Marc Cooper crapped:
> The coming show of force in Washington, and later this summer around
> the political conventions, has some very definable policy goals.
> Certainly not all of the protesters are thinking in long-term
> strategic-policy terms. But that is the only way 44-year-old Mike
> Dolan thinks. A former field director of the California Democratic
> Party, the diminutive, wiry Dolan is now a close lieutenant to
> consumer advocate and Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader,
> and holds the title of deputy director of Global Trade Watch, the
> Naderite group doing battle with the administration on its free-trade
> policies.
>
> Anyone who knows anything about the Battle in Seattle knows that
> Dolan was the single most effective organizer there and can rightly
> take credit for making it what it was. His staff awarded him a big
> silver star for his work, and on the door of his warrenlike office
> behind Capitol Hill his staff has placed a suggestive handmade poster
> asking who it is you get when you mix Woody Allen with Vladimir
> Lenin. The question is answered when you ã pass through the doorway.
This is a load of crap. This is typical shoddy thinking that I've come to expect from the Nation's stable of writers. Most of the street activists in Seattle had never HEARD of Michael Dolan until after the boss media had annointed him at the mastermind of Seattle. The fact that he is encouraging these kudos demonstrates his penchant for authoritarianism.
Not to worry, because the D.C. anarchists will soon pull the rug out from under him.
> The task Dolan has set himself is to translate the street heat of
> events like Seattle and the coming A16 into an effective and credible
> fair-trade political movement that can win tangible policy victories.
That's what he is thinking. I'd like to see him translate "Capitalism? No thanks! We'll burn your fucking banks" into a tangible policy wonk victory.
> That's why Dolan and his political allies, primarily among organized
> labor, have now focused their attentions on China. The Clinton
> administration is making a full-court press to have Congress grant
> China permanent normal trading status, which would pave the way for
> China's entry into the WTO. And that's where Dolan has drawn the
> line. If China, with its abominable human-rights and labor-rights
> record is granted membership in the world trading body, Dolan argues,
> there is no hope for civilizing the global economy.
This is where the anarchists and the more sensible elements of this coalition have Dolan beat. He says "No China in the WTO." We say "Nobody in the WTO."
> What made Seattle so special, and so memorable, was the heavy
> presence of organized labor. The image of Teamsters and Turtles
> together was light-years away from those days when the hardhats would
> come out to clobber the anti-war demonstrators. So for his piece of
> A16, Dolan wants to once again bring Big Labor out in force. And his
> timing couldn't be better.
This is a temporary marriage which the ruling class is working to dispel. Just this past week, in Tacoma, Washington, the union bosses (piecards) of the United Steelworker cancelled a rally around the Kaiser Aluminum plant, because they said that the Eugene anarchists and Earth First were coming to Tacoma to burn the plant down. The police were also spreading this rumor.
> No wonder, then, that the AFL-CIO has signed on to participate and
> take the lead in one of the key actions during A16.
The action that the AFL-CIO has signed onto is NOT a KEY action. It's the action for wusses who don't want to risk arrest. It's called the "permitted rally" and will feature union bosses boring the rank and file with long speeches.
> On April 12,
> Dolan hopes to bring as many as 15,000 or more union bodies to the
> steps of Congress. "It's going to be a day of citizen lobbying," he
> says. "Thousands of workers and their families swarming all over the
> Hill, all with the same message: No to the China deal." Teamsters
> president James P. Hoffa tells me that he "guarantees" that his union
> alone will put "at least 5,000" Teamsters onto Washington's streets
> that day. And the Steelworkers Union, battered by a hemorrhage of
> jobs overseas, is making a similar commitment for an action the
> following day.
Gee, what the difference between this and Buchananism? Instead of making this an issue of internationalism, they talk about it in nationalistic terms.
> The anti-China push coming out of Seattle, carried now in great part
> by labor, has already surpassed mere protest symbolism and is
> reverberating inside the congressional corridors. In the days before
> Seattle, approval of China's permanent trade status was considered a
> slam-dunk. Since Seattle, it seems like a long shot.
Yawn!
> "Seattle was a catalyst for empowering not only citizen activists on
> the issue of fair trade, but also those of us on the House floor
> working on the same issues," says Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis
> Kucinich, a firm Dolan ally. "Seattle energized us and transformed
> this whole issue. I think we now have the votes to block the deal.
> That means that citizen power has defeated tens of millions of
> dollars in corporate lobbying."
Hmmm, did any of these liberals notice the prevalent anti-capitalist message coing out of Seattle?
> If Dolan's first step is to bottle up the China vote this spring,
> step two in his strategic plan is to kill it off in the summer. He
> frankly plans to make trade policy the rallying point for massive
> demonstrations around the August Democratic Convention in Los
> Angeles. And, coast to coast, activists are already licking their
> lips and booking their flights on the chance that L.A. will become
> this year's Gettysburg in the war over trade and the global economy.
I doubt that. I think A16 will be bigger. And then we will kick some cop ass in Philadelphia, finally.
> "There'll be some protest against the Republicans, for sure," Dolan
> says. "But we're going to devote our real attention to the Democratic
> Convention. If there's going to be a change in trade policy, it's
> going to be in the 107th Congress under the new Democratic Speaker,
> Dick Gephardt. So we have to out the Democrats on this issue. Since
> Seattle, Clinton and Gore have both been talking the talk of fair
> trade. Now it's time to make them walk the walk. This will be our
> chance to put the final nail in the China deal."
Dolan speaks like a true believer. He doesn't understand that more and more people identify the Dems as being just another big business party like the GOP. After all, it was the Dems that implemented welfare reform, NAFTA, and pushed ruling class stuff like MAI, GATT, and the WTO.
I wonder what Dolan thinks about the fact that most people won't vote come November?
> Dolan is scheduled to start spending a lot more of his time in Los
> Angeles beginning the first week of April. And he vows that D2K, as
> the convention protest plans are being called, is going to reach out
> to even more diverse communities than in Seattle. He has already made
> contact with a network of South-Central clergy, and he's confident
> that the week's agenda will include a massive multiracial convocation.
As long as he can tell them what to do.
> Mike Dolan is confident that there's already enough momentum to pull
> off some significant rallies and forums that week. "And then, of
> course, there will be the street stuff," he says. "Massive,
> nonviolent direct action aimed at shutting down the Democratic
> National Convention. Then we'll see how the L.A. cops compare to
> Seattle's finest. L.A.'s gonna be the place to be this summer."
Isn't it amazing how an interesting article about the organizing behind A16 turned into a hagiography of Michael Dolan, that carpetbagging political hack?
I've seen the light! Where do I sign up for the next Nation cruise?
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