> I would pretty much agree with you that the militancy (rioting) at
> Seattle was a positive. I would also argue, as I said in an earlier
> post, that there will be times in the future when that or a higher level
> of militancy (not excluding violence against people) will be called for.
> The hullabaloo was a great kickoff. But even if you are right about the
> actual achievement of the Seattle demos (re TRIPS), the "masters" are
> now prepared for that, I would not expect low level window-smashing or
> resistance to cops to have that kind of effect, and the crucial thing
> now is building a mass base for further demonstrations, and building
> NUMBERS at the demos. Now is not the time for more of the window
> smashing.
Yes, window-smashing may have lost some of that effect, but there is still a place for it. I think a variety of tactics should be used and perhaps more of them need to happen TO the corporations and the rich. Sabotage of their buildings. Radical workplace organizing.
One achilles heel of contemporary capitalism is its reliance on computerized just-in-time (JIT) distribution. How can that be hacked?
How about more books on globalization? There are a bunhc of smart people on this list. Why can't we aim towards flooding the local B. Dalton with our views? I go there these days and all I see are books from conservatives and their presses.
Mass base? That sounds so vanguardist. How about a networked, international mass base?
> The "movement," still pretty unformed, also needs to achieve a clearer
> internal structure (of course Munson & Co. will hate this: so be it) and
> began to move towards some shared principles. (Not fancy platforms, but
> principles of resistance.)
Ahem. It has a formed, clear internal structure. It would be more chaotic if it didn't.
It may seem like we don't have an overall strategy or plan. I've been playing by the same rulebook that I've been using for the past 7 years.
What is that structure? I suggest reading Amory Starr's "Naming the Enemy," or articles by Harry Cleaver. Those Rand reports on "Netwar" also do a good job of describing the assymetrical network strategy that we have been using.
I assume that Carrol is advocating structure in the form of one big socialist party (democratic centralism). That's soooo old school. ;-)
Shared principles? I think those are being developed organically through debate and discussion.
<< Chuck0 >>
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INTERNATIONALISM IN PRACTICE
An American soldier in a hospital explained how he was wounded: He said, "I was told that the way to tell a hostile Vietnamese from a friendly Vietnamese was to shout ‘To hell with Ho Chi Minh!’ If he shoots, he’s unfriendly. So I saw this dude and yelled ‘To hell with Ho Chi Minh!’ and he yelled back, ‘To hell with President Johnson!’ We were shaking hands when a truck hit us."
(from 1,001 Ways to Beat the Draft, by Tuli Kupferburg).