International panels, globalisation and the "movement".

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Burford"
Subject: [A-List] Victory to USA !


 > Indeed to an increasing extent the possibilities
> for revolutionary or radical change inside individual
> countries are greatly affected by the international
> capitalist scenario.

The opportunities for success seem to be implied, but they are, in fact,
precisely what needs definition. I would argue, simply, that in the absolute
global dictatorship that currently exists, any moves made by a government even
towards maybe making progress would be considered sufficient to make that
government unstable or at least, under threat. Yes, it is good for
revolutionaries to use every soap box out there to speak the truth of the
matter, but we should not be drawn into defending a soapbox as if it were
liberated territory simply because it has been stood upon briefly. Any moves
that economically challenge any institution nationally- where it will be
implemented and have effect, that is-- will bring about (now sooner than later)
the forcible exit of the 'offending' nation-state from global institutions. And
as you mention, these small and muted NGO's & the like are dependent on
imperialist monies for funding. *The* definitive proof that they are as free as
the leash they are on.

All of this is not to declare that this event at the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change is irrelevant, but rather that the disposal of the formerly
semi-liberal head is a very clear indication (one of hundreds) that the question
of the attack on Iraq is when, not if. It also shows, quite clearly in fact,
what level of global dictatorship the American state and bourgeoisie are
implementing. We can use this example of how the "withering away" effect of the
globalisation era is, in fact, mainly a myth- but to promote the fight over this
office as anything more than instructive is to allow the very "supra state"
nature of the pro-globalisation myths to dominate our organisational impact and
to deter us from the struggle where it has to remain in the same place as
always: Anti-imperialist. Defending the office would have what positive impact?
Let us stay as clear on this subject as Washington is.
-----
from a different post, Chris writes:

>  Let us hope that the demonstrations in Washington this weaken rebuild the
> momentum lost in September,
--
For any who weren't paying attention or got smoked by the absolute blackout in
the bourgeois post-coup media, the single largest "anti-globalisation" march
took place in Barcelona, Spain on March 16. The numbers went from a report by
the police of 250 000 and the radical media gave it 500 000- you can choose
whichever method from there to decide how many showed up. So, now that more than
six months have passed by, we can see that the strategy of the imperialist media
in dealing with Anti-globalisation demonstrations has been to pretend they don't
exist. The single largest demo yet since Seattle "started" the movement gets a
North American blackout. Yesterday over 100 000 people jointly protested the
slaughter of Palestinian peoples and opposing the IMF and World Bank, tools of
American imperialism. This is an utterly remarkable step forward and a
furtherance of momentum that wasn't possible months ago. What has you confused
into believing that momentum has been lost is the absolute crushing of the
beginning of a radical analysis coming from the reformist camp within what gets
broadly painted as "anti-globalisation": big labor and NGO's have not uttered
barely another comment critical of the very systemically exploitive nature of
capitalism and, in all too many cases in fact, outright endorsed the war. NGO's
are fighting shadow puppets over whether or not Kyoto gets signed! Clearly, the
gulf between radicalism and reformism has become nearly epidemic for much of the
movement. The labour leaders of most imperialist countries are back fighting
workerist economistic fights in place of solidarity, class struggle or educating
their members about `globalisation' and it's effects. This is for the unions who
were radicalising even a little bit before 9-11; the TUB's in North America were
already, in most cases, working overtime to somehow protect their privileged
positions as labour guardians while responding minimally to the
anti-globalisation rumbles in a "positive" way. Since 9-11, there has been only
crawling towards radicalism again, although the few union leaders who are
opposing the "War on Terror" are to be commended for it. This commendation
should not deny that once again, the union sell-outs often are dragged into a
better class analysis and international position by the existence of people with
a real audience to speak to who have a real analysis they speak of.

Meanwhile, the anti-globalisation movement radicals have not backed down nor
have they disappeared as even people like myself originally feared.

The prospects for revolution- or at least the existence of a revolutionary
movement in the heartland of imperialism-- when the movement against
globalisation sees Palestine as a front line and the number of people taking to
the streets increases despite a clear new policy in the media that
demonstrations are now to be ignored into irrelevance- when all that is
happening, the prospects for real struggle (talking about *real* solutions) have
greatly increased.

What has decreased and hopefully permanently, are the prospects for class
collaboration and reformism of any sort, whether it be with the reformist
anti-worker scum leading the unions who line up with George Bush and Tony Blair
to recolonise the world, or with the institutions of the UN when they offer to
"mediate" or provide a "semi-independent" body (here's a hint: semi-independent
translates into NOT independent). If Third World Nation-states are able to use
the UN to raise reformist demands, then all power to them. This is not at all to
allow us to make the leap of making First World struggle to override the nation
state or call for imperialist intervention. And, for any first worlder to demand
action by the UN is to ask imperialism to flex its good cop muscle. We in the
beast have only one demand of imperialism left: Step off the stage of world
history and do it but right quick.

The momentum of collaboration has sped up along side of the momentum of the
anti-globalisation movement. If you are one of the people who thinks "the
movement" has lost a lot of steam, I humbly suggest that perhaps your
revolutionary sources have hopes on someday running capitalism- but doing it
much much better. The movement is, surprisingly and to my delight, as healthy as
the greatest hopes my heart would have dared stray to in the aftermath of the
9-11 attacks.

It is okay for us to be optimistic about the future sometimes. Sometimes, that
is the only rational angle.

Macdonald
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international

"Simply BEING a Palestinian in what used to be Palestine is a form of
suicide...slower and more painful than using a bomb to blow up yourself [...]."
- American Jew writing to others, email correspondence.
----
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht




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