Final appeal

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the spirit of a 1930s "rent party", comrades have so far responded
generously to an appeal to keep the headquarters of Nestor Gorojovsky's
Partido de Izquierda Nacional open and functioning. The goal is within
reach. And without the contributions by comrades the world over we would
not have come this far. All we need is another spurt of contributions to
get us over the top.

Let me recapitulate the problem and the opportunity. Argentina is in the
midst of an intractable economic crisis. A little over a month ago, trade
unionists organized a general strike, as reported in the June 10, NY Times:

"Several million workers joined or were forced to acquiesce to a one-day
national strike today to protest President Fernando de la Rua's economic
austerity policies and Argentina's 14 percent unemployment rate.

"The strike, the largest in four years, represented a rare show of unity by
the fractious labor movement and the most serious challenge to Mr. de la
Rua's deficit-cutting policies since he took office in December.

"The walkout occurred at an inopportune time for the Argentine president,
who is planning a trip to the United States early next week to see
President Clinton and promote Argentine investments to Wall Street
executives who have cooled to the country's prospects in recent years."

I should add that these very same unionists are building a new movement
against payment of foreign debt. Nestor's party is on the frontline of this
movement, which is now organizing a tribunal that charges the debt with
being illegitimate and a swindle. The unionists are calling for a protest
demonstration in front of Argentina's Congress next Wednesday. I will allow
Nestor to fill in the details.

While the political situation is improving, the economic crisis provoking
it has wreaked havoc with leftwing parties like Nestor's, that are composed
mainly of wage-earners. We want to help his party function because it is a
crucial part of the emerging class-struggle response to the Argentina/Wall
Street capitalist consensus. We reach out to these comrades in the same way
that the Bill Clintons of the world reach out to de la Rua.

Early this morning a list member who had discovered that it costs well over
a thousand dollars a year to keep the Marxism list running asked me if he
could help defray the costs. I urged him to make a donation to Nestor's
party instead, which he has pledged to do.

Fund-raising for socialist causes must not be done on the basis of peer
pressure or guilt-tripping, which unfortunately characterized my experience
in the left a lifetime ago. I always accepted the wall charts in party
headquarters with the names and the financial contributions of party
members because it was always done that way. If your name appeared in the
lower third on the chart, you were made to feel like an insect.

This is not what contributing to socialist movements is about. It is about
feeling good. I get enormous pleasure out of paying my bill to Panix each
month knowing that it helps Marxists around the world communicate with each
other. I also felt great going to my bank and wiring money to Argentina.
That was my way of telling Wall Street and Washington to go fuck themselves.

I should mention as well that the participation of Julio Fernández
Baraibar, Nestor and many comrades in the third world on this list also
reflects a financial sacrifice based on socialist consciousness. They
gladly pay high telephone rates for Internet connections because they see
this as helping to reconstruct a worldwide network of active Marxists.
Without participation from comrades in places like Colombia, Brazil,
Argentina, Lebanon and South Africa, this list would be far less
representative.

We are entering a new period, when global ties between socialists of one
stripe or another is going to become facilitated through electronic
communications like these. In the meantime, at the other end of an email
address are living, breathing human beings who are putting their bodies on
the line. Let's extend a hand to our comrades in Argentina. Contact Nestor
Gorojovsky at gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx And be generous, please.


Louis Proyect

The Marxism mailing-list: http://www.marxmail.org