Monday, August 11, 2003

An interview with Michael Walzer: "My critique of French and German policy doesn't have much to do with just war theory. It is a much more general moral/political critique, having to do with hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than with injustice. France and Germany did not refuse to fight or wrongly resist a just war; they refused to provide what was in their power to provide: a serious alternative to an unjust war. I continue to believe, even at this late date, that had France and Germany (and Russia too) been willing to support, and had the UN Security Council been willing to authorise, a strongly coercive containment regime for Iraq, the war would have been, first, unnecessary, and second, politically impossible for the American government to fight."

This bizarre argument represents the utter decline of official "socialism" and the way in which marxism has been co-opted to the neo-conservative cause. It seems to be an even more widespread phenomenon than we had previously imagined. It is becoming clear that Lyndon Larouche is the "highest stage of Marxism". Naturally it makes you wonder whether La Rouche is still alive or whether he has not enthusiastically joined the neocon cause, a logical development for him if he is still up to it.

The propaganda is quite detached from any genuine popular cause and operates as a machine in the ether, but a machine that is dying and on its last legs, surely. Its only use is as a prop for western "sophisticates" who imagine they can discuss "left and right" but as that is finally exposed nothing remains.

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