How It's Gonna Be

["Max B. Sawicky" <sawicky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

IS ANYTHING MORE GOING TO HAPPEN?

No one seems to want to respond to my core questions on this.

Carrol
>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Au contraire.

In this post I will not indicate approval or disapproval
of any political course, but try to show what is going
to happen, whether anybody here likes it or not.  This
goes to the difference between idealized notions of
struggle, and the way the working class actually struggles,
as someone once said.

There was an unusual symbiotic relationship in Seattle
between the sit-downers and labor.  Without the sit-
down, the labor march would have been a yawn.  Without
labor, the sit-down would have been a bunch of hippies.
I think this relationship is fleeting.  The sit-downers
made an invaluable contribution by showing you could
gum up the works and affect events at a high level
with minimal material resources.  My suspicion is
that labor learned this lesson.  It doesn't need
the anarchists anymore.

The Seattle coalition, such as it was, is not
THE coalition.  The latter is labor and the big
green and development groups, and the Nader types.
They need each other.  They don't need anarchists.
They have latent strength, like Frankenstein's monster
(who wasn't such a bad fellow), but they needed
a jolt of electricity.

The next period will have a dual programmatic
focus.  There will be the negative side (no WTO
place for China, no Fast-Track, etc.), and a
positive side (what a trade pact should consist
of).  Some on the Right will join on the first,
but emphatically not on the second.  Basically,
by blocking with the Right on 'no' stuff,
the left forces the Administration to make
a deal that leaves the Right out in the
wilderness.

Labor wants a positive package that protects
existing, better-paying jobs in the US. To sell
this package beyond organized labor, it has to
have two elements:  it has have something in the
social area, and it has to have something
for workers in the Third World, 'global South,'
or whatever you want to call it.  In both cases,
something substantial.  The prospect of such a
deal is what holds the real coalition together.
Labor MUST be internationalist to proceed.
As with all politics, some of the internationalism
will be bullshit (not unlike some green support
for labor could be).  What is clear is that
anarchism makes no sense in this context.
Anarchists are now only instrumental in
'no' actions, like the Right.

The principle is pretty simple, in class terms.
The movement rejects policies (WTO/IMF/WB)
aimed at redistributing income within the
working class, as all quasi-supporters of
free trade would have it.  The goal is to
share gains at the expense of capital, not
to share losses for the sake of capital.
An import restriction that hurts Africa
could be matched with debt relief and other
possible aids.  I think there is an under-
standing now that this needs to be put
forward in specific terms, and with numbers.

Yoshie's suggestion re: progressive isolationism,
Marty's on public sector and minimum wage, or
US labor rights, or Louis on the cab drivers
all neglect the fundamental issue for labor,
which is not "capitalism," but the further loss
of above-average pay manufacturing jobs.  That's
what motivates labor.  Not left-wing hobby horses,
however cherished in our own views.  You can say
capitalism caused this job loss, but that is not
how the problem is generally viewed, rightly or
wrongly.

Frustration with the way labor actually struggles
leads to silly suggestions about attacking the
Democratic Party, "destroying the WTO," or
opposing US military aid.  Silly not because
these would be bad things to do, but because
that's not the game in progress now.  There's
no sense in trying to join a poker game and
demand that canasta be played instead.
What precisely has gotten workers' attention
is the relevant question.

In politics a standing question is getting from
here to there, but much commentary here seems
to start from there and ask how we can get here.

I haven't said what is right or wrong about all
this, though it would not take a genius to surmise
that I take it to be positive overall.

mbs