Views in brief
"Incidents of war" and U.S. hypocrisy
ABSENT FROM White House pronouncements and corporate news coverage about the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 tragedy is any reference to the previous military-on-civilian-plane violence that most closely approximates the recent air atrocity: the shooting down of Iran Flight 655.
On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, while in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf, fired a guided missile that hit and destroyed Iran Flight 655. All 290 people aboard Flight 655, including 66 children, perished. The White House claimed the Vincennes mistook the Iranian Airbus passenger jet for an F-14 Tomcat fighter. Subsequent investigations reveal that the Vincennes never made so much as an attempt to issue a radio warning to Flight 655. Flight 655 was on an established commercial air route flying over Iran when the U.S. guided missile struck it.
To this day, the U.S. government has refused to apologize to Iran for the shooting down of Flight 655. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush dismissed Flight 655 as "an incident of war." These responses are not surprising given that at the time of this air tragedy, the U.S. was backing the Saddam Hussein-led Iraq war on Iran. No Western power, of course, ever even suggested imposing sanctions on the U.S. for the downing of Flight 655.
Considering that the White House and U.S. corporate media gave maximum coverage to the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 tragedy, I urge SocialistWorker.org, for the sake of countering what amounts to an avalanche of pro-U.S. imperialist propaganda, to republish at least one of its many articles from 1988 on the Iran Flight 655 tragedy.
Mike Howells, New Orleans
Slavery and dehumanization
I CAME across your website while trying to get an insight on the latest about the U.S. Socialist Workers Party of the '60s and '70s. During that time, I was a member of their youth group, the Young Socialist Alliance.
I want you to know that I thoroughly have enjoyed your writings and links. I worked at the Dodge Main plant, where the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) started. The link you had on General Baker was good to see ("A revolutionary in the auto plant"). His memorial was a well-attended event. Please keep up the good work you are doing.
To get to the subject: Of course you are correct about the dehumanizing and stereotypes resulting from the oppression and exploitation of African peoples. But we ourselves must be conscious of the words we use in describing and explaining the conditions. The Europeans of the Atlantic slave trade did not take "slaves" from Africa, but human beings from Africa, who, through the system of dehumanization, were then reduced to the level of enslavement. Of course, I'm talking about the use of the terminology used in the first two articles on Black history I saw on your website.
Again, keep up the good work. I will continue reading your website.
Nabil, from the Internet
Justifying Israel's genocide
IN RESPONSE to "Israel's crumbling media war": Excellent article. I appreciate the notion that there's more criticism of Israel. I've witnessed the empathy routine in the American media. Tom Siracuse is the chair of the New York City Greens. He wrote the following and gave me permission to quote him:
RE: Israeli lawmaker's call for genocide of Palestinians gets thousands of Facebook likes
I'm not surprised. I've heard these arguments from many:
1. Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular are incorrigible fanatics and are incapable of co-existence with Jews or negotiating in good faith. Either they are forced out or killed, or that is what they will do to the Jews.
2. "Palestinians" are a made-up entity with no valid claim to the Holy Land. They are Arabs who migrated into the Holy Land from Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, etc., and should go back where they came from. Only the Jews have an historical and religious right to live in the Holy Land.
3. The Nazi Holocaust, Czarist pogroms and Jewish persecutions and expulsions over the centuries prove that only an exclusive Zionist state for Jews can guarantee safety for world Jewry.
Did I leave out any other justification to get rid of the Palestinians?
Mary Jo Robertiello, New York City
Marxism and feminism are incompatible
IN RESPONSE to "Marxism, feminism and women's liberation": I appreciated the article a great deal, but its overall point I found dangerously lacking.
Marxism and feminism are ideologies that cannot be reconciled, and while feminism is not one homogenous entity, the fact remains that at its core it is a movement of the middle class and the bourgeoisie. There is no room for feminism in a class analysis. The very core tenets of feminism, no matter what wing of feminism, are a united women's movement, across classes. And this is simply not possible.
To suggest otherwise is to undermine and suggest that the nature of class society, and the interests of the working class, are things that are malleable, things that can change in spite of the objective interests that Marxism identifies.
This simply isn't true, and it is in large part why Marxist-feminism was so eagerly discredited. Marxism, communism, has no need to appease the ranks of feminist organizations, nor does it need to address feminist propaganda.
Women's liberation is a natural fact to the Marxist/communist. To suggest that there must be some "air time" given to feminism and its untruths is absurd.
Furthermore, feminism's assessment of the nature of sexism, and the consequences of sexism, is inherently flawed. It contains a dichotomy that no Marxist would agree with: man versus woman.
Such a dichotomy invalidates the multitude of human experiences that fall outside of what is deigned to be "man" or "woman." And it naturally breeds intolerance. Sexism is an oppression that holds far-reaching consequences for the whole working class. And this is a reality that feminism refuses to acknowledge.
Joshua M., Australia
