> no one is going to share a platform with people who will use it to accuse
> them of bad faith and cowardice (as opposed to proposing an alternative
> strategy they think will achieve shared goals.)
the significant stakes are Character?
in any event, the "alternative strategy they think will achieve shared goals" has already been suggested numerous times in these discussions here. doug, carl, myself, rob, and more recently carrol have all argued in various ways that reformist goals only succeed inasmuch as there is, in this parlance, an abolitionist movement. what is at stake here is not anyone's character -- who would really care about such a thing? -- but a conception of how social changes (even miniscule ones) actually occur. given those arguments about the conditions under which reforms can be acheived, it does seem that reformists need the implacable more than vice versa. but that too is far too simple a formula. the more concrete question is whether or not reforms are possible, and in that context, whether a reformist strategy entails a decomposition and demobilisation, including the erosion of those organisations upon which reformist strategies rely. can those NGO's live through such a process intact? i very much doubt it; and it has nothing to do with however many articles jeff writes on the subject observing the prologue to such a process and whether you or others choose to take offense at impoliteness. if the current ALF-CIO were concerned about the future health of that organisation, they should take heed of the things jeff has been writing.
> But there are also legitimate arguments along with legitimate parts of
the
> movement that still see multinational organizations as a counterbalance
to
> private global financial entities. The IMF, World Bank and WTO may not
be
> functioning as those counterbalances, but a pure abolition position can
> sound like an anti-government, libertarian, Buchanite economic position
in
> the United States. "National sovereignty" may sound progressive in
> Pretoria, but is the slogan of rightwing nationalist militias in the
> United States who argue for shooting immigrants at the border as part of
> preserving that national sovereignty.
i think doug asked the pertinent question here. why haven't you been more concerned about the real organisational and financial connections being pursued with the buchananites rather than the apparently tendential ones of "sound like"?
> In the end, "not this WTO" is a more progressive position than arguing
> that global deregulation is the best solution we can hope for.
this is only an accurate characterisation of the issue if you beleive that the state and market are antithetical and that there is a real prospect for the WTO to regulate against capital... which means, of course, that we're back to the above questions of how reforms get done and whether or not reforms (and indeed which reforms) are possible.
finally, so much for the neither/nor rhetorics, huh?
Angela _________