> Beyond that, there isn't much you can do to directly support Iran's
> workers, women, students, etc. If, for example, you are a dock worker
> and live in a country that imports goods from Iran, and Iran's workers
> strike, and you are asked not to handle hot cargoes, you should do
> what you can to not allow the hot cargoes to move, provided that the
> strikers aren't like the CTV of Venezuela. But few of us are in such
> a position.
>
> As I said before, leftists who can't reform their own country's labor
> movement are unlikely to be of much assistance to other countries'
> labor movements. There is no short cut.
Surely the task of transforming any movement must specifically be about winning (relatively few) people over on relatively difficult issues like opposing one's own government when it's at war?
Is it not the case that much of the left has instead tried to build broad popular movements using relatively 'soft' opportunistic issues, or by pandering to what they perceived as more 'radical' forms of nationalism? Of course alliances built on this basis quickly fell apart when the flag-waving started.
So Yoshie - if she's really saying this - is maybe being a bit short-sighted in believing that more 'technical' issues of union independence - reforming 'their own country's labour movement' - must be logically prior to raising big issues like solidarity action against imperialist intervention. You're more likely to build an effective and independent union by arguing hard politics (of course to only a few people) from the outset.