The Latest From The
Rag Blog-A Voice Of The Old New Left
Bloggers, Religious History, Reza Aslan, Zealot Leave a comment
:
[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "Hidden History of Texas" series on The Rag Blog.]
The only legal leftist opposition party which the Mubarak regime still allowed in 1990, al-Tagammu, “absorbed many radical Egyptians” who still believed “that significant change” in Egypt “can be accomplished only by assembling democrats, Marxists, Nasserists, and independents into a united force against the present regime,” as the 1990s began, according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970.
Continue reading
Click below to link to The Rag
Blog
http://www.theragblog.com/
Peter Paul Markin comment:
When we were young, meaning those of
us who were militant leftist baby-boomers from what I now call the “Generation Of
‘68”, we would chuckle/gasp/shriek in horror when some Old Leftists tried to
tell us a few of the ABCs of radical politics. Those scorned old leftists, mainly
old Stalinist Communist Party hangers-on or moribund Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party members who had come of political age in the 1930s and 1940s had
nothing to tell us young stalwart in-your-face- rebels who were going to
re-invent the world, re-invent it without the hurts and sorrows accumulated from
millennia of previous struggles to push the rock up the hill of human progress.
Well, we fell significantly short of
that aim, had that Promethean rock come speeding down over our heads. Today I
am still not sure whether in retrospect those scorned Old Leftists of old had
anything going but all I know is we are now cast in somewhat the same light. We
are now the Old New Leftists. Problem is that unlike our 1960s generation,
warts and all, there is no sizable younger crowd of young stalwart
in-your-face-rebels to thumb their noses up at us. And there should be. That
has not stopped many old radicals, many who have not succumbed to old age and hubris,
from trying to be heard. And the place they have congregated, for better or
worse, at least from what I can see is at this site.
So I find this The Rag Blog website very useful to monitor for the latest in what
is happening with past tense radical activists and activities. Anybody, with
some kind of name, and who is still around from the 1960s has found a home
here. The remembrances and recollections are helpful for today’s activists.
Strangely the politics are almost non-existent, as least any that would
help today, except to kind of retroactively “bless” those old-time new left
politics that did nothing (well, almost nothing) but get us on the losing end
of the class (and cultural) wars of the last forty plus years. Still this
is a must read blog for today’s left-wing militants.
A Markin disclaimer:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest
to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Sometimes
I will comment on my disagreements and sometimes I will just let the author/writer
shoot him or herself in the foot without note. Off hand, as I have mentioned
before in other contexts, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to
fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies”
provided by the commentators in the entries on this website. But part of that
struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the
fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. Read
on.
******* Bloggers, Religious History, Reza Aslan, Zealot Leave a comment
:
A People’s History of Egypt, Part 20, 1990-1992
The Mubarak regime, supported financially and militarily by the United States, was accused of serious human rights violations, including extensive use of torture.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak walks with President H.W. Bush on White House grounds, April 4, 1989. Photo by Doug Mills / AP.
The only legal leftist opposition party which the Mubarak regime still allowed in 1990, al-Tagammu, “absorbed many radical Egyptians” who still believed “that significant change” in Egypt “can be accomplished only by assembling democrats, Marxists, Nasserists, and independents into a united force against the present regime,” as the 1990s began, according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970.
Continue reading
Posted in RagBlog Tagged Bob Feldman, Egyptian History, Hosni Mubarak, Human Rights, People's History of Egypt, Rag Bloggers, Torture, World History Leave a comment
No comments:
Post a Comment