Re: smashing the wto and creating global democratic socialism

On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Doug Henwood wrote:

> I'm going to write some more about this and post it to the LBO 
> website tomorrow, but one of the things that strikes me about this 
> movement - and its precursor J18 movement - is how it combines 
> localism and globalism, discipline and spontaneity, libidinal 
> politics and high tech, militant determination and exuberance. These 
> are individuals and groups of people connected by the Internet and 
> cell phones who make decisions collectively and stick with them. Just 
> 2-3% of those arrested have given their names to the cops, which has 
> completely clogged up the criminal justice system. Maybe I'm just 
> intoxicated by the moment, but this is a fascinating new approach to 
> radical politics.


There may be new aspects to what happened in Seattle, but they're not
mainly on the tactical or organizational level.  All the features you
describe have been present in left civil disobedience/direct action
movements since the 1960s (anti-nuclear power and weapons, Central
America, etc).  This is the first resurgence of that type of movement with
extensive media coverage since the U.S. war on Iraq of 1991.

What's new is the incipient alliance that includes the labor movement.
(Of course that first developed in opposition to NAFTA and fast-track, and
then MAI.)

RH