<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> My pal Terry the Toledo attorney comments on the WTO & China, "What's wrong, we shouldn't trade with other repressive regimes? Then who would we have to export our jobs to? Don't be so selfish." "Max B. Sawicky" wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE>IS ANYTHING MORE GOING TO HAPPEN? No one seems to want to respond to my core questions on this. Carrol >>>>>>>>>>>>> Au contraire. In this post I will not indicate approval or disapproval of any political course, but try to show what is going to happen, whether anybody here likes it or not.  This goes to the difference between idealized notions of struggle, and the way the working class actually struggles, as someone once said. There was an unusual symbiotic relationship in Seattle between the sit-downers and labor.  Without the sit- down, the labor march would have been a yawn.  Without labor, the sit-down would have been a bunch of hippies. I think this relationship is fleeting.  The sit-downers made an invaluable contribution by showing you could gum up the works and affect events at a high level with minimal material resources.  My suspicion is that labor learned this lesson.  It doesn't need the anarchists anymore. The Seattle coalition, such as it was, is not THE coalition.  The latter is labor and the big green and development groups, and the Nader types. They need each other.  They don't need anarchists. They have latent strength, like Frankenstein's monster (who wasn't such a bad fellow), but they needed a jolt of electricity. The next period will have a dual programmatic focus.  There will be the negative side (no WTO place for China, no Fast-Track, etc.), and a positive side (what a trade pact should consist of).  Some on the Right will join on the first, but emphatically not on the second.  Basically, by blocking with the Right on 'no' stuff, the left forces the Administration to make a deal that leaves the Right out in the wilderness. Labor wants a positive package that protects existing, better-paying jobs in the US. To sell this package beyond organized labor, it has to have two elements:  it has have something in the social area, and it has to have something for workers in the Third World, 'global South,' or whatever you want to call it.  In both cases, something substantial.  The prospect of such a deal is what holds the real coalition together. Labor MUST be internationalist to proceed. As with all politics, some of the internationalism will be bullshit (not unlike some green support for labor could be).  What is clear is that anarchism makes no sense in this context. Anarchists are now only instrumental in 'no' actions, like the Right. The principle is pretty simple, in class terms. The movement rejects policies (WTO/IMF/WB) aimed at redistributing income within the working class, as all quasi-supporters of free trade would have it.  The goal is to share gains at the expense of capital, not to share losses for the sake of capital. An import restriction that hurts Africa could be matched with debt relief and other possible aids.  I think there is an under- standing now that this needs to be put forward in specific terms, and with numbers. Yoshie's suggestion re: progressive isolationism, Marty's on public sector and minimum wage, or US labor rights, or Louis on the cab drivers all neglect the fundamental issue for labor, which is not "capitalism," but the further loss of above-average pay manufacturing jobs.  That's what motivates labor.  Not left-wing hobby horses, however cherished in our own views.  You can say capitalism caused this job loss, but that is not how the problem is generally viewed, rightly or wrongly. Frustration with the way labor actually struggles leads to silly suggestions about attacking the Democratic Party, "destroying the WTO," or opposing US military aid.  Silly not because these would be bad things to do, but because that's not the game in progress now.  There's no sense in trying to join a poker game and demand that canasta be played instead. What precisely has gotten workers' attention is the relevant question. In politics a standing question is getting from here to there, but much commentary here seems to start from there and ask how we can get here. I haven't said what is right or wrong about all this, though it would not take a genius to surmise that I take it to be positive overall. mbs</blockquote> </html>