[We have seen immoral and dysfunctional violence and expansionism.
There are many Israelis and Palestinians engaged in promoting an
equitable settlement of the conflict, but they have been hindered by
established parties in various governments and ext]
[[link removed]]

BEYOND TERRORISM AND MILITARISM: AN ALTERNATIVE TO SURPLUS POLITICAL
VIOLENCE  
[[link removed]]


 

Jonathan Michael Feldman
October 26, 2023
The Global Teach-In
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ We have seen immoral and dysfunctional violence and expansionism.
There are many Israelis and Palestinians engaged in promoting an
equitable settlement of the conflict, but they have been hindered by
established parties in various governments and ext _

Source: Author adapted from Pixabay.,

 

_People who act as if terrorists aren’t responsible for their
actions are de facto apologists for terrorists. The same for
militarists. Those who simply blame Israel for all of Hamas’s
actions eliminate free will. Those who simply blame Hamas for all of
Israel’s actions similarly eliminate free will. Terrorism is
triggered by grievances and the mobilizing capacity and free will or
agency of terrorists. Militarism is triggered by grieivances and the
mobilizing capacity and free will or agency of militarists. The
necessary call for a cease fire rightly assumes that Israel has agency
to stop slaughter. Similarly that logic of agency suggests that Hamas
was not compelled to act out of a sense of grievance. This argument
derives from Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of responsibility in the
face of grievances which he makes in the book Anti-Semite and Jew
[[link removed]]._ _Claims that Hamas
militants used drugs
[[link removed]] to
dull their sense of responsibility before committing mass murder
further underlines the logic here. __It should be noted, however,
that some grievances are more valid than others._

Militaries can use “terror” (think about the US bombing of Iraq or
Russia’s bombing of Ukraine) and terrorists can use military power
(think about the recent Hamas border incursion or ISIS’s use of
military power to enhance terror). Yet, there are key distinctions
between the warring parties in the cycle of violence between state and
non-state actors directing violence and these can be readily
identified, e.g. we know that ISIS and the US military were on
opposing sides. State and non-state actors can combine military power
and terror, but the larger point here is that they both engage in the
surplus use of political violence. It is precisely the aspects of
their similarity and not difference which is being emphasized here,
although the differences can be important.

THE LIMITS OF RIGHT AND LEFT

The war in Ukraine exposed the limits of part of the electoral left
[[link removed]] to
oppose militarism. The Israel-Gaza crisis now exposes part of the
social movement left’s
[[link removed]] inability
to oppose terrorism. In the former (“solidarity” with Ukraine),
the left supported the very forces that part of the left now opposes,
i.e. the U.S. militarist system now aligned with Israel. In the latter
(“solidarity” with Hamas), the part of the left supporting Hamas
now supports the very Iran-Russian alliance engaged in violence
against Ukraine. Of course, some support weapons for Ukraine but not
Hamas or _vice versa_. This hardly reverses the geopolitical
labyrinth in which significant or visible segments of the left are
trapped in. Politicians in the Republican Party and others blindly
championing military aid for Israel and opposing aid for Ukraine
merely reveal their “coherence” in supporting transnational
militarism at the expense of more equitable and efficient diplomatic
solutions. Part of the Democratic Party has hoped to gain domestically
by supporting militarism without diplomacy in Ukraine. Part of the
Republican Party has hoped to gain domestically by supporting
militarism without diplomacy in Israel. Various parties believe
political violence is the only solution when it is the epitome of a
systemic failure. Even when some coherence
[[link removed]] in the Democratic
Party emerges (condemning Israel, anti-Semitism, and oppression of
Palestinians), it is not usually linked to any coherent program of
demilitarization _per se_, e.g. as opposed to specific votes on
military aid packages and “even handed” discourse.

This essay is a response to the painful and superficial analysis often
found in parts of both the right and the left, where superficiality
and avoidance of reality sometimes mirror each other. It is clear that
terrorism and militarism are inter-related and twin evils, but moving
beyond them requires more than flag waving platitudes and
“solidarity.” The war on Ukraine has clearly illustrated how
quickly “solidarity” morphs into militarism, which I define as the
surplus use of violence to achieve aims over and above legitimate,
possible or worth fighting for security aims. I am not talking about
pacificism, in which violence is always deemed immoral. I am talking
about cycles of violence
[[link removed]], which
often render the use of military violence counter-productive to
achieve basic security needs. As the Parisian School of International
Relations states: “security can lead to _(in)security_” (with an
unfortunate deployment of parentheses). This essay argues that we need
to establish a movement beyond terrorism and militarism, an analysis
that builds on my earlier observations
[[link removed]] about
the 9-11 crisis. It is also worth noting Seymour
Melman’s observation
[[link removed]]:
“It is appreciated that guerilla forces cannot be overcome by
superior equipment and numbers if the guerillas are ready to die, if
they have popular support, and if the enemy cannot differentiate them
from ordinary people. Hence the U.S. defeat in Vietnam.” So we see
the constraints placed on militarism. Yet, there are similar
constraints on terrorism to achieve its aims as terrorist attacks
trigger military counter-attacks and so on. Of course, if you
use Orwellian logic
[[link removed]] to
deny that terrorists even exist, you can turn a blind eye on terrorism
and even militarism
[[link removed]] for
that matter.

Terrorism and militarism are twin evils, but _parts_ of the left and
right are unable to accept this basic reality because they engage
in _moral relativism
[[link removed]]_ and _knowledge
resistance_ [[link removed]]. Even if one party has
more power and responsibility in historical sequencing and choice, the
cycle of violence illustrates how certain actors with less power can
have more responsibility or a great deal of responsibility for
perpetuating the cycle of violence. This cycle occurs when someone in
group or party _X_ kills someone in group or party _Y_, and then
group _Y_ attacks _X_, and so on. Even if party _X_ is far more
powerful than party _Y_, they can be triggered by party _Y_ to do
things that they would not necessarily do, or do at a scale greater
than they would. Let us assume that party _X_ is the paragon of
evil. If that were the case, protesting against _X _would do
nothing. Change in _X_ requires doing things like finding splits
within _X_‘s constituency base, and working with the more
enlightened parts of _X_. The same goes for _Y_. The creation of
such splits is rendered difficult to impossible by staking out
partisan positions which simply reflect the existential reality
of _X_ or _Y_. The structural power advantages of _X_ don’t
mitigate the choices of _Y_ in the use of tactics, in how power
deficits are transcended, in the use or more or less legitimate or
authentic opposition.

In additon, many will resist this logic by simply defending the moral
claims of their side. Each side has moral claims which create limits
found in moral absolutism. But _moral balance_ represents a way
beyond moral relativism and absolutism. Various authoritarian,
hyper-critical, post-modern, and opportunist approaches make moral
balance impossible. Universities, social movements, transnational
corporations, the military-industrial complex, and other actors are
often agents against moral balance. Left and right movements often
take the form of public relations and advertising agencies, perhaps
because social movements, fundamentalists, NGOs, mass media and other
such actors are subject to corporate
[[link removed]] and foundation
patronage
[[link removed]] or
gain support from governments which flatten reality and nuance. Even
when corporate patronage is lacking, movements can easily create
self-confirming bubbles that oppose nuance.

The following figure (Figure 1) reveals Google Trends data as of
October 20, 2023. The blue reflects points assigned to Google searches
for “Israeli genocide” and “Palestinian genocide.”

FIGURE 1: GOOGLE TRENDS SEARCH FOR “PALESTINIAN GENOCIDE” (RED)
AND “ISRAELI GENOCIDE“ (BLUE)

[[link removed]]

Source: Google Trends search
[[link removed]] by
author, October 20, 2023 (10:45, Stockholm time).

END COLONIALISM AND VARIETIES OF POST-COLONIALISM

Etan Nechin writes
[[link removed]] that
“numerous scholars and writers cited post-colonial thinkers
like Franz Fanon
[[link removed]] and CLR
James
[[link removed]] to
justify violence as an act of ‘decolonization.'” But Nechin
explains that “bludgeoning a Filipino migrant worker to death with a
shovel isn’t an act of liberation; gunning down a fleeing Bedouin
woman in a hijab isn’t resistance; murdering and defiling a body of
a young German citizen isn’t about liberation.” Identitarian and
so-called “post-colonial” approaches are insufficient for
explaining the cycle of violence. In this cycle, militarism helps
beget terrorism and terrorism helps beget militarism (not counting
other variables in the mix). The core problem is how such approaches
often involve the deployment of reductionistic dualisms. Within the
Israeli/Jewish vector, there are vast differences. The same goes for
the Arab/Palestinian/Muslim/Christian vector. In addition, we have
forces on both sides who are acting against the best interests of
their population, despite the tendency by some to claim that there are
homogeneous identity blocs. Edward Said
noted these_ internal_ problems on the Palestinian side
[[link removed]] and
various commentators like Noam Chomsky and Seymour Melman pointed
out the splits within the Israeli side
[[link removed]].
One argument could be that these divisions within Israel are
irrelevant because the Israeli left
[[link removed]] and peace
movement 
[[link removed]]are
marginalized and/or insignificant. Yet, one could say the same of the
peace movements in the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom and
other countries given the post-Ukraine-invasion military build-up. So
the _clarity_ or _coherence _rather than the size of the minority
oppositional forces becomes important in this context. I elaborate why
this is so in the last section of this essay.

An ironic development is that while part of the left seeks open and
flexible borders for migration purposes (borders that change), they
recycle maps of Israel/Palestine where they want closed and inflexible
borders (borders that don’t change). The facts of certain changed
borders, and the encroachment therein, are beyond doubt, but the other
side is that the terms for the weaker party to make peace deals with
greater land concessions has deteriorated over time because of
rebuffing of peace deals. The counter-factual argument is that these
deals were bad deals. For example, the argument that the Oslo process
was basically designed to fail, but obviously the power to redesign
that process was also designed to fail. The incompetence of the elites
was matched by the lack of power or competence of those opposing the
elites. There are still better deals in two-state solutions, but these
are opposed by extremists and short-termism as well as fatalism. The
two-state solution is also opposed by those arguing that the
settlements preclude a viable Palestinian state. Yet, one might argue
that it is easier to remove these settlements or radically reduce them
than to dismantle the Israeli state (through a one state solution) as
Noam Chomsky himself argues
[[link removed]] or
implies.

It is also worth noting that certain varieities of
“post-colonialism” have little to do with the ideas of Franz Fanon
and Edward Said. Fanon did not simply valorize the right of victims to
engage in violence. He also advocated the creation of non-violent
counter institutions
[[link removed]] (although
these may have abetted violent revolution in the case of Algerian
liberation). Fanon also noted that oppressed peoples could generate
their own hierarchies and be oppressors
[[link removed]]. Similarly,
Said did not simply argue that Israelis were colonizers and
Palestinians victims. He also argued that Palestinians could be
internally colonized by their administrators (although he saw Israeli
responsibility for expropriation and violence as paramount). The
Netanyahu government has involved a form of Israeli internal
colonization
[[link removed]] by
extremists.

A final point worth considering is the argument made by Zachary
Foster, an historian of Palestine. He refers to a petition by Yuval
Noah Harari which criticized “leftist ‘indifference’ to Hamas
atrocities,” as an article
[[link removed]] in _The
Guardian_ explained. In a tweet
[[link removed]] on X,
Foster writes: “To place 100% of the blame on Israel and 0% of the
blame on Hamas for the atrocities committed by Hamas members is
obviously ridiculous. But to spend precious time & energy right now to
gather these signatures for something other than an immediate call for
a ceasefire and an immediate opening of Gaza to aid is committing the
same moral failure of the global left that you are criticizing in this
petition. Namely, look at what is happening before your eyes right now
— an impending genocide — and focus on that.”

Foster is correct that we should focus energy on promoting a
ceasefire. As far as I am concerned, that’s not a point worth
debating. But Foster fails to understand how part of the left’s
repressive tolerance of Hamas weakens the case against militarists and
gives ammunition to right-wing media outlets like Fox News and their
political allies. All one has to do is to scrawl through a few Youtube
videos on _Fox News_ 
[[link removed]]or from _The New York
Post [[link removed]]_ to see that left
stupidity is _an essential part_ of the front line propaganda
campaign to support Israel’s bombing of Gaza and planned invasion.
While the right often lies, the most effective propaganda often
contains a grain of truth which can be very powerful as Jacques Ellul
[[link removed]] argued.
Those on the left defending Hamas are also subverting truth.
Therefore, cleaning up the left’s act is part and parcel of an
effort to stop the bombing. As just one example, Swedish
Television explained
[[link removed]] that
at a recent (October 22, 2023) pro-Palestinian demonstration in
Stockholm, “Sulaiman Abualfita compared the kidnapping of Israeli
children by the terrorist organization Hamas with the Swedish social
services’ application of the LVU (law on the care of young
people).” Abualfita said
[[link removed]] that
Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, shouldn’t “accuse
Palestinians of having kidnapped 20 Israeli children, while thousands
of children are being kidnapped by your authority called the social
services” Ahmad al-Mughrabi, a key organizer of this demonstration,
was himself is a critic of LVU. The false claim about Swedish social
services kidnapping children has undermined Sweden’s security, which
has weakened as part of a backlash against Koran burnings in the
country. This incident illustrates how _even mainstream
television_ can use mis-steps by the “solidarity” movement to
help undermine its legitimacy. Elsewhere the leading Swedish
newspaper, _Dagens Nyheter_, has exposed the problematic aspects of
elements in the Swedish Left Party in opposing Hamas
[[link removed]],
although the critique itself was confused.

Foster’s way of thinking that there are simply if not only clear
lines here with privileged victims and victimizers _of the moment_,
fails to underline how victims themselves are undermined by their
alleged allies’ way of speaking and acting. He legitimates the
petition but undermines it in the same breath. Rather, a division of
labor is needed to overcome the problems generated by both parts of
the left and the dominant right-wing (and Democratic/Republican) drumb
beat for war and massacres from the air. But, Foster represents a kind
of cousin of cancel culture with its neat moral hierarchies, absence
of nuance, and falling into line mentality. A moral smugness is linked
to a kind of tone deaf narcissism about Israelis’ sense of grief and
existential realities that he has decided for them. This mirrors the
counterparts among Israelis who lack empathy for those Palestinians
under assault who might not prioritize Israeli victims in their
thinking and acting. There are of course many who have empathy for all
of the relevant victims.

THE GEO-POLITICAL ALIGNMENTS OF LEFT AND RIGHT FRACTIONS: RECYCLING
TERRORISM AND MILITARISM

As in the Russia-Ukraine war, we have the selection of _favored
victims_ (what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman called “worthy
victims [[link removed]]“) to create narratives. In
contrast our favored victims (or parties claiming affiliation with
them) can also be victimizers and _vice versa_. A discourse of
demilitarization, social and economic reconstruction, through economic
democracy and expanded political democracy, together
with _Perestroika_ and _Glasnost_ is necessary to address
corruption, surplus violence, atrocities, democracy constraints and
knowledge resistance among all parties. Yet, transformative change
in _Perestroika_ and _Glasnost_ is opposed by the alliance and
capture of _parts_ of the left and right by larger geo-political
forces.

In the case of the left, we can start with this statement which was
analyzed by _The New York Times_ columnist Michelle Goldberg, “The
Massacre in Israel and the Need for a Decent Left,” October 12,
2003: “Students for Justice in Palestine, a network of
pro-Palestinian campus groups, is holding Day of Resistance
demonstrations across the United States and Canada. A planning
document the group posted online refers to all of Israel as a
‘settler colony’ and says, ‘Settlers are not “civilians” in
the sense of international law, because they are military assets used
to ensure continued control over stolen Palestinian land.’” Other
news or social media accounts have made reference to student posters
celebrating Hamas terrorist hand gliders
[[link removed]] or other
defenses
[[link removed]] of
Hamas. Here part of the left identifies with Hamas, an entity aligned
with an Iranian regime which has slaughtered countless persons
including dozens of children
[[link removed]],
albeit mostly within their own (Iran’s) borders. Each side of this
conflict has murdered systemic reformers and peace activists
[[link removed]] or engaged
in actions which led to that
[[link removed]].
So we see a linkage between part of the left, Hamas, and the Iranian
regime. This linkage system involves a weapons flow from Iran to Gaza
and elsewhere, as well as the nurturing of local weapons production
[[link removed]].
Legitimating violence against civilians creates a slippery slope that
can be used to justify unjustified militarism. Reports of more direct
Iranian engagement
[[link removed]] are
already on the agenda. The part of the left which is aligned with
Hamas or involved in repressive tolerance of terrorism has led to a
growing fracture with part of the Jewish liberal to left spectrum
[[link removed]].

The Eisenhower Administration’s coup against democracy in
Iran, involving the CIA in 1953
[[link removed]],
shows how even the right is involved in this nexus of power.
Israel’s enabling of Hamas has been documented _The Times of
Israel_
[[link removed]] and
in _Ha’aretz_
[[link removed]].
Despite the right-wing responsibility for Hamas (and its exterior
parent, Iran), the right does not endorse or support Hamas explicitly
now, nor do they condone them. This represents a significant
difference.

In the case of the right, it is very clear that there is a linkage
among the United States, Israel and _far-right forces within both
countries
[[link removed]]_.
The linkage between the U.S. and Israel has been outlined in books
like _The Iron Triangle
[[link removed]]_. This pattern
involves billions of dollars of U.S. military aid to Israel and an
absence of linkage of arms transfers to requirements that actually
limited settler expansion. During Russia’s imperialist attack on
Ukraine, the European left itself became more drawn into either
supporting NATO or supporting the militarist expansion that represents
a _de facto_ embrace of NATO. So, there are severe limits to the
idea that the left and right are always divided over alignment with
the U.S. and its militarist network.

Despite left-wing embrace of militarism in Europe
[[link removed]] and
elsewhere, this development (at least based on the Swedish case) was
triggered by a series of moves initiated by the bourgeois or
right-wing parties. The moves began by those in the right-wing party
camp, followed by collapse of Social Democrats and their
intellectuals, then followed by those within the left parties. These
fell like dominoes, although the order of the dominoes was sometimes
random. Part of the problem is that left-to-Social Democratic
political credibility is often based on endorsing militarism, such
that _sociological legitimacy_ (popularity) is leveraged to
decompose _moral legitimacy_ (which is right as opposed to wrong).
Legitimating violence against civilians creates a slippery slope that
can be used to justify unjustified terrorism.

The left and right will often rally behind claims of
“self-defense” and the claim that every nation/people has the
right to defend itself. That idea _might_ make sense in the
short-to-medium term but in the end often becomes the route to
pathological self-destruction. NATO’s expansion eastward and Russian
endogenous factors promoted war in Ukraine. Hamas and the Israeli
elites have encouraged each other’s dystopian, path-dependency of
the short-to-medium term. A possible emerging set of geopolitical
divides
[[link removed]] will
lead parts of the right and left to block reconstruction and reinforce
mutually-assured-implosion.

THE WAY OUT

We have seen immoral and dysfunctional violence and expansionism.
There are many Israelis and Palestinians engaged in promoting an
equitable settlement of the conflict, but they have been hindered by
established parties in various governments and extremists on both
sides. Even sympathetic European governments trying to advance
equitable solutions have often carried on with sloppy, superficial and
self-serving symbolic interventions that are largely beside the point.
In contrast, the basic principles of economic and
social reconstruction
[[link removed]] involve a
system that links demilitarization and justice and the promotion of
economic integration (and mutual support
[[link removed]\])
when advisable and economic decoupling (and autonomous development)
when advisable. This is a tall order which will be necessary in the
political cycle that opens up in periods of post-war reconstruction.
Yet, I have tried here to show that parts of the left and right are
off the pathway to advance necessary reconstruction. The legitimate
security needs of Palestinians and Israelis cannot be denied. Yet, the
entanglement of these needs with militarist expansionism and
geopolitical alignments is dangerous, dystopian and a deadly dead-end.

By force of logic, contingency always supercedes path-dependency. As
Simone Weil explained in “A Note on Social Democracy,”: “Anyone
who invented a method of assembly which could avoid the extinction of
thought in each of the participants would make a revolution in human
history comparable to the discovery of fire, or of the wheel, or of
the use of implements.” Therefore, “that state of men’s
imagination at a given moment dictates the limits within which power
can be effectively used, at that moment, so as to produce real
results.”  A given state of imagination may lead “a government to
take a certain measure three months before it becomes necessary, while
at the moment when it is necessary the imagination cannot be persuaded
to accept it.”  Yet, such necessary foresight (made evident in
various security crises), might require a break with consensus
culture. This culture infects signficant parts of both right and left.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This essay is not a defense of any action by the beligerent parties.
Acts of desperation have led to irrational, immoral and horrible
consequences. My main goal has been to examine the limits to surplus
political violence with greater analytical clarity. On the Ralph Nader
Radio Hour, broadcast originally on October 14, 2023
[[link removed]],
Bruce Fine discusses the concept of “co-belligerence
[[link removed]]” in war. Fine
labeled the U.S. as a co-belligerent with respect to Israel, not
saying much about Iran’s role as a co-belligeret with respect to
Hamas. Nader said both sides have “the right to defend
themselves.” What does this right mean when the defenders in both
cases are highly problematic, linked to systematic human rights
abuses? When Hamas terror is termed “resistance,” we have an
Orwellian devaluation of language. When Israel’s disproportionate
actions are deployed, they similarly devalue the idea of
self-_defense_. The Radio Hour discussed this idea of disproportionate
actions. The problem, however, is that there will be short-term
calculations of self-defense on either side of the conflict which may
have a moral sanction (depending on the audience/constituency) but in
practical if not ethical terms leads nowhere in the long-run.

Some argue that non-violence has failed to help the Palestinian cause.
At least that is what some scholars appear to be saying
[[link removed]]. In
a Tweet 
[[link removed]]on X
(October 20, 2022), Yanis Varoufakis writes: “Here is a mental
experiment for all of us who crave Peace: Suppose Hamas & IJ were to
surrender immediately and unconditionally. Suppose that every
Palestinian renounced violence along the lines of the Palestinian
Authority. Then what? What should happen next? What says
you?” Elsewhere
[[link removed]] he
writes: “There is nothing that can justify deliberate violence
against non-combatants.” While noting the failures of the Oslo
peace process
[[link removed]], as
identified by Edward Said, his position is somewhat confusing or
ambiguous. Just because _badly designed_ peace processes fail, does
not mean that terrorism is justified or will work in acheiving goals.
Varoufakis says in one place that terrorism is not justified, but he
suggests (or appears to suggest) that just stopping terrorism is not
necessarily going to lead to peace. Is he correct? He is half correct,
but not sufficiently or completely correct, or begs the question. Take
your pick.

If terrorists were to stop being terrorists that would end _the
violence of terrorists_. It would _not end the violence of
militarists_. If Varoufakis means that, he is on to something. But
that something raises more questions than answers. One reason why the
latter (militarist) violence does not end is because the left is
itself badly designed and fails to marshall its resources properly.
The left suffers from what Michael Lerner calls “surplus
powerlessness [[link removed]].” In
my terms this expression means that the left does not use its
resources properly because it is badly designed
[[link removed]] and
reproduces the scarcity condition it faces vis_–_à-vis the military
industrial complex, warfare state, militarism generally and its
complex of power rooted in not just military capital, but also
economic, political and media capital
[[link removed](91)/143/33540/From-Warfare-State-to-Shadow-State-MILITARISM].
Surplus powerless relates to failed designs of social movements,
including peace movements. The ability of a social movement to grow
and systematically accumulate power begins with its designs
[[link removed]],
hence its clarity and coherence alluded to earlier.

The failure to generate an alternative to militarized capital is
underscored by various critiques of the design of social movements
made by Paul Goodman
[[link removed]], Seymour
Melman
[[link removed]], Bob
Overy
[[link removed]] and Alexander
Cockburn
[[link removed]].
These failures create a power vacuum with respect to militarism. The
Hamas-supporting parts of the left believe that they are going to fill
that vacuum by aligning with terrorists. Instead, this kind of
alignment has simply provided political capital for the right to
de-legitimize the left, enhance the cycle of violence triggered by
militarists and provoke a right-wing backlash
[[link removed]] if
not also old-fashioned repression
[[link removed].].
The alternatives to identitarian and reductionistic
“post-colonial” arguments comes by fashioning a system based
on alternative mechanisms to accumulate power in a democratic fashion
[[link removed]],
i.e. economic and social reconstruction. Varoufakis apparently
understands this idea
[[link removed]],
but his choice of language does not always leave me convinced that he
does so. While articulate on requirements for demoratic economies
[[link removed]], I don’t see how he relates this
understanding to the failed design of peace movements.

Support for terrorism arises in part from the scarcity in capital to
oppose militarists, occupiers and entrenched elites (as well as
dystopian ideologies of demagogues). Yet, militarism itself is
sustained by this same scarcity condition. While the history of the
New Left in supporting counter institutions was a step towards
reconstruction that surpasses various levels of scarcity, the current
Left reproduces the earlier New Left’s resort to protest,
“resistance,” petitioning the system and overvaluing of foreign
opposition movements to compensate for its failure to extend relevant
counter institutions. We must learn from Paul Goodman and Seymour
Melman that transcending political scarcity requires a critique of
existing social movement approaches and the promotion of the counter
institutions. The weakness or failures of the left in opposing both
militarism and terrorism, as seen in the Ukraine War and Israeli-Hamas
conflict, simply highlights the limits to part of the New Left
trajectory which is now found in certain contemporary left factions.

* Israel-Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Hamas
[[link removed]]
* peace
[[link removed]]
* Militarism
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

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