em all.  it's an unhealthy complex.

an item over at the Sri Lanka III thread that thirusuj posted, from a South Asia centre, commented on the economy and the situation there, the country was bankrupt.  another article talked about the likely inevitability of a Tamil State in future, given the obscene behaviour of the current rulers in Colombo, and their army, supported by powerful rulers of other countries, (and those who mouth platitudes and do nothing.) 

it seems the entire world is bankrupt. even the earth has been rupted by the banks.  so different nature-and-people-run set-ups are needed. i guess this is where the details in differences between 'leftists' and 'rightists' get important. 

as i understand it, and tell me if i'm wrong, 'rightists' are defined as those who don't like to have any kind of set-up other than a 'market'-based one that is effectively controlled by people who know how to play 'the market', (whatever that is, these days.)  'leftists' like to have set-ups where people get together and make decisions about how to organize things.

there is a possibility for more dialogue and maybe more convergence these days because the majority of people who may have considered themselves 'rightists' are doing very poorly in 'the market', so they don't really trust that system now.  and there is more openness on the part of those who consider themselves 'leftists' to critique the behaviour of so-called 'socialist' regimes of the past. 

so out of this maybe there are ways to talk about what kind of structures the majority of peoples in any given area might find possible and/or useful.

Q: What are the moral values that create a military-industrial complex and drive its actions?

A: When money has more value than human (and all other) life.

The U.S. used Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda as proxy gladios to spread its military and economic influence in Central Asia:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23173.htm

http://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2009/08/09/an-antiwar-effort/

"So what is to be done? Who can turn the tide? It seems that this great and crucial contribution can be made by the libertarian and the paleocons [the original right]. They speak the language of patriotism, 'isolationism,' and individual liberty, which are certainly not the first words that pop onto the tongues of the Left. But these ideas are part of the bedrock of the ideology informing the population from which the soldiers of empire are drawn"

If you lose the heartland, you lose the war.

George Victor wrote:

Is the heartland in Canada the rural/smalltown supporter of Steve?

Absolutely, the Canadian military is full of them (all ranks). The burned over bible belt in the B.C. interior where I live is a rotten pocket borough for Stevo and the Conjobs. The loud mouthed (vocal paper writers, radio call in speakers, etc) con. minority all rabidly support the war. Although they have been quieter of late. Perhaps the reality of what is going on in Afghanistan is sinking in and strongly supporting the war is seen as a liability. This hasn't translated (yet) to a drop in Conservative Party support.

George Victor wrote:

I would think that, in the burning of B.C this summer, they will be inclined to take up belief in climate change as well, eh?

 

You'd think so, but unfortunately, they have a Con. luddite attitude toward climate change. This is fueled by self appointed (paid?) big oil mouthpieces who get large spaces reserved for them by the editors of the local newspapers.

"And it isn't just the voices of Rockwell and Paul arguing that a coherent limited government vision only resorts to war as a last resort. Many of our patriotic forefathers also were weary of endless interventions abroad. It was none other than George Washington himself who advised his fellow countrymen to avoid foreign entanglements. Author Bill Kaufman wrote a 2008 book entitled 'Ain't my America: the long, noble history of antiwar conservatism and middle-American anti-imperialism', where he concludes that there 'is a long and honorable ... tradition of antiwar thought and action among the American right.'"

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/foreign-policy/1725