Reaction can not be ignored or left on the shelf: it must be exposed in a public tribunal - or it will return

Reaction can not be ignored or left on the shelf: it must be exposed in a public tribunal - or it will return


By Andrew Taylor, May 10, 2009

Afghan students demonstrated against the US today holding up banners that said America is "the biggest terrorist in the world".

There can be no lasting gains by the US working people in social programs or legislation unless the War Machine is rebuked and the Bush regime charged with crimes of war against the peoples.

Why is this renunciation of Militarism necessary? look at 20th century history. The Great Depression should show us first, that capitalism doesn't need liberalism or democracy to be successful. Second, in times of capitalist crisis, the people are susceptible to the messages from the most reactionary forces. The majority of Italian and German workers backed away from social-democracy and marxism to embrace fascist regimes . We have not transcended the social forces of the 20th century. Just as a 21st century socialism is a possibility, so equally is 21st century fascism

Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel about a "made in the USA" Fascist takeover in the 1930s entitled "It Can't Happen Here". The moral of all this is that the most decisive measures must be taken against the Bush-Cheney war-mongers because they are lurking in the wings and will come back. Progressive legislation can be annulled with the stroke of a pen of a future far-right president.

To ensure that this Obama movement contributes enduring victories to the US working class, the American Left must soberly assess their national history, assess the current imperialist Af-Pak policies of Obama-Gates, and mount the fight for charges against the Bush-Cheney war lovers. In so doing they will dig a pit for the cornerstone of progressive social legislation that can only be built on the disgraced, and divested of its current enduring power in the national military and Intel establishment.

US Democracy was immeasurably strengthened in 1970s US by The Watergate Hearings and the Church Committee's investigation of Intel. Where would the world be if the superpower had not purged the most rotten elements in the administration and Intel? (There is a good reason Jimmy Carter didn't lauch a major war)

Obama would not have been as amenable to the current process of steppig up a new and improved Pakistan and Afghanistan war scenario if the Bush militarists were now facing possible trial for high crimes. Reaction can not be ignored or left intact: it must be crushed in a publicly accountable tribunal - or it will surely return. And based on history, who can say that the Obama administration's current policy on US foreign wars is a wise tactic?