Re: On Melbourne & S11 - a discussion??

[Gary Maclennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>I don't watch TV news, and only skim the newspapers -- but so far
>as I know, neither the conference nor the protests have been mentioned
>in the Chicago Tribune.
>
>The general impression has been growing on me that these gatherings
>are losing their punch. The police are prepared to prevent them from
>blocking business as usual, and the media re going to cooperate with
>the police. Perhaps the target is too diffuse (in contrast to the civil
>rights/antiwar of the 50s/60s or the CIO drive of the '30s). I hope
>I'm wrong.
>
>Carrol


My own reading of the world wide protest is slightly different.  I think
there is in ruling circles a nervousness about the re-emergence of a Left -
especially one that labels itself explicitly anti-capitalist.  Always the
master class fears the slave class.  Now that fear expresses itself in
police brutality and hatred from Philadelphia to Melbourne.

The media, compliant as always go along with what the masters want them to
do.  But there are as always again cracks in the master class.  To some
extent this is reflected in the attitude of the union bureaucracy.  The
pull of nationalism is strong here, arguably most so in USA.  In the
Australian media criticism of globalisation etc is expressed as the CEOs
having an 'image problem'.

It is of course not a question of massaging the image of the World
Capitalist organisations, but what they are actually doing to us - the
citizens of this planet.

So finally I am inclined to disagree with Carroll because those who I have
met on their return are so full of the excitement of having been to
Melbourne and having braved the Beast.

These young people will have to learn of course the necessity of taking
their struggle to another level.  At the moment they feel good.  However a
lot more than that will be needed if we are to finally settle accounts with
the capitalist class.  Perhaps we will learn in Prague whether the new
anti-capitalist movement has the potential to achieve that.

regards

Gary