Comments on: On Zimbabwe, Western left follows agenda set by capitalist elite

By: Stephen Gowans

Stephen Gowans — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:41:46 +0000

Zunes’ appeal to progressives to embrace the US-engineered color revolution in Ukraine http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/690
antedates this article http://fletcher.tufts.edu/news/2004/12/ackerman2.shtml
by Zunes’ spooky friends, former Michael Milken right-hand man, Council for Foreign Relations member and Freedom House supremo, Peter Ackerman http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Peter_Ackerman
, and Jack DuVall http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jack_DuVall
Given the connections between Ackerman, DuVall and Zunes, it comes as no surprise that Ackerman and DuVall put forward the same argument as Zunes. This is the party line, as it were: Sure, maybe Ukrainian nonviolent democracy activists were funded by George Soros and the US government and trained by US ruling class funded nonviolent gurus, but only conspiracy theorists would think outside money and training made any difference. (Soros, the NED, Ackerman’s Freedom House and International Center for Nonviolent Conflict just like to spend money on these things for the hell of it.)

This calls to mind US socialist William Domhoff’s observation that, in the US, people with power always deny they have any. To be seen as legitimate, political power must be understood to be based on the consent of the people, not on the domination of the political process by a tiny minority of interconnected hereditary capitalist families, corporate board members, investment bankers and corporate lawyers – hence, the fervent denial by the same tiny minority that it is a ruling class.

Likewise, to be understood as legitimate, the color revolution in Ukraine needs to be understood to have been a people’s revolution, not a well-scripted mob uprising funded and directed by a ruling class minority in the US that had a material interest in prying Ukraine out of the Russian orbit and into the American one through a change in government

So Zunes and others, who have a leadership role in pursuing US ruling class interests abroad, pooh-pooh the idea that the money and training channeled into engineering the uprising had an effect. Zunes’ role in this exercise in bamboozling the public is to make the Ackerman and DuVall line palatable to his progressive constituency.

By: Valentin Zorin

Valentin Zorin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:27:50 +0000

Hm.. so Zunes is also an expert on Ukraine, eh? Is there any country in the world spared of his expertise? This is the same as asking if there is any place in the world the US imperialism has not declared vital to its “national security.” Zunes’ piece on Ukraine could have been written by the likes of Mark Brzezinsky, coordinator of the orange putsch in Kiev, or Taras Kuzio, former head of the Nato information bureau in Kiev. They share the same goal — destruction of Russia.

Also, Zunes writes: –And, despite the many abuses of the Bush administration, Americans live in a far more open society than do Ukrainians under President Kuchma.”

The Imperialist Left must repeat mantras like this in order to justify its subversive activities against the sovereignty of the peoples who are targeted by Western imperialists. In reality, Ukrainian press is much freer, much livelier than the moribund, morose “information” business of US monopolies, second to none in conformism.

By: Yuriy Dergunov

Yuriy Dergunov — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:13:03 +0000

“Why Progressives Must Embrace the Ukrainian Pro-Democracy Movement.”

As Ukrainian I should say this Zunes is a bastard.

By: Stephen Gowans

Stephen Gowans — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:03:30 +0000

If Zunes’ hooking up with the Council on Foreign Relations’ and Freedom House’s Peter Ackerman and his dalliances with the misnamed United States Institute for Peace fail to tell you what he’s about, perhaps this will: “Why Progressives Must Embrace the Ukrainian Pro-Democracy Movement.” http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/690

By: carlos rule

carlos rule — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:36:10 +0000

Good article again, Steve. It’s so difficult to find decent material on Zimbabwe - so much of the ‘left’ is lined up behind the likes of Bush and Brown.

Anyway, you may find this article useful or interesting: http://cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=380

By: Stephen Zunes

Stephen Zunes — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:35:17 +0000

Once again, Gowans is lying about the International Center on Nonviolenct Conflict.
In reality, ICNC has worked closely with the anti-Mubarak opposition.
For example, we co-sponsored a five-day workshop in Cairo in May of 2007 on strategic nonviolent action designed for opponents of the Mubarak regime. I was one of the workshop leaders, along with a Palestinian veteran of the first intifada, a South African veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, among others.
Participants included prominent liberal, leftist and Islamist opponents of the regime from labor, human rights, women’s and other civil society organizations.
The U.S. government and the Western media is certainly hypocritical about denouncing Mugabe while supporting Mubarak and downplaying his repression. To accuse me or ICNC of such a double-standard, however, is demonstrably false.
You can find my analysis of U.S. support for the Mubarak regime and other client states on my web site at http://www.stephenzunes.org

By: Valentin Zorin

Valentin Zorin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:27:12 +0000

This article should be translated into Russian. Western left has long been co-opted by the liberal and even right wings of the ruling class, with parts of the Left being virtually bought through converting them into the NGO money-and-influence apparatus and becoming the left boot of Western imperialism. The type of critique Steve Gowans develops here is also relevant for Russia where the ideology of the Western Left is being transplanted in the form of a “new” or “alternative” left — a parochial inflection of Western liberalism-cum-anti-Sovietism.