Hey, Max, wait a minute. You mean you can't be part of this evolving
movement - I like to think of myself as a member - and be critical of
it too?
>>>
[mbs] There is criticism and there is abstention. The post was conducive to abstention. Abstention bad, support good. Grunt.
" What the hell is Pat Buchanan doing at a labor rally?
[mbs[ profiting from the abstention of the left. Given a critical mass of the latter, properly focused on trade, Patsy wouldn't have been at the rally, nor would he have his own movement.
>>>By definition, anywhere he is isn't a sideshow - he's a major political
figure. You don't invite him to speak without making a statement by
his presence.
[mbs] My contention is that he is a sideshow because his line is instrinsically unconstructive to the progress of a labor-based anti-globalization movement. You can't be ranting about 'world government' and support social clauses. You can't demand labor standards without some quid pro quo on debt relief. You can't be pro-labor and be prone to chauvinist attacks on people who have familial connections to the most dynamic wing of the U.S. labor movement. As people come to understand the near-term goals of the anti-global movement, they will see increasingly the irrelevance, if not counter-productive nature, of Buchanan.
It's not a matter of understanding how awful Buchanan is or his current political preeminence. It's a question of understanding the incongruence of the logical positive development of the movement to PB's perverse policy prescriptions.
>>>>>
Becker's rhetoric is hideous too. You can criticize the
Chinese regime without sounding like a xenophobe. The history of
American economic nationalism is deeply wrapped up with Yellow
Perilism, and it does no good to deny that.
>>>>
[mbs] That was then, and this is now. It does no good to dwell on it now either, when new shit is happening.
>>>
Workers of the world unite, man. Doug
>>>>>
Plant you now, dig you later.
mbs