Enemy Of My Enemy

Today a post about the reactionary left and the folly of blindly opposing everything America does, and then blindly taking the side of anyone and anything that opposes America's crimes. I'm talking about reactionary leftists that try to paint America's ideological opponents and the victims of American imperialism as some kind of heroes, even when they're clearly not.

_{Image by GDJ - source: Pixabay}

Much has been said and written about the far right and the reactionary right, especially since and leading up to the current Trump era. The reaction to the failed politics of exaggerated political correctness and identity politics has birth a time in which bigoted, racist politically incorrect speech and politics are increasingly normalized. White male privilege is real, the patriarchy is real, systemic racism is real, certainly, but what's also real is that most white men have been disenfranchised by neoliberal economics as well. What happens when your political leaders constantly talk about the special problems of minorities, when they give special attention to women, LGBT people, people of color and immigrants while at the same time do nothing to stop the erosion of the middle class and the outsourcing of jobs that hurt everybody? Well, it's not hard to imagine that the only group that's never mentioned, that's constantly told that they're privileged because of their sex and skin-color will feel left out yet again; looking at it like this it's clear to see how white men are betrayed by their ruling elites not once, but twice. The sad thing is that many of them direct their hatred against the perceived cause of the second betrayal, the women, the immigrants, black and brown people, instead of the architects of their misery, the ruling elite who are mostly old white men indeed...

There's also a dangerous reactionary left however, and that's not discussed nearly often enough. I'm talking about the leftists who take their fight against American imperialism, which is really western imperialism with America as its base of operations, one step too far by painting America's enemies as saints. What I mean is that it's good to condemn the Trump administration for the war crime of assassinating general Soleimani of Iran, but some leftists then go on to say that Soleimani was some sort of hero, a proverbial David taking on the imperialist Goliath, and that's not good. Yes, Soleimani was pivotal in the fight against ISIS, but that doesn't take away that he was feared, loved and hated by Iranians, and it doesn't take away that Iran is a far right theocracy. These leftists say that the massive turnout for the general's funeral is an indication of how much the Iranian people love him, when in actuality it's the people uniting against foreign forces dictating their lifes. On the other hand many people claim (I've never been there myself) that Iran is one of the most liberal countries in the region and it is verifiably more liberal than Saudi Arabia, one of the two American true allies in the region (Israel being the other one). I myself wrote many times about how supportive the Iranian people were right after the 9/11 attacks. It's complicated, but there's no way you can just justify everything Iran and its leadership does, for the sole reason that it's a victim of western imperialism, which is shaped by the same neoliberal mechanics that pitted white males against the protected classes.

There are no saints. Progressives and conservatives alike will usually fail any so called "purity test"; even Bernie Sanders supported the Afghan war in the beginning. What makes Bernie rather special is that he admits it, that he clearly states "I was wrong," and that he praises the courage of Barbara Lee, the only member of the U.S. House of Representatives who opposed that war in 2001. Yeah, remember Barbara Lee's courage people; amidst the war drums and flag-rallying she was the only voice of reason when she stood before the House on September 14th 2001, only three days after the awful terrorist attack, as you can see in the above linked video.

"Well, only one person, my good friend, Barbara Lee, was right on that issue. She was the only person in the House to vote against the war in Afghanistan. She was right. I was wrong. So was everybody else in the House."
_{source: Bernie Sanders - Common Dreams, December 20, 2019}

Yes, the reactionary right is wrong to constantly point to Venezuela as a typical example of what socialism leads to, but it's also wrong to ignore the errors made by the Maduro regime and to try to pretend that there's no humanitarian crisis over there right now, which I've seen some leftists do. Yes, China is an economical powerhouse that's responsible for the lion's share of raising the poor into the middle class in the world, but China's dictatorial flavor of state-capitalism isn't the way forward and should not be defended just because it's America's major opponent on the global economic stage. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

In closing, here's Hugo Chavez in 2006 before the United Nations General Assembly calling Bush "the devil" and accusing him of imperialism. Chavez had earned the right to make these accusations; although he profited of the oil prices during his regime, he was a true progressive and truly concerned with his people, and I love how he clearly indicates that Bush, the devil, is also an enemy of the American people themselves. I hope this comes across, as it's a fine and complicated line to walk on. I guess this is just a reminder for left to stick to the essentials, keep focus on fighting the real fight against the ruling class that divides us nationally and internationally. The real fight is the one of the working classes of the world against the neoliberal global elite. The book shown by Chavez in the video is the Spanish version of Noam Chomsky's book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance a study of the American empire:

Chomsky's main argument in Hegemony or Survival is that the socio-economic elite who control the United States have pursued an "Imperial Grand Strategy" since the end of World War II to maintain global hegemony through military, political, and economic means. He argues that in doing so they have repeatedly shown a total disregard for democracy and human rights, in stark contrast to the US government's professed support for those values.
_{source: Wikipedia}

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