>Protest politics (in the absence of
>mass-based left-wing political parties) has been the mainstay of U.S.
>politics. The same goes for "coalitions of coalitions." It's just
>that with "the explosion of NGOs" and issue-oriented groups &
>grouplets, the already existing tendency (what Klein calls
>"paradoxical culture of extreme narcissism coupled with an intense
>desire for external connection") has become intensified. Another
>difference is that now this mode of politics may be becoming (or may
>have already become) global, not just American or even "Western," in
>the absence of two former alternatives (social democracy or
>revolutionary Marxism and/or nationalism). It's a sign of the times,
>so it's pointless to bemoan it, but it's also nothing so exalted as
>"the poetics of now."
I'm only marginally involved with the Movement, but I actually feel pretty elated about its form. And not just because of my anarchist leanings. Capital that's becoming decentralized and internationalized--by which I mean that trade and investment are becoming more diffuse and that capital is increasingly operating through international institutions--should, it seems to me, be met with a movement that's "radically decentralized" and international. To bastardize H---l (as Ken M. might type it), it's the perfect blending of subject and object.
Eric