A startling and unexpected post from Chris Trotter's blog Bowalley Road. Startling because it is a realistic and courageous article, written by an avowed Marxist in 2001 when pro-defence sentiments were way out of tune with then Prime Minister Helen Clark's ludicrous "incredibly benign strategic environment" attitude.Trotter plainly identifies expansionist PRC as the likely source of friction and instability in the Pacific and argues for closer defence links with our traditional allies.
The article was reposted last week... for two reasons. First, because elements of it now seem strangely prophetic, and second, because, with a new National Government and a new Defence Minister, the key elements of that pre-9/11 debate are probably due for a re-airing..."...By decommissioning the combat wing of the RNZAF, the Labour-Alliance Government has fundamentally compromised the future combat readiness of our defence force. Without the contribution of close-air-support training, the capability of the New Zealand infantryman and woman will rapidly diminish...As a Marxist, I consider myself to be a part of the West’s long pursuit of human emancipation, and so my choice is simple. Though the United States has been guilty of many crimes in its brief history as an imperial power, its extraordinarily open society has always proved equal to the task of challenging the delinquency of its leaders. Vietnam was a terrible error of American policy – but it was an error corrected by the robustness of American democracy. The "mistakes" of the PRC’s leadership – be they the 25 million dead of the Great Leap Forward, or the thousands massacred in Tiananmen Square, have never been the subject of popular correction – for the simple reason that the Chinese people are not free. And if the 20th Century taught me nothing else, it is that the freedom which socialism is supposed to deliver can never grow out of the barrel of a gun..."
Read the full article here...
2 comments:
"Though the United States has been guilty of many crimes in its brief history as an imperial power, its extraordinarily open society has always proved equal to the task of challenging the delinquency of its leaders."
Amazing that this guy can write this and still call embrace Marxism.
Yes, I guess his explanation is that Marxism is "a broad church". But you'd imagine that someone who disowns the dictatorship of the proletariat is not far away from disowning other principles of the religion.
Always makes him an interesting read, for believer and non-believer alike. Causes pythonesque cries of "splitter" too, which is fun...
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