Harry Targ
https://thetricontinental.org/eight-contradiction-of-the-imperialist-rules-based-order/
Because the US peace movement is
located geographically and politically in the United States it most
appropriately has criticized US policy: on supplying weapons to Ukraine, on
increasing involvement of NATO in the Ukraine war, and on pressuring other
countries to join the war in support of Ukraine. And the United States has been the principle enabler of Iarael's brutal policy in Gaza and the West Bank. As the violence has advanced,
some analysts have begun to worry about an escalation to nuclear war between
the West and Russia and a spread of war to the South China Sea, against China, as well as a regional war in the Middle East/Persian Gulf against Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
At the same time, progressive forces in the United States are increasingly mobilizing against the far rightwing in domestic politics. In the arena of electoral politics, the Republican Party primarily stands for economic deregulation, increasing the concentration of wealth at one pole and economic impoverishment at the other, recreating Jim Crow racism in virtually every institution, brutalizing desperate immigrants, and returning to the long history of patriarchy, and homophobia. Progressives realize that the rightwing, a majority of the Republican party, have to be opposed.
Therefore, while progressives strategize about defending and rebuilding America, they feel obliged, many claim, to support the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, this same Democratic Party, seeks to recreate US global hegemony in a multipolar world, willingly risks nuclear war, and imposes economic sanctions (starving) on at least 30 countries.
Today a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans have revitalized a permanent war economy that effects science, education, culture, and how scarce resources are allocated.
And recently, the Biden Administration transferred cluster bombs and, through NATO allies, the F-16 fighter planes to the Ukraine War. The use of cluster bombs is opposed by at least 120 countries and major human rights organizations. Cluster bombs, along with land mines, can survive long after the wars for which they were used. Plans are underway now to hit alleged pro-Iranian targets around the Middle East.
Therefore, progressives are faced with a profound contradiction: oppose rightwing reaction at home (represented mostly by the Republican Party) by supporting very modest progressive policies (mostly in the Democratic Party) advocated by politicians who support war and militarism overseas. This dilemma is felt everywhere by peace and justice activists.
What is often left out of the calculus is the fundamental contradiction that exists between pursuing a better life in the United States while United States foreign policy causes more pain, suffering, and risks of wider wars overseas. In short, privileges at home exist at the expense of others around the world.
The project for US progressives is to create a movement, or movements, that is based on Che Guevara’s injunction: “always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice, committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.”
