Great Cockburn/St. Clair piece on Seattle

Nathan Newman nathan.newman at yale.edu
Wed Dec 15 15:30:16 PST 1999



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 10:24 AM
>
> I'm guessing the "EPI policy wonk" is Max Sawicky, who committed the
> heresy of saying on this list that without the unions, the protesters
> would have been dismissed as a bunch of hippies. The characterization
> of Marc Cooper's reaction is pretty off base; I was with him for much
> of the week, and he was full of admiration for the "heroes" he's
> claimed here to minimize, and full of (well-deserved) scorn for Medea
> Benjamin.

Wow, what a list of enemies for Cockburn/St Clair: * the union movement * EPI * Global "protector of corporate property" Exchange * Sierra Club * Jim Hightower

Must be comfortable down in that bunker.

And of course, the article conflates the window-breakers with the non-vandal direct action folks - many of the latter as unapproving of the window breakers as the "respectable" types.

And while Cockburn-Sinclair have full license to air their strategic views, I real fail to see why trashing the labor movement revival in a rightwing rag like the NYPress serves anything other than Cockburn's personal bank account.


>Jeff St. Clair writes:
>That said, the point is really to resist and, in fact, rend asunder,
>the very type of coalition that John Nichols, the EPI folks, Mark Ritchie,
the AFL
>apologists and some of the Naderites want to force upon us. Namely, to
merge the
>"fix it" and "nix it" factions.

Well, this is nice clear declaration of war, at least. This is the classic sectarian mode- destroy coalitions rather than fight democratically for a point of view within the movement.

Well, if the battle lines are drawn, I'm happy to be on the side of your enemies list.

Of course, most folks are more broad-minded and their will be a negotiated coalition across your imaginary divide, with a lot of advocacy for different positions, and it won't be Cockburn's message and it won't be Jimmy Hoffa's, but a broader and not always completely uniform message.

And that's fine with me; it's a big complicated world out there.

-- Nathan Newman

-- Nathan Newman



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