rc-am wrote:
>
>
> I disagree with Carrol on many things; but on this point, he is right: "The
> real division is between those who want a mass movement to emerge from the
> November actions, with strong local roots, and those (like Sawicki, etc. on
> this list) who want to discipline that potential mass movement in the service
> of union and Democratic Party bureaucrats and their intellectual servants."
I presume this is what Max calls "cop-baiting." But I don't think I have accused him of doing anything he doesn't boast of doing. We just fundamentally disagree (as you say) on aims. (Actually, there is a sort of existential irony here. If the mass movement I speak of gets built, its short and medium range results will be harvested by Max's friends, but that's as may be.)
>
> I would just like Carrol's position to be more consistently applied, esp as
> it relates to the question of criticising the Chinese Govt, and his
> abandonment of such a view when it comes to countries other than the US.
More clarity. My statements were u.s.-centered, and I wouldn't pretend to judge their correctness in Paris or Melbourne. My point refers to present conditions *in the U.S.* I claim the *reasons* for any left criticism of China won't be heard -- they will be interpreted in racist terms. As I understand the disagreements between me and Angela, the disagreement relevant here is in respect to a historical judgment of the primacy of racism in U.S. politics. That is a long debate that can't be pursued here, but it informs my position on the WTO/WB/ IMF campaign.
>
> Which is to say that this is the only way in which one could conduct a
> criticism of the Chinese Govt sans the xenophobia, and why he can only think
> to exclude any possibility of such a criticism at all.
The AFL-CIO has defined the terms of the debate *for the present*, and it's my empirical judgment at this time that all criticism of the Chinese Govt. *will be heard* as agreement with the national chauvinism (and implicit racism) of the AFL-CIO position. No theoretical principle is involved. The vocabulary does not exist in the United States, now, to make criticism of China a valid part of a mass movement.
Carrol