Letters ... December 14, 2022

Andor: Greater than the sum of its parts?
I just finished watching the new Star Wars series Andor on Disney Plus, and I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. For a science fiction franchise that usually leans on the deeds of individuals with supernatural powers to save the day, this new show seemed surprisingly class-conscious.

It emphasized the collective and covert methods of “ordinary” persons to organize under fascism, often at great risk to their safety. The cast is multiracial, and women are seen giving courageous leadership in every episode. To be honest, to watch the show reminded me of reading about the inspiring deeds of the Red Orchestra, the communist-led partisans that were organizing across European cities when the continent was occupied by the Nazis.

But then again, Andor was produced by Disney, a bonafide capitalist “empire” if there ever was one, so I kept asking myself: what’s the catch? I think that answer lies in showing some of the leadership making cold and calculated decisions to sacrifice freedom fighters to guarantee the growth of the young Rebellion. In doing so, the writers lean into anti-communist tropes that revolutionary leaders are generally just as corrupt as their capitalist counterparts and the best thing that the working class could hope for is some kind of vague “democratic” middle ground between fascism and communism.

Only time will tell what kind of lessons about revolutionary struggle get told in upcoming seasons of the show, but I’ll definitely plan on viewing it with a critical communist lens. If other CHALLENGE readers have seen this show, I’d be interested to hear your opinion.

*****
Radiation IS harmful in low doses
The letter in the November 16, 2022 CHALLENGE “Radiation, harmful only at high doses,”accepts the ruling class view on radiation. and says, “We live on a radioactive planet” and that radiation is not harmful in low doses. Not so!

This author fails to distinguish between types of entry of radiation into the body. External radiation poisoning can kill, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or burn the body. Internal radiation enters the body by inhalation of irradiated dust doesn’t kill or injure immediately but causes DNA and cellular damage. External radiation injury involves gamma rays. Internal radiation poisoning causes much more cellular damage than can be calculated from external exposure. Internal radiation damage comes from alpha and beta radiation. Alpha particles have 625 times more energy than gamma rays, and beta rays also have more energy than gamma rays. Since gamma radiation can leave the body and alpha radiation can’t, the latter is more damaging.

When the author says “we live on a radioactive planet,” it’s true that Earth has radon and that radiation naturally reaches Earth from cosmic rays, but the body is built to handle this radiation with robust repair capacity.  The body is NOT built to handle the 1,400 new man-made radionuclides from atom bombs, nuclear-powered ships or plutonium factories. The Atomic Energy Commission (now the U.S. Department of Energy) and other authorities tell us that low level radiation is safe. This is a lie! In fact, nuclear submarine personnel have increased rates of cancer; babies of X-Ray technicians have increased birth defects, etc. The author of the letter claims that after the meltdown in Chernobyl, it was found that people had doses of radiation “to the thyroid that were a tiny fraction of the doses used in nuclear medicine to save lives.” This is untrue! Chernobyl fallout caused increased thyroid cancer (Busby, 2022). Medical radiation also causes cancer. There is a large literature on low dose radiation causing cancer, birth defects and other harm.

The research on radiation in both epidemiology, invitro and in laboratory animals indicates that radioactive agents inside the body create damage to DNA and other adverse cellular effects (Busby, 2022). Busby presents evidence “that atmospheric nuclear testing in 1959-63 caused the increased global cancer epidemic that began some 20 years after the fallout.” Internal adverse effects from radionuclides inside our bodies are not detected with the external dose devices. Not surprisingly, all the research sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and its fellow agencies in the countries using nuclear technology have a vested interest in confusing the public to force acceptance of continued nuclear power plants, atomic powered ships and atomic weapons.
Busby, Christopher. 2022. “Ionizing radiation and cancer: The failure of the risk model.” Cancer Treatment and Research Communications 31: 100565.

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Critical the cult of the individual and voting
The article in the November 30th issue of Challenge on Stalin was excellent and timely given the renewed attempts by the U.S. and European bosses to attack Stalin. The article said so much with the line “The reason the capitalists hate Stalin is because he helped lead a revolution that threw them out of power”.

What people do (or don’t do) does make a big difference. As the article documents, Stalin made an enormous contribution to the working class. He gave leadership on how to fight the bosses and have the will to win even in the face of massive counter attacks and setbacks. That leadership set the tone for the communist movement.

There are two criticisms I have of the article as well. First, when we write about the old movement, particularly when we’re writing about Stalin and Mao it’s important to point out that they fostered the cult of the individual. The cult of the individual ended up being devastating to the movement as it gave a backward idea about leadership and when Stalin died it left many members paralyzed and not trained to help develop the line. It was then impossible at that point for the members to correct the Party and get it back on the path towards communism.

The second criticism is that in a couple of places the article talks uncritically about using voting to make decisions inside the party. Voting is a bad way to make decisions. We believe in communist centralism and the idea of from the masses to the masses.