OF course the US lies about the FARK. They lie about the drug issues as well. I can tell they are lying when their lips move.

[[moderator note: correction made.]]

“I also would like to add that I have no interest in detaching theory from the Marxist practice itself, or that I am under the false belief that theory is only created in a vacuum and thus incapable of error. But to argue against the need for theoretical exploration – and to label such practice as ‘revisionist’ – is as much the negation of Marxism as a theory detached from practice.

I agree.

I think that there is a confusion repeatedly injected into the question of “theory and practice.” It is that “practice” is understood to be our own direct activism. That is an extremely narrow (almost miopic) view of practice.

Further some people argue that (a) the purpose of theory is imply to illuminate our own direct practice (what we say to people tomorrow, what we take up tomorrow), and (b) that our own direct political practice is the key arena for developing and testing our theory.

This is a highly impoverished and mistaken view that obstructs the actual development of theory, and ultimately rejects theory itself. It is as impoverished as the idea that “mass line” is about “what we say to the people we meet” (when, in fact, mass line is a method of communist leadership — for developing strategic programs, national policies, methods of work for parties/armies/governments, etc. not mainly some feedback look for our own immediate micro-conversations.)

Theory (especially perceptive insightful theory) is rooted in practice — in an ultimate sense, in the sense that our theory is connected to reality, and our ability to understand reality requires protracted interaction with reality — but that doesn’t mean that our communist theory hangs from our own immediate political activism.

Mao pointed out three arenas of social practice: class struggle, scientific exploration and production. Human practice is a sweeping and multilayered set of experiences.

And we (meaning communists in 2010) already have tons of practice — even when our own organizations are rather primitive.

We have a whole century of socialism and revolution that we are standing upon. And (as the quote from Lukasc points out) the experience of socialism has been terribly undertheorized — even when Mao has fought to sum up the Soviet and Chinese experience, it remains very undertheorized. And the discussion (even here on Kasama) is tremendously impoverished (in part by the same approach that argues theory emerges from our own direct experience) — where the discussion of what socialism is, and what restoration was, and what we are attempting to bring about under new conditions is constantly reduced to simplistic assertions and stubborn self-delusions.

(There are those who argue that critical examination of our own history is idealist, utopian or anticommunist — and I suspect they really don’t want any critical examination, period, and really prefer useful mythologies to serious understandings. Over and over, they deploy anger and unsult as a warning to “don’t touch a hair on the tiger’s ass.” But none of that will work — here on Kasama or anywhere else on the planet. People simply demand a real examination of our social practice — past and present — and in the absence of state power, the material basis for imposing aging mythologies simply doesn’t exist.)

I think we can and should get beyond all that.

After more than half a century (really, the armed struggle in Colombia goes back to the reaction there to the assassination of Eliecer Gaitan in 1948). Some facts should be clear to all.

First, the Colombian government has not been able to defeat the FARC or the ELN militarily.

Second, the FARC and the ELN have also not been able to defeat the government of Colombia militarily.

Something needs to be done to change this political equation to one which can promote a more just and less militarized society in Colombia. Sitting here in the comfort of Los Angeles, California, with my laptop computer and DSL connection to the Internet, I’m not about to advise revolutionaries or anyone else in Colombia as to what they should do.

However, I do think that the advice given to the FARC by Fidel Castro, that they should immediately and unconditionally release their hostages, BUT NOT DISARM, should be worth considering seriously.

Fidel has some experience in these matters, and has written an entire book on the topic, PEACE IN COLOMBIA. Alas, it still hasn’t been translated into English. Por ahora (for now).

Thanks to your posting of this article, I ordered James J. Brittain’s book on the FARC and look forward to reading it.

Previously I wrote a long comment and posted it here to KASAMA, but no one took up the political points which I raised there. Perhaps someone else will now?

Not to repeat what I wrote previously, here it is:
http://kasamaproject.org/2010/04/07/colombias-farc-ep-a-peoples-army/#comment-22482

There are two things going on here that work to the advantage of the anti-war forces. One is that the inner workings of the government and military are exposed, so that what part of the public suspects to be true can be confirmed and revealed to all. But more importantly, the act of leaking sensitive information itself proves that the conscience of people within the government are being pushed to the limit by the massive crimes and those people are being moved to act. This proves to all observers that the system of secrecy and war is breaking down. This is a positive development, a step towards ending the imperialist war on the terms of those opposing the occupation and slaughter.

The author doesn’t seem to be able to separate the act of the leak with how it is portrayed in the servile US media as indicated by the quote below:

“the overall effect of the multi-part coverage of the documents is to paint a portrait of plucky, put-upon Americans trying their darnedest to get the job done despite the dastardly dealings and gooberish bumblings of the ungrateful little brown wretches we are trying to save from themselves.”

I also disagree with the authors assessment that these reports showing officers trying to cover their asses proves them to be “plucky”. I think what shocks the American public the most is the fact that these soldiers are trying to hide the fact that they routinely murder civilians. There can be no official denials now. Now those reports of “30 militants were killed in an airstrike” will not ring true so in so many ears.

I think the article smacks of self-satisfaction and ignores both the personal sacrifice and bravery of the leakers and the leaks impact on the minds of those who don’t really understand the stakes involved in this war.

Lukacs: The logic of capitalism tends to coincide with the logic of the social process itself, thus spreading out and engulfing the whole life of society. We have passed from the partial capitalism of the last century to today’s generalized capitalism. In this respect, Marxism, far from being exhausted, has hardly even begun. In any case, and paradoxes aside, Marxism must be developed as we study things that Marx was not able to study.

Interviewer: I don’t understand. how is it possible for Marxism to be the only and necessary framework for the revolutionary movement if the framework itself is not complete?

Lukacs: The framework is complete. Marxism is complete as an essential approach to the global study of
society in historical transformation. It is complete in its mode of analysis and its criteria for establishing the theoretical hierarchy of what constitutes society. But completeness of method doesn’t mean that one can find everything in Marx. The specific ingredients are supplied only by long, patient research on the basis of Marxist method. Here is where the Marxists themselves have gone astray. They have taken the easy route, restricting themselves to repeating things they don’t understand and stressing tactics above and against theory.

Interviewer: You are saying, in other words, that sociology must study Marx, must learn well the lessons of Marxism.

Lukacs: Yes, but the trouble is that today there are no Marxists. We simply do not have a Marxist theory.
Believe me, today it is necessary to do what Marx did for the capitalism of his time… Socialism also needs a continuing critical and demystifying analysis, and this must be done on the world scale. No one is doing this. No one thinks of it. What is happening is grotesque. Lacking a theory, Marxists are condemned to trail along after daily events. Collective movements erupt and are called “spontaneous” – the movements of students, the young, and so forth – and then the Marxists run to catch up with the events, to understand them after the fact. Their theory is little more than a rationalization of their surprise…
Marxism, conceived as it should be conceived, that is, as a general theory of society and history, no longer exists. It came to an end some time ago. In its place we have Stalinism, and will continue to have it for some time to come. Stalinism has been described in many stupid ways, but in fact the situation is simple: Whenever action is put ahead of and in opposition to history, the result is Stalinism. Stalinism is more than an erroneous interpretation or a defective application of Marxism; it is the negation of Marxism. Under Stalinism, there are no theorists, only tacticians.

The whole thing is accessible here, in PDF form:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6973985/Conversation-with-Gyorgy-Lukacs-Franco-Ferrarottis-Interview
“What is Orthodox Marxism?”, from 1919, accessible here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/orthodox.htm

I also would like to add that I have no interest in detaching theory from the Marxist practice itself, or that I am under the false belief that theory is only created in a vacuum and thus incapable of error. But to argue against the need for theoretical exploration – and to label such practice as ‘revisionist’ – is as much the negation of Marxism as a theory detached from practice.

Who could have access to these tens of thousands of files but someone high up in the US government. Not the profile of your typical reader of Kasama or other leftist websites.

Questioning the motives of such a person or group of people is entirely reasonable, and noting how this dovetails with the desire for a military strike on Iran is particularly appropriate at this moment.

Perhaps a better emphasis would be on appreciation of the fact that these documents tend to confirm that Washington has lied about the progress of the war, and that governmental lying, now under Obama as it was under his predecessors, is a good thing for the US public to learn. The US public is very uninformed. Alas, there’s not a great deal of interest in being well-informed, but the ill-informed public is also a product of a disinformed public.

It’s fine to question the motives of the leakers, and to ask who benefits from this range of leaks. But they should be seen as a gift, and not a gift-horse whose teeth should be examined professionally. Well, that’s my take, anyway.