----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 11:22 AM Subject: Re: violence achieves nothing?
---- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Davies" <dsquared at al-islam.com>
>3. The reason that the Seattle TRIPS was not signed, was
that Seattle had
>been consumed by riots.
That the failure of Seattle was a good thing and led to an improved TRIPS is true and I have no argument with the importance of Seattle. The question is whether it was the militancy of 40,00 unionists and community activists generally that led to those results, or whether a small number of window breakers deserve credit for bringing it down.
>
The idea that a few broken windows so intimidated the corporate types as to make them throw away trillions in profits from neoliberal trade is silly.
-- Nathan Newman
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Seattle was a fun way to end the 20th century in the US; it's pop history. What do we do now, now that collective action is *far more problematic* in the US than in other countries and large parts of the US citizenry are engaging in what one of my dearest friends calls 'defensive narcissism' vis a vis the rest of the planet's peoples?
I'm all for learing from the successes and mistakes made the week of N30, but what are the non-electoral strategies that can bring more citizens into networks that don't just result in another iteration of special interest politics US style? What we do between demos is far more important than the demos themselves.
Ian