AUT: 2/98: Call for an International Syndicalist Summit in 1999 (I99) (fwd)

[Chris <red@xxxxxxx>]

From: "International '99 Committee" <intl99@xxxxxxx>
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: 2/98: Call for an International Syndicalist Summit in 1999 (I99)
Date: 1 Mar 1998 23:00:08 GMT
Message-ID: <6dcp9o$1pbk$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 ________________________________________________
      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
            http://www.ainfos.ca/
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Please Note: As per the San Francisco Bay Area WSA/IWA-AIT-IAA membership
meeting of 8 Feb. 1998, the following date and location is being proposed:
4-6 June, 1999 at San Francisco CA

An International Summit In 1999:
A Call for an International Meeting of Syndicalists in 1999 (I99)

The twentieth century has been a rough one for workers and our movements.
Here at the end of it, we face the capitalist class unmasked, not even
held back by the few pretences it deigned back in the days when its evil
twin, state "socialism," made it pretend to care about the "little"
people. While this transnationalized elite self-consciously proclaims the
historical ordinance of greed and hate, syndicalist and other
radical-democratic people's organizations look backward to defeat,
disappointment and disasters of various description, and carry on a
lengthening tradition of introversion, acrimony and feuds over fading
glory. As our comrades in Chiapas have so tersely summarized, "Basta Ya!"

We are fully aware of our differences as activists from community to
community, group to group and person to person. We carry on fights that
are decades old about who is more right.  Meanwhile we still have a common
enemy, global capitalism, a class which harbors no such division when it
comes to the interests of their class. Such imbalance is not merely
relegating us to the ghettoes of our own history, it is outright killing
us. The tide is high and the time has come for us to look deeply at what
we have in common lest we perish in the storm.

In 1995, the EZLN put out a call for those struggling for the rights and
dignities of our class against the bosses to come meet with them. There
was no coherent syndicalist response to this call-- the IWW was busy
fighting, the IWA was busy kicking factions out and the SAC was busy
splitting. It's news when syndicalist groups work successfully with sister
organizations like Food Not Bombs or Earth First! (to name a couple of
prominent examples from our own region, Northern California). How can we
build a global movement, or even stand against global capitalism, when we
can't even speak to each other, or those who are organized enough to
address us as such?

The simple answer is that we can't. If we address this fundamental
problem, we will surge into the 21st century as vital vehicles of workers'
liberation. If not, we are all merely grasping the mantles of History
Clubs.

With that ardent warning in mind, let's presume that it's not too late,
and look at some of the things we hold in common as syndicalists.
Solidarity and liberty, direct action in common cause and uncensored
communication of free thought, are common to our credos. We share the
value of worker control, the delegation of authority from and
accountability to none but the rank-and- file through direct democracy and
transparent operations. Never mind glastnost-- we've been saying it for
over a century. And indeed it is anathema to tyrany.

We cherish diversity-- it is our strength-- and the right to initiative as
a free people's path to fulfillment.

Not only are we far from alone in this, but also it makes our internal
differences petty in comparison. For we all know that while our lives are
bigger than our jobs, many of our other ills spring from the problem of
the point of production placed wrongly in the hands of the boss:
environmental degradation, homelessness and unemployment, the debasements
of discrimination. What we don't know is that most of our class already
sees the same thing. They just don't know we take it seriously because on
closer examination all we seem to be able to conduct are faction fights.

And nobody's attracted to a faction fight, fellow workers of all genders!

This situation can be changed, and the interests of our class upheld and
advanced, only by our movement's ability to heal ancient rifts and forge
common cause, on whatever front of struggle we may find ourselves. Along
these lines, syndicalists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern
California, have been talking with our comrades all over the USA, with
plans to do so further than mere national boundaries (which still matter
for people if no longer for capital). We claim no consensus, but we have
found widespread agreement on the need for an international syndicalist
meeting in the reasonably near future, along the lines detailed above of
finding and forging commonalities rather than divisions. We find wide
rejection of any new bureaucracy, such as the "Internationals" of the 19th
and 20th centuries. What we do find wide agreement for is better
communications amongst existing groups in different countries and regions
of the planet, and for the rekindling of a sense of common cause forged in
the mutual recognition of the worthiness of all our struggles to reclaim
our lives and communities by smashing the rule of capital and its wage
system of slavery.

Along these lines, we issue this tentative call for an international
syndicalist meeting in 1999, location to be decided by further discussion
of participants. We would like to see communication/correspondence
networking emerge from it especially at the rank-and-file level, and
perhaps a multilateral Mutual recognition clause, a statement of
solidarity of purpose that any group on the face of the planet could adopt
through its own process, thereby recognizably identifying us without
having to take on the tasks of a whole new organization in addition to the
things we already do.

Perhaps that's too ambitious, maybe not ambitious enough. They're just
early ideas, not a set agenda. We do not care to pronounce programs; the
whole of our desire is to ask the right questions of ourselves, and see
what kinds of answers we come up with collectively. We hope to meet with
all of you to discuss possible common solutions-- yes, face-to-face! We
feel that if nothing else, the very act of such a meeting itself will
break down some of these barriers that no longer serve us.

We respectfully implore you to think about it, to talk about it, and to be
in touch with us and others. Let's talk!!

Capital is indeed transnational, we cannot hope to successfully resist its
agenda without doing likewise. We've always known this. We cannot enter
the 21st century without at least trying to catch up!

Besides if we don't, how can we hope for the global General Strike in 2000
to ever succeed?

***End Text***

So Far, this call has been endorsed by:

11/97: San Francisco Bay Area Workers Solidarity Alliance
(WSA/IWA-AIT-IAA)
11/97: San Francisco General Membership Branch, IWW
12/97: General Executive Board, IWW
02/98: Anarcho-Syndicalist Group of Melbourne (ASGM), Australia

[ more signatures as forthcoming ]

For more info contact the
I-99 Committee
c/o San Francisco IWW
P.O. Box 40485
San Francisco CA 94140
email: intl99@xxxxxxx

*****
ADDENDUM To I99 Call, 2/98:
*****

1) We in San Francisco are willing to initiate a discussion mailing, like
a zine or a bulletin, to help facilitate at least some of the
communications that will have to happen between now and then to actually
pull it off.

We propose also to seek contributions to such a publication, as a part of
reaching out further to build momentum for the I99 Summit.

2) We've set up an online mailing list for those purposes as well; it's
called:  i99@xxxxxxx

To post to it, send email
To	: i99@xxxxxxx

To subscribe yourself:
Send a piece of email from the account you want subscribed, where the two
lines that matter are in your email header like so:

To	: i99-request@xxxxxxx
Subject	: subscribe

You'll receive an automated confirmation that this has been done.

To unsubscribe yourself:
Send a piece of email from the account you want unsubscribed, where the
two lines that matter are in your email header like so:

To	: i99-request@xxxxxxx
Subject	: unsubscribe

You'll receive an automated confirmation that this has been done.

For help getting on or off the list, please email <request@xxxxxxx>
Patience is appreciated in advance!

The purpose of the list is to discuss the proposal for the I99 Syndicalist
Summit in Northern California, to which it is attached.

In Industrial Solidarity,
Deke Nihilson x341697 SFBA IWW
SFBA WSA/IWA-AIT-IAA
18 February 1998



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