"What's wrong, we shouldn't trade with other repressive regimes?
Then who would we have to export our jobs to?
Don't be so selfish."
"Max B. Sawicky" wrote:
> IS ANYTHING MORE GOING TO HAPPEN?
>
> No one seems to want to respond to my core questions on this.
>
> Carrol
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Au contraire.
>
> In this post I will not indicate approval or disapproval
> of any political course, but try to show what is going
> to happen, whether anybody here likes it or not. This
> goes to the difference between idealized notions of
> struggle, and the way the working class actually struggles,
> as someone once said.
>
> There was an unusual symbiotic relationship in Seattle
> between the sit-downers and labor. Without the sit-
> down, the labor march would have been a yawn. Without
> labor, the sit-down would have been a bunch of hippies.
> I think this relationship is fleeting. The sit-downers
> made an invaluable contribution by showing you could
> gum up the works and affect events at a high level
> with minimal material resources. My suspicion is
> that labor learned this lesson. It doesn't need
> the anarchists anymore.
>
> The Seattle coalition, such as it was, is not
> THE coalition. The latter is labor and the big
> green and development groups, and the Nader types.
> They need each other. They don't need anarchists.
> They have latent strength, like Frankenstein's monster
> (who wasn't such a bad fellow), but they needed
> a jolt of electricity.
>
> The next period will have a dual programmatic
> focus. There will be the negative side (no WTO
> place for China, no Fast-Track, etc.), and a
> positive side (what a trade pact should consist
> of). Some on the Right will join on the first,
> but emphatically not on the second. Basically,
> by blocking with the Right on 'no' stuff,
> the left forces the Administration to make
> a deal that leaves the Right out in the
> wilderness.
>
> Labor wants a positive package that protects
> existing, better-paying jobs in the US. To sell
> this package beyond organized labor, it has to
> have two elements: it has have something in the
> social area, and it has to have something
> for workers in the Third World, 'global South,'
> or whatever you want to call it. In both cases,
> something substantial. The prospect of such a
> deal is what holds the real coalition together.
> Labor MUST be internationalist to proceed.
> As with all politics, some of the internationalism
> will be bullshit (not unlike some green support
> for labor could be). What is clear is that
> anarchism makes no sense in this context.
> Anarchists are now only instrumental in
> 'no' actions, like the Right.
>
> The principle is pretty simple, in class terms.
> The movement rejects policies (WTO/IMF/WB)
> aimed at redistributing income within the
> working class, as all quasi-supporters of
> free trade would have it. The goal is to
> share gains at the expense of capital, not
> to share losses for the sake of capital.
> An import restriction that hurts Africa
> could be matched with debt relief and other
> possible aids. I think there is an under-
> standing now that this needs to be put
> forward in specific terms, and with numbers.
>
> Yoshie's suggestion re: progressive isolationism,
> Marty's on public sector and minimum wage, or
> US labor rights, or Louis on the cab drivers
> all neglect the fundamental issue for labor,
> which is not "capitalism," but the further loss
> of above-average pay manufacturing jobs. That's
> what motivates labor. Not left-wing hobby horses,
> however cherished in our own views. You can say
> capitalism caused this job loss, but that is not
> how the problem is generally viewed, rightly or
> wrongly.
>
> Frustration with the way labor actually struggles
> leads to silly suggestions about attacking the
> Democratic Party, "destroying the WTO," or
> opposing US military aid. Silly not because
> these would be bad things to do, but because
> that's not the game in progress now. There's
> no sense in trying to join a poker game and
> demand that canasta be played instead.
> What precisely has gotten workers' attention
> is the relevant question.
>
> In politics a standing question is getting from
> here to there, but much commentary here seems
> to start from there and ask how we can get here.
>
> I haven't said what is right or wrong about all
> this, though it would not take a genius to surmise
> that I take it to be positive overall.
>
> mbs
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