>Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> [I keep arguing that protectionism isn't a popular political stance,
>> but I have a hard time getting anyone to acknowledge this. More
>> evidence...]
>>
>
>What is your best bet as to how popular "free trade" will be three years
>from now among persons who _also_ are opposed to u.s. intervention in
>the Middle East?
>
>If political participation in mass movements increased significantly in
>Mexico over the next 5 years, what would be the attitude towards free
>trade of those involved in or influenced by those mass movements?
>
>How do attitudes towards free trade affect those who _might_, in the
>next 18 months, become actively involved in antii-intervention
>movements, in living-wage campaigns, or in solidarity work with workers
>attempting to organized in areas of the economy where there are
>virtually no unions?
>
>And so forth. These are the kinds of questions one must have a more or
>less tacit and spontaneous answer to if one engages in actual
>organizing. I don't know what anyone can possibly _do_, in actual
>organizing, with information on how the population as a whole feels,
>NOW, on such a general topic as as "protectionism."
>
>What would black organizers have done in 1956 if they had made public
>opinion polls on racial integration a factor in their decision making?
Your point, assuming you have one, is rather obscure to me. The point I was trying to make is that the widespread "left" atttitude towards trade and "globalization" is marginal, reactionary, and doomed. If you're trying to argue that autarky is somehow revolutionary, or potentially so, you're in need of a serious rethink.
Doug