>
> Yes, but.... Portions of U.S. organized labor are showing the most
> internationalism they have in my memory, which, despite my advancing
> age, is still a fairly limited range. These signs should be
> encouraged, and not disparaged. Hoffa's Mexico- and China-bashing
> deserve nothing but scorn, but for a movement that was long a junior
> partner in the Cold War, this is progress.
They've yet to walk their talk, Doug. And, as you yourself admit, their talk to this point reflects a kind of baby-step incrementalism at best. Hoffa, as you note, is raving like a full-blown Buchananite. Yet, many Lefties who have savaged (rightly, in my judgment) Buchanan for his brown/yellow baiting have embraced "the new Hoffa" as a kindred spirit (Moore and Molly Ivins are only the most prominent examples.) But the new boss is the same as the old boss, from where I sit.
No one from this quarter has said anything but encouraging and admiring words for the militants inside Big Labor. They need our encouragement and they also need us (ie., you) to strip the patina of credibility away from the very people who are oppressing them inside their organizations. That's the point. As Jeff Crosby, the electrical worker local president, noted in his excellent journal from Seattle: many labor organizers pushed for a direct action contingent on the frontlines from the AFL. They were soundly rebuffed. The questions should be: who rebuffed them? why? what did they gain by doing so? was it worth it? are they now benefitting from the actions of those who took to the streets? what will they do with that advantage?
I think we know the answers to these questions and they are not pretty. I hope they prove me wrong. Many of the people on the frontlines in Seattle were my friends. I've known them a long time. They are mainly hard-core forest activists who've laid their bodies on the line over and over again, from British Columbia to Idaho to the Oregon Cascades and the Humboldt redwoods. They've used direct action to save areas from the chainsaw, only to see the heads of connected organizations deal away those stands of ancient forests months, sometimes only weeks later. The biotech movement and international rivers movements and anti-sweatshops forces have experienced similar cooptions from above. It's time to put those people who weren't on the streets (literally or spiritually) on notice: you're not going to ape solidarity with us in order to get a better bargaining position down the line. As one demonstrator in Seattle told me: "Tell that Carl Pope and John Sweeney this: either you're with us or get the fuck out of our way."--jsc