>
>Willem Hoogendijk of the Dutch Earth Foundation initiated a federation of
>"progressive NGO's" that promote small scale economics. Starting point is
>his "Optimist manifesto" which is bulging with nationalism. Hoogendijk
turns
>against migrants and "foreign capital".
[...]
>
>Hoogendijk thinks racism is a biological fact. He writes that an uncle of
>his always said: "Discrimination is a natural quality of people. You always
>distance yourself from others. You always mark yourself in relation to
>others. As an individual or as a group you are always inclined to defend
>yourself." Hoogendijk: "I think this is a sound starting point."
[...]
>
>In an Earth Foundation newsletter, Hoogendijk even published a contribution
>of a, probably fictitious, "Committee for the removal of humanity from
>earth". To begin with migrants and refugees, we fear. For although he is
>still claiming to make things "nicer with and for those who are now living"
>in the Netherlands, Hoogendijk does fantasize cautiously on the departure
>of the already present migrants and refugees: "Thousands of Ghanese are now
>pining away in and around the Bijlmer. (A black Amsterdam suburb, transl.)
>We had better execute a large scale project in their own country with our
>money and help?!"
>
Thanks for the tip on Hoogendijk. As with animal rights, so too with reskilling the workplace and creating human-scale communities-- Doesn't mean you're not a fascist. This illustrates the difference between a right-wing "ecotopia" and a left-wing "commons." The question is who we're trying to attract to our movement. Whereas ecotopia targets the already affluent, the left is focused on the disenfranchised, those who don't benefit-- even indirectly (as we do)-- from capitalist accumulation. It's about organizing immigrants and ghettos and the Mexican border region and moving on from there to all points South. But it's not just a matter of organizing people so they can strike against their capitalist employers. It's *also* about organizing alternatives to capitalist employment and consumption, generating a little autonomy among communities from the global market. This kind of organization is going on under the auspices of the FAT in Mexico and the Sister City project in rural El Salvador, to take just a couple examples. This is the kind of thing a leftist commons movement would build from. It would put immigration and the drug war and the death penalty and abortion and gay rights and all the explosive issues right into the heart of its program.
Or it's not worth shit.
Ted Dace