>probably the only thing I
>disagree with about the Old Man is the line Doug brought up about having no
>homeland. The Capitalists have no homeland as they can go set up business
>anywhere in the world and leave after they drained the soul of wherever it
>was they landed and the workers need to bear the burden of the results in
>their own homeland. They don't have the luxury to pick up and move as they
>please.
I suspect what Doug and Marx point(ed) out is that, from the perspective of capital, the perspective which they take on as they work(ed) to understand it, workers have no homeland. To a capitalist, a worker is a worker is a worker, no matter where he comes from. From the "average" "unenlightened" worker's point of view, he has a homeland and little else, so he will fight viciously to prevent anyway from doing him immediate harm, inside or outside his country.
>This I think is one of the problems with the Anti-Globalization
>movement--being in general, a coalition based movement, we can't get a
clear
>assesment of what our goals are. We have everyone from anarchists, to
>commies, to Greens, to labor unions, environmentalists, ect. and this is a
>great thing--its much more effective to get together with people from all
>movements, because it is a lot more productive than counting on my five or
>six comrades from the local Socialist Party chapter. But at the same time,
>its one of our most prevalant weaknesses. With such diverse groups it's
>hard to get a good readout of what our goals should be. Some orgs have
>goals which are extremely incompatable with other orgs which tends to water
>down our power because we have to pick actions which won't offend other
orgs
>ithin the coalition which makes me fear that one of us will be interviewed
>y the press who ask "What are you trying to accomplish?", or "How would you
>suggest doing things different?" I don't know if speaking for a coalition
>nyone could give a clear answer on that....
How about, for a collective answer, on behalf of the coalition members: "We are questioning/critiquing capitalism" since that (capitalism) is, ultimately, what unites all these groups. It's a boring answer which would probably be ignored (Avi Lewis of CounterSpin fame here in Canada has routinely ignored such blunt comments as "It's capitalism that's to blame" even when a good argument could be had by that observation) in the mainstream media, but, over time, with enough people saying it (hmmm . . . sounds like "The Big Lie", no? We can call it "The Big Truth".) the message is bound to get through, and get more people thinking at the very least.
Todd