> Am I the only fool noticing a creeping 'left-celebrityism' in these
> epistemic duels? There were approx. 10k people at the ESF and lot's more
> at the WSF's, what do they think and what are they doing next?
"It's certainly possible to level a critique of the social forum process as elevating certain individuals to movement stars, something the radical edge of the movement has always rejected for a variety of reasons."
I think this is a good diss of the entire social forum nonsense, which is mostly just a movement to keep alive the dinosaur tendencies within Leftism. I mean, why wouldn't Negri trounce Callinicos in a debate? Callinicos' politics are obsolete. Any person can look at the track record of Trotskyism and conclude that it has failed to accomplish anything.
I don't pay much attention to the WSF, ESF, or whatever the fuck they are calling it this year. It's all just a conference for leftists who have money to travel. Even those of us "privileged" radicals in the first world can't afford to jet down to Porto Allegre. Our voice isn't heard, except for the local anti-capitalists who organize counter-events and take their clothes off and so on. These social forums are just a big boring conference for the old school leftist parties. And all of these World Social Forum celebrity death matches just run counter to the anti-capitalist movement's hostility towards leaders and celebs.
I guess they are having another one of these damn things in India next year, right? I'm betting that post-forum we'll see a bunch of standard NGO PR about how these forums are great victories for "civil society" or "the next superpower" or whatever touchy feely nonsense they are peddling in 2004. No revolution ever came out of a weekend conference, so at best these gatherings are places to exchange ideas and network. In the meantime, those of us who have to keep up the struggle in the streets and who are losing more and more comrades to the criminal injustice system, don't have access to the money and resources that are being lavished on the WSF or these expensive NGO junkets.
So excuse some of us if we laugh at all the Mister Rogers happytalk about the World Social Forum. And don't be surprised if we also laugh at the so-called "leaders" that come out the WSF. Negri has interesting things to say. Callinicos is a boring old Trot with no fashion sense.
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