>rob, in all seriousness, what are you talking about? do i really have to
>endure more abstract invocations of unity as a way of avoiding the real
>question of what such 'unity' consists of post-N30.
Sorry to disappoint.
>my question has always been: why is it more important to focus attention on
>the trashers and whether they are or aren't a legitimate part of the
>campaigns, but not, otoh, to consider more seriously the presence of
>xenophobic and racist elements and 'solutions'?
Guess I found the former the more surprising. I was actually focusing on the trashing of the trashers, not the trashers themselves.
As the American economy is relatively good at soaking up its labour pool at the moment (ie labour is relatively scarce), I'd have thought we'd have expected a strong protectionist/Buchananite sentiment in US politics (so bad are the party candidates this time 'round, so good a speaker and pulse-taker is Buchanan, so on-the-nose are institutions, and so propitious the circumstances for a xenophobic demogorgon, that I'd go so far as to say Buchanan is actually a rough show for the White House).
>in short, what kind of
>unity is in fact being proffered here, why, and what are the consequences
>of any particular variation of such?
We don't know. Depends on who does the best agitprop, I guess. And that depends a fair bit on articulated criteria for proffered unities. The Right and the Left are trying to appeal to many of the same hurts and concerns. The left has the harder rhetorical job (blaming foreigners, commies and faceless bureaucrats is good meat for speeches - systemic critiques don't generally make for punchy sound grabs - hence my stress on the commerce-subordinating-democracy line as promisingly resonant bannertalk). Seattle got people together, and got things said, that smelled more left than right. And we can't choose to fight one battle at the expense of another, can we? We have to add what little pink we can to the globalisation mix whilst the issues are up for grabs - not come back to it when the suits have it all nicely in place. We have to hope the experience of this struggle gives rise to sentiments and motivations that will also help counter the rise of the Xenophobic right. This means we have the difficult job of working on agitprop criteria that at once resonate widely but disallow confusion with Buchananism. That's all I was getting at. Abstract invocations and all.
>'unity', like 'democracy', means many different things depending on your
>political perspective. and i would have expected that it wouldn't have
>been reduced so easily to a slogan that leaves unexamined the actual
>practices, forms and political alliances being advanced or legitimated or
>simply shifted off our critical radars.
If I'm not getting at what you're getting at, it's because I don't get it - again. I've seen mebbe one or two allusions to getting into bed with Buchanan, but have not got the impression that the balance of either this list or the Seattle crowd was anywhere near such a poisonously suicidal position.
>the attempt to 'fix it' will not produce those elements of social
>democracy that we might like and support: basic incomes, welfare reforms,
>labour rights, not to mention redistribution in any serious sense, etc.
>the only thing -- and i really mean the only thing -- that will be
>'conceded' here are along the lines of the ravings about the threat of
>mexican and chinese workers. that, plus a new round of criminalisation of
>those who remain outside this process, whether they're part of the nominal
>constituencies of those who are at the table or not.
Keeping on delaying it could prove very useful indeed, I reckon. If anything, the 'fix it' position is more useful for this than 'nix it'. A fixed WTO is effectively a nixed WTO, I reckon. This we could do by rejuvenating discourse about marginalised institutions/treaties like the ILO and Rio/Kyoto again. Realistic places to direct stuff such that the WTO does not hold sway over them - and rhetorically useful to keep us from falling into the right's category in the public mind.
>>what this means is that unity and representation -- if by that we take it
>to mean a sense of political direction and perspective on tactics, etc --
>emerges from _within and through_ movement ...
Theory spawned in practice! Abso-bloody-lutely! So what do you reckon that's less abstract and platitudinous than what I reckon?
Cheers, Rob.