"Civil"? Nope, comrade Nathan, divide-and-rule does not work. The reason that our dear Doug, for instance, is so transparently green with envy when he posts Cockburn's pieces is that as close as he often gets, he just cannot match the cheekyness that always ensures good, busy people read and notice and eagerly await Counterpunch. We are in the Information Age and there's just too much of it. If you do not write in a confrontational, controversial way, you just get lost in the mush out there, don't you find?
By the way, one of the many vaguely amusing things that emerged in the 1990 transition from the SA Left's use of "organs of people's power" to "civil society" (or sometimes, in my colleague Mzwanele Mayekiso's retranslation, "working-class civil society") was the obviously "civilised society" sought by the NGO funders and the bourgeois press. I think, in contrast, that Jeff's right: the only possible alternative to barbarism is an international riot. Like the one in Paris 129 years ago, or in St Petersburg 82 years back, or even briefly in Alexandra township a few km up the road from my office in the Wits University business school campus about 13 years ago (a shame the SA Defense Force came down on those guys so hard, and stopped the rot from spreading to Parktown).
But since you seem to want something more concrete and immediate, I think to get there by first uniting diverse international activists around a common target, a very good tactic for consciousness-raising at the very least is the World Bank bond boycott; and by implication, a very good strategy is defunding the IMF/WB/WTO, so as to markedly change the balance of forces in our favour, and more-or-less universally so, in each of our very different settings. As far as I know, Global Exchange is on board this strategy (I really only know the group firsthand from having done an excellent Chiapas tour with them last year), and indeed Kevin continues inspiring many audiences around the Bank bond boycott, even if Medea's performance in Seattle apparently left something to be desired. Everyone has bad days.
But regarding your view that strategic int'l-economic incrementalism (and accompanying frustration) is part of a process that will radicalise people further, it seems to me that we've all matured, and we're now beyond that. (In relation to the WB, I thought so five years ago, too.) Especially after Seattle. And at a certain point in every struggle, would you not concede, reformers do in fact just get in the way. Like Rev Leon Sullivan, for instance, who during the 1980s issued a code of conduct for US corporations to operate "ethically" while in apartheid SA, while the ANC and Mass Democratic Movement called for total disinvestment. As an ordinary university divestment activist, there was simply no question in my mind at that point, that following Sullivan would give apartheid another lease on life. The same is true, today, for accepting the IMF's bona fides when they rename ESAF the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, as Camdessus did three months ago to some bizarre, naive applause from Inside-Beltway sharpies.
And if our analysis is not merely about the "good faith" of reformers but rather more about their positionality--i.e., their (and their organisations') material interests in getting a seat at (or crumbs from) the Big Table--then anyone working for international social justice has an obligation to point this out, and where appropriate to view them as enemies. I think, for instance, that Oxfam International and Oxfam US are now squarely in this camp, in relation to global debt/finance issues, after again and again accepting the BWIs' bona fides (even endorsing more taxpayer funds for the charlatan Wolfensohn), and without consultation within the broader movement.
And it's usually simple civility that prevents us--those who can see it clearly enough--from saying as much, aloud, and hence prevents us all from moving to a more coherent, powerful stage of analysis and practice, with more reliable comrades as allies.
Anyhow, I'm kind of exhausted on this topic, mainly because I'm trying to see things from too faraway. I'll be briefly visiting DC, NY and SF/LA in about three weeks, and will try to look up comrades who have been doing Seattle-type work, and will let you know if I smell anything sufficiently sour to make me retract...
> However, your context is a frustrating World Bank series of reform
> struggles. My perspective is the successive fights over NAFTA, GATT and
> then fast-track authority legislation. In each case, the "fix it or nix
> it" type strategy was used and it made greater and greater inroads until
> fast-track authority was defeated- a crucial win that essentially derailed
> any attempt to expand NAFTA to other countries.
>
> And I have trouble keeping track of the enemies and "sharpies" here, since
> Jeff labelled Global Exchange as an "insider" reformist, yet you seem to
> praise Dannaher at GX as a hero of abolition.
>
> Which goes to the heart of my attitude. There are conflicting strategies
> out there and I have no problem with different pieces being pursued.
> There should be room for abolition advocates but it is hard for me to feel
> sympathy for complaints of being shut out of discussions when abolition
> advocates like Jeff (and occasionally yourself in a more respectful way)
> denigrate the good faith of those pursuing other strategies. I would
> happily fight for an open multi-track strategy of globalization
> opposition, but that requires mutual respect by all involved. Otherwise,
> 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.)
>
> I've spent lots of my political life fighting to create organizations that
> respect views I disagree with, so I am serious when I argue for a
> multi-track movement. But a requirement for that to work is for respect
> to be extended across differences. The plain fact is that a "fix it or
> nix it" strategy leaves plenty of room for those arguing to "nix it" as
> the only real solution; you can argue the message gets lost but as noted,
> it did not get lost in the defeat of fast-track here in the US.
>
> 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.
>
> In the end, "not this WTO" is a more progressive position than arguing
> that global deregulation is the best solution we can hope for. Local
> regulation by countries is a poor substitute given the power of global
> capital to whipsaw countries in a "race to the bottom" and use selective
> capital strikes to force favorable terms. Maybe this relates to my
> skepticism of achieving "socialism in one country", but there it is. At
> heart, I believe in fighting for global institutions that would fund
> development in poor regions, would provide capital for those lacking it,
> and would encourage open and fair trade across the globe. The World Bank,
> IMF and WTO may fail at these goals, but abolition can easily be
> understood as implying those goals are invalid.
>
> In that sense, abolition seems like the short-term tactical slogan, while
> the "fix it" strategy may be flawed tactically (I am open to the debate)
> but is much truer to most progressives goals for a just global social
> system.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>