"Have you heard of something called the 'anti-globlization movement?' If not, it's this really cool radical movement that has been pushing radical politics through radical actions for the past 4-5 years. It had a big coming out party in Seattle in 1999."
"Seriously, if you want to talk about specific protests, I'm ready to grab your scrawny steer by the horns and poke it to death. My group (the ACC) had spent 6 MONTHS organizing protests for September 2001, along with the Mobilization for Global Justice. The ONLY reason why the WWP was able to form ANSWER and have that fucking protest is because WE HAD DONE A FUCKING AWESOME JOB ON INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH FOR THE WB/IMF PROTESTS. What's more, we had a fuckign excellent unpermitted protest that month, despite the fact that ANSWER had stolen the spotlight and other activists had pulled out."
I think this paragraph reveals a good deal about Chuck0 and his own particular brand of tunnel vision. Chuck0 is writing about the DC protest of Sept. 29, 2001. He discusses the organizing work that the ACC did, he mentions that 'other activists had pulled out' (referring to the MGJ etc.), he accuses ANSWER of 'stealing the spotlight', etc. Everything is portrayed as sort of a game of Diplomacy or Risk, where the gameboard is DC and the players are ACC, ANSWER, and other protest forces, competing for the 'spotlight'.
The two little elements that he leaves out of his picture are (a) the DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER and (b) the subsequent "WAR ON TERROR" / WAR ON AFGHANISTAN.
Several times Lou Proyect, on his list, accused ANSWER of having a small-time shopkeeper's view of the movement. I intend to make sure that he sees this so that he can get a picture of what a narrow small-time shopkeeper's view of the movement REALLY looks like. The whole world is in convulsions outside Chuck0's window, and the only thing that he can see is his own circle, his own demonstration plans, the 'spotlight' that he is trying to get into, and the bad people who are 'stealing' the spotlight from him.
The bourgeois media were very fond of telling us that 9/11 "changed the world". I will be the first to say that this was mostly a lie, but for heaven's sake, SOME things about the world changed in September of 2001. The 9/11 attack had an effect on people's beliefs, and the Bush administration's use of 9/11 as a pretext to roll out its full program for global domination and domestic suppression affected the world in a very direct way. I can hardly believe that I am arguing the position that 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' were important developments, against someone who argues that they were really inconsequential trivialities, and that the important thing is who did or did not get the 'spotlight' on Sept. 29, 2001!
>From the point of view of anti-imperialist organizing, I would say that the
period from Sept. 2001 to April 2002 (the 9/11 period) was markedly
different from the period before that (the Seattle period, if you like), and
the period from April, 2002 through the present day has been different
still, a very positive and exciting period. Really a good case could be
made that the militants of Jenin get the credit for ushering this new period
of activism into existence. Other readers of this might conceptualize
things differently, but how many people will agree with Chuck0 that there
ARE no periods, that it is all in Paulsen's sectarian mind:
"Oh brother, not more of this sectarian socialist nonsense about periods!"
"Don't you understand yet that you have to go MAKE history, not wait for the right historical period to come around?"
To which I would respond that we DO have to MAKE history, but unless/until we have more forces in play than the US government has, we have to make history within a context of booms and recessions, wars, imperialist rivalries, periods of repression or relative liberty, etc., which is not under our control - WWP's OR ACC's - and to which we have to respond and adapt. It is not a case of 'waiting for the right period'. It is a question of doing things which make sense in the given period that you are in.
I regret the fact that history is not fair - that activists can work for months building an anti-IMF mobilization in DC, and that two and a half weeks before it comes off, WHAM! something happens in the world that completely changes the context. Chuck0 believes that the right thing to have done would have been to just go ahead as if nothing had happened - what's a World Trade Center more or less, an Afghanistan more or less? On with the protest! However, the rest of the anti-globalization movement didn't agree with this. In fact, they believed that the context was SO much changed that nobody could go and demonstrate in DC at all for the foreseeable future. Or at any rate that THEY didn't want to. Well, whose fault is that? Is that my fault somehow? We said at the time that this was a mistake. It would have been much, much better if all the forces which were committed to the anti-globalization protest on Sept. 29 had stayed the course, redoubled their efforts, and incorporated opposition to Bush's war into the protest. They had more resources than we did. If they had done so, then there would have been a bigger protest. They, and not ANSWER, might have ended up in the spotlight. But it would have been better!
IAC believed that the thing to do in the changed context was to have an anti-war demonstration and to initiate an anti-war coalition. Chuck0 interprets this as 'stealing the spotlight', because in his view the 'spotlight' was the private property of the anti-globalization movement, and when the other forces pulled out of S29, the ACC should have inherited the spotlight. Well, Chuck, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the 'spotlight' doesn't belong to any of us, and the space in front of the White House isn't your private property even if you think you have a permitless permit for DC for that day, and if there is an imperialist war, then there is going to be an antiwar movement and an antiwar demonstration in Washington, on the day that is most convenient for that demonstration, regardless of whether you, the Sierra Club, the Rotary Club, or the Flat Earth Society think that you have turf rights for that day or not.
Even so, that in and of itself would not have 'stolen the spotlight', because the 'spotlight' is largely the private property of the corporate media. Chuck0 writes:
"Look, we know that your way of doing thing can't get media attention, not to mention stop or slow down the war."
So what difference does it make if ANSWER came into existence and held an anti-war protest? How could this hurt the ACC or the anti-globalization movement? How did this obstruct the ACC from doing its own fuckign excellent successful thing and getting media attention? What prevented ACC from getting the spotlight on S29, and for that matter what prevents ACC from getting the spotlight today if it wants it?
Chuck0 sarcastically suggests that I never heard of the anti-globlization movement which had its coming-out party in Seattle. I have indeed heard of it. But since Chuck0 has more of a history with it than I do, maybe he can tell me what it has been doing lately in the US. Why haven't there been "two, three, many Seattles"? MY explanation for why we haven't seen Seattle after Seattle is that 9/11 and the war drive changed things; that there was a change in period. Chuck0 thinks this explanation is crap, since he doesn't believe in periods, but then what's his? Has ANSWER kidnapped it? Are there 10,000 protesters imprisoned in Ramsey Clark's basement? Is the spotlight in a crate in an ANSWER warehouse, like the Ark of the Covenant in the Indiana Jones movie?
According to Chuck0's theory, (a) the politics, strategy and tactics of the anti-globalization movement before September, 2001 were fundamentally correct, (b) these politics, strategy, and tactics are capable of exciting people, getting media attention, and actually effecting social change, in contradistinction from 'sectarian' politics, strategy, and tactics; (c) 'periods' are just a sectarian fantasy. It follows that (d) there could be another Seattle any time the anti-globalization movement wants to do one. So go do one! What's stopping you, Chuck? Are you on sabbatical? Do another Seattle! Make history! But IN FACT it is not happening. IN FACT the political climate is different. I'm not at all opposed to anti-globalization protests taking place and being successful, if they can be, but the numbers and energy have considerably fallen off, because people are thinking about other things, the war for example. Somehow Chuck would like to make this out to be ANSWER's fault, but it isn't.
Lou Paulsen Chicago