When the Maoists of the Maoist Internationalist Movement here are less sectarian than frank scott, one has to chuckle.
Martin Shaw, btw, is a former member of the UK SWP that edits this website, http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/ GLOBAL TIMES -TOPICAL COMMENT Suzanne Goldenberg, Hilary Rose on the academic boycott of Israel academics sacked from journal just for being Israelis Mirko Klarin how, contrary to left-wing myth, it was Slobodan Milosevic who blocked agreement on Kosovo at the Rambouillet conference Gurminder Bhambra, Martin Shaw racism and academic freedom debate Kees van der Pijl Assassination of politician- adventurer Pim Fortuyn Arundhati Roy India's Hindu fascism Edgardo Lander Venezuala after the coup against Chavez Samantha Power debate: Rwanda, bystanders to genocide JUSTPEACE- SPECIAL SECTION ON THE SPREAD OF WAR AFTER 911 Tanya Reinhart, Uri Avnery Jenin massacre Paul Rogers linkage with Iraq Martin Shaw, Achin Vanaik India-Pakistan crisis
Michael Pugliese MIM Notes 261 • July 1, 2002• Page 4 http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/mn/mn261.pdf For the last few years, MIM has talked about reformist allies in “internationalist social-democracy.” Last year, MIM passed a platform with potential to appeal to internationalist social-democracy at the expense of traditional chauvinist social-democracy. However, the allies that MIM pointed to have been single-issue activists in the environmental movement, movement for affordable health-care and elsewhere. Now there is a think tank based in England formed in May 2002 called Fabian Global Forum of social-democrats that is consciously taking up the call to reshape European social-democracy. Glenys Kinnock, a member of European Parliament talked about how accepting global trade is positive while it is necessary to make sure the rules do not favor the rich countries as they do now. She said, “Rich countries need to phase out quota and tariff restrictions on exports from all low-income countries, and radically reform their use of export subsidies particularly for agricultural production. The European Union’s ‘Everything but Arms’ Initiative, which was adopted in 2001, lets all products except armaments from the very poorest countries in the world enter European markets duty and quota free. This is a step in the right direction, but clearly much more needs to be done to ensure that developing countries can effectively participate in the globalisation process.”(1) Although social-democrat Martin Shaw and others talk endlessly about defending and exporting “democracy,” none of the contributors to the forum make a clean admission about social-democracy’s past since inter-European imperialist conflict over colonies severely intensified 80 years ago. Internationalist social-democrats, as they come into existence, enter onto MIM’s turf, the international proletariat’s turf, but they do so with a difference, which is why they are occasional allies and not “comrades.” The crucial and historical divide was World War I when social-democratic activists decided to “represent” workers of Germany, France, England etc. which had become a labor aristocracy and respect their majority opinion favoring war while the communists stayed with a scientific definition of “proletariat” and held up internationalist principle, at the expense of support in elections. As a result, social-democrats in each country voted for war which pitted the workers of Europe against the workers of Europe. Since that time, the social-democrats have had a better claim on supporting “democracy,” meaning majority rule, while the communists have favored internationalist principle even at the expense of popularity and “democracy.” Today as we go into an era where internationalist social-democracy has some limited prospects of success, we would be remiss not to point out the underlying competition between the united $tates and Europe. Since even “conservatives” in Europe have greater natural respect for social-democracy than the politicians of the united $tates, an Amerikkkan-led globalization looks one way while an assertive European Union means something else in global politics. The Vice-President of the European Parliament from Scotland depicted the Amerikkkan-led vision as follows, “an unregulated free market where capital is king and the poor are being ripped off by de-regulation, privatisation and the plundering by rapacious global corporations and corrupt politicians.”(2) Conscious internationalist social-democracy emerging need a way to put together majority support in elections. In the end they will sacrifice the interests of the international proletariat in order to obtain majority support, because of their respect for and self-interest in “democracy.” MIM agrees with most of what professor Martin Shaw had to say about the need to remake social-democracy. He concluded his article on the new Fabian website the following way: “Social democracy will only become genuinely global if it can see itself as something very different from a safe and fairly comfortable corner of European politics, and can imagine a very different role and a very different world. The global challenge to social democracy is deep and potentially uncomfortable. It remains to be seen if it can be grasped.”(3) Social-democracy will have a hard time reaching its full internationalist potential without supporting the People’s Wars in the Third World. This will be a difficulty, but globalist social-democracy has some potential for staving off traditional fascism in Europe. While traditional social-democracy is our entrenched enemy, we have many prospects of unity with globalist social-democracy on our platform of an international minimum wage, international limitations on hours worked, international rights to education, international agricultural price supports etc. Notes: 1. http://www.fabianglobalforum.net/global600/article001.html 2. http://www.fabianglobalforum.net/global600/article002.html 3. http://www.fabianglobalforum.net/forum/article001.html D prisoner news, all the latest on the U$ war, and much more. MIM’s website is an indispensable tool for the revolutionary movement. Get involved! www.etext.org/Politics/MIM