> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > But by post-Genoa period it had increasingly came to seem to me that
the
> > whole movement was capable only of a sort of forced (i.e., stunted)
> > growth. That was focused when (on another list or lists) I read posts
> > from activists talking about how the decision to hold some "global"
> > meeting in some isolated location in Canada "plated into our hands"
(not
> > exact phrase, but something like that) because there was _such_
limited
> > access that it would be easy for small numbers of activists to block
the
> > delegates from getting there. I don't remember the details accurately
> > enough to claim accuracy here, but whatever the details were, my
> > response to them at the time was that a 'movement' with this kind of
> > thinking was not going anyplace. The prominence of the various 'black
> > blocs,' not only in the demonstrations but in leftist discussion
> > afterwards reinforced my feeling that this was a movement was made up
> > (MOSTLY) of activists with with no base.
>
> Actually the movement has quite a base, which was demonstrated in
> post-Seattle protests where more people converged on central locations.
> One very important thing that is often forgotten about Seattle is that
> is was just one protest during a day of protests around the world. And
> Seattle followed on the heels of J18, where hundred of protests had
> happened around the world.
===================
Rather than get caught up of whether or not there was/is an adequate base of solidarity/sympathy amongst citizens, it might be better to try and address how we can become more effective in doing outreach. The humbling lessons from Argentina should give us all serious pause for thought:
[PDF]Argentina: 18 Months of Popular Struggle A Balance File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/030604petras.pdf
[thanx 2 Michael Pugliese 4 pointing me to this longer version of James Petras' latest piece in the Sept. MR]
Learning more about how to create effective scale simultaneities, a tactical issue, is important but not as important as getting more anarchists, greens, reds, blues to get a better understanding of what folks like Greenspan, Lord Eatwell and others are saying/doing. There is *still* one hell of a learning curve to climb -and Chuck if you don't know who Lord Eatwell is, that's my point. People in the streets every now and then is worthwhile for sure, but what we're learning to think through between confrontations is what counts.
One, and it's only one, small, barometer will be just how well Doug and Nomi's books do in the months ahead, given that folks like them don't get on TV to do analyses and outreach. Not just amongst the usual crowd of suspects, but whether we can help them approach the Michael Moore level of outreach without their work turning into just another coffee table text like Stephen Hawking's book.
>
> I haven't been able to put my finger on the exact reasons for the
> decline of anti-globalization protests in the U.S. One big factor was
> that our momentum was disrupted by those assholes who flew them planes
> into the World Trade Center. Another factor is that we have managed to
> win quite a bit and have managed to spread our messages to large
> portions of the population. When the pundits are talking about how
> globalization is on the ropes and activists can see how US unilateralism
> has torpedoed globalization, there is less of incentive to protest. And
> then there are the liberals and NGO and unions who are working very hard
> to make sure that the movements don't do anything that falls afoul of
> their agenda.
==================
Again, the issue is not to see the multilogues/arguments with the NGO's and Unions as a zero-sum game of oneupmanship. Radical things can happen in friendly conversations with members from those groups. I've seen it happen, so writing them off is a big mistake right now and for the forseeable future. Walden Bello runs an NGO; do you really think it's worth have a 'more radical than thou' attitude with that guy and all his friends across the planet? Max Sawicky works for the Unions, do you really not want him on your side when crunch time comes?
>
> > And most importantly -- I _never_ heard any reports of mobilizing
demos
> > and forums in localities prior to the big demos or well attended and
> > reported and widespread local support demos on the day of the big
> > demos.
>
> Sorry, Carrol, but most of the old school American Left was caught by
> surprise when Seattle happened. This is one of the reasons why the
> radical left in the USA has become so irrelevant. They talk about being
> down with the people, but they were so clueless that they weren't even
> hawking papers at Seattle.
===================
Now, now. I know lots of radical women old enough to be your mother [and mine! :-)] who were deeply involved in organizing Seattle. Hawking papers would have been a waste of time when the bullets and gas were flying. But what was every bit as important were the workshops that groups put on to further discussion about what to do next. Those are solidarity builders we need a lot more of, which means getting over the romanticizing of the confrontation with cops as if it were an end in itself
>
> You may not have heard of any mobilizing demos or forums, but that
> doesn't mean that they didn't happen. The organizing for Seattle/N30
> didn't exactly follow the pattern of left activism either. There was a
> lot of local organizing for Seattle and there were a bunch of N30
> rallies around the country. I went to one that day in Lafayatte Park,
> where we set up a forest of stumps to depict our opposition to
clearcutting.
===================
That we get more people involved in the runups to these kind events is more important than 'the day of' when the ritual goes down and the bullets fly. On that, I think you and Carrol and the rest of us can agree. So you set up a bunch of stumps; did you get people talking about industrial ecology, the ecological economics of resource substitution, technological innovation and the labor process and how to transform them???????????
Ian