Social Protectionism

[Max Sawicky]

The AFL thinks it is easier to organize sanctions on
foreign goods than change U.S. law re: secondary
boycotts.  They also think it is better to try
and organize under difficult circumstances than
lobby politicians re: labor law in general and
secondary boycotts in particular.  They could
be wrong, but nothing you have said speaks to
that question.

It's easy to prescribe postures from the outside,
but hard to determine what is most effective when you
have actual, limited resources you must decide how
to allocate.

Your outside-the-fray pronouncements thus have
little weight.  Try doing what the AFL does for
ten years and then tell me how you think their
strategy should change.  You might as well be
playing "Class Struggle -- The Game."

mbs

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
[mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:42 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: RE: Social Protectionism


>>> Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at Princeton.EDU> 03/16/00 12:50PM >>
Max, isn't it illegal in many cases to organize boycotts against union
busters in the US. If we think it's so important to boycott such foreign
producers--and to organize massive Seattle size rallies towards this
end--why not so much pressure to revise US law?

**********

CB: Right on Rakesh. Secondary boycotts are illegal in the U.S. Let the AFL
get busy organizing and denouncing that. This law is so crazy that it was
used successfully against the NAACP which organized secondary boycotts to
pressure of civil rights. Notice this is a way not to use the state to
demand rights and concessions from the bourgeois and their governments.

CB