Re: Legal? Peaceful?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I suggest the graybeards on this list not grumble too much about all
>the things that weren't right (or they think weren't right) in Seattle.
>"Seattle" doesn't even really began until those 50,000 go back home.
>What they do then, not anything that happened in Seattle this week,
>will decide whether Seattle was a blip or something like the events
>that were memoralized in a book entitled, *They Should Have
>Served That Cup of Coffee*.
>
>Carrol

Actually, the Black Clad Messengers is the least of the problems. Even if
they had not show up, there still remains the troubling question of what
kind of movement this represents. Do UNITE demands to boycott garments made
in Central America or Asia that do not conform to certain minimal standards
(child labor, safety, wages, etc.)  seem like the kind that a militant
trade unionism and international solidarity can be built around? When Bill
Clinton makes speeches about the need to protect children overseas on the
same stage as these labor fakers--to thunderous applause--can we anticipate
a revolutionary movement emerging out of this womb? The problem with much
of the rhetoric around these questions is that it does appeal to people's
sense of fair play. Students at Columbia feel good about the idea of
banning garments from the campus bookstore that don't pass these standards.
But seen from another perspective, isn't it simply UNITE's bankrupt
strategy to compensate for failure to defend working people's interests
within our borders? And what about the role of Jimmy Hoffa Jr. in all this.
He has told the press that he supports Buchanan's positions on trade, even
though the Teamsters have no plans to back his candidacy. There are
actually a number of diverse and contradictory strands in this inchoate
"movement" that require a highly focused analysis. I don't believe that it
is useful to regard this as the opening salvo of a new powerful movement
until we as Marxists understand it better. They include the following:

1. demands by environmentalists to protect endangered species, indigenous
peoples and biodiversity from corporate onslaught.

2. demands by labor to set certain minimal standards for "doing business".
Countries that can't pass the litmus test are subject to exclusion.

3. demands by liberals for "transparency". They simply want to see the WTO
be more democratic. Although Burford has been quiet on all this, I would
assume that this is the sort of thing that would appeal to him, as it did
to Tom Friedman in a column in today's Times.

4. demands by developing countries from protection from stringent WTO
rules. This is a very complicated question. Although many of these
countries are run by creeps, this does reflect certain class realities
around the whole core-periphery axis. It relates to clashes over the use of
fossil fuels, where China is stigmatized as being environmentally wicked
when it refuses for obvious reasons to cut back on coal usage. (It has no
oil.)

I am not opposed to protests. I am only opposed to fuzzy thinking.



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)