Depends on the situation, but the number one tactic that North American leftists need to use in making alliances with Third World revolutionaries is respect and an end to the sanctimonious hand-wringing being carried out while we sign petitions. Respect is more than the tacitc- it is the principle foundation.
>what methods of communications?
This cannot be predicted. Currently, you are looking at the most common one, but it is hopelessly limited and tracable.
> what will the rules
> be for adjudicating disagreements?
That can only be worked out with whoever our allies are, such is the practice of alliance building. We cannot simply lay into these people demanding that they be required certain things. There are a lot of things that others could demand of us here that many would balk at. Flexibility is absolutely key.
> how will a leader be selected?
Who knows yet? This won't start as a party. There probably wouldn't be a "leader".
will
> there be formal democracy?
Yes.
> substantive democracy? does it matter?
Again, we count chickens too early.
>does a
> socialist struggle involve violence?
Does capitalism defend itself peacefully? No. Who is first? I live in violence everyday, thanks to capitalist structures. So, socialist organising, even a teach-in, already occurs in the context of local capitalist violence.
> how many causalities are acceptable?
Capitalism kills at least 30 million a year, what do you think would be a good ratio to that?
> if violence is used, against what/who?
This is a good question. The reason it needs to be asked is, however, in context. Of course we all now see the WTC as ineffective, let alone all the other reasons and things we could say about it. However, let me ask this: Had there been no civilians in the plane, what of the attack on the Pentagon? That question has been quietly forgotten. Really, it's because no one wants to defend an act of terrorism- but there is both real irony and poetic justice to what happened with the Pentagon, and who is losing sleep over the monsters who had organised the destruction of so many lives so many times over?
will it be cops and courts or
> the violent suppression of counter revolutionaries?
I am not sure what you mean?
> what are grounds for
> identifying a counter-revolutionary?
Actions only. Rant and rave about the need for racist patriarchal capitalism to your hearts content. Organise a military opposition to the current state of affairs and have to face the consequences. In other words, act exactly as "liberal democracies" do in theory, but really put it in practice without such a monstrous mis-levelling towards Blacks, workers, etc. etc. etc.
> how do you propose to fight off the
> cops? the military? how to you propose to win over dissenting factions of
> the military? the police forces?
The military has a much better chance of being won over than the police. The police are, to psycho analyse, fucked individuals. But someone recently dealt a different way of dealing with the draftless military to my thinking. We all usually say it is harder because of the fact it is voluntary, but let us remember that a lot of people- most, in fact- in the military are unemployed starving workers, many disproportionally "minorities". When the long-term war with volunteers kicks in, and it will be the first one like it, it will be extremely tough to keep them onside. unemployement=desperation=killing Afghans? A lot of these people, to quote from a song : "do they believe Bush's fascism? No.- They just couldn't get a job so they had to go - get ground up in Bush's war machine- what do the fuck do the polls on TV mean?--- No blood for oil."
Macdonald