RE: naming a world party

But the very ambiguities -- the various possible literal meanings of "World 
Party" --
that you raise undermine the idea that "it" could be interpreted in any one 
way.

In the final analysis, knowledge of a WP is key to interpretations; and so 
cliches
are appropriate here: one cannot judge a book by its cover, and, a rose is 
still a
rose by any other name.  Interpretations of a WP should hinge on its 
principles,
strategy, and actions.  Not that the title is irrelevant, but that WP seems 
fairly
appropriate.

elson

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-wsn@csf.colorado.edu]On
>Behalf Of g kohler
>Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 11:39 AM
>To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK
>Subject: naming a world party
>
>
>Naming a world party "World Party" has implications. I assume that "World
>Party" is not the final name for the world party discussed on wsn. Here are
>some thoughts about naming "it".
>
>The semantic component "party" carries already meaning which may or may not
>be intended. Alternatives might be "congress" (as in "African National
>Congress") or "league" (as in "Jewish Defense League") or "union" (as in
>"labour union") or "army" (as in "Salvation Army" or "Irish Republican
>Army") or "alliance" or other.  Generally, "party" seems to imply the 
>notion
>of a hierarchy.
>
>The semantic component "world" is in the vicinity of "global" and
>"globalist" and can be confused with those. The drift of the debate so far
>has been that the party would have an anti-capitalist-globalization stand.
>However, the semantic component "world" could be construed as
>"pro-globalist".
>
>Another problem with a name like "world party" is that it has only two
>components, instead of three. Many political parties in various countries
>have tripartite names -- e.g., Communist Party of Italy, where the
>components are (a) "party" (=type of organization), (b) "Communist"
>(=ideological orientation), (3) "Italy" (=geographical scope). In "World
>Party" it is not clear whether "World" refers to geographical scope or
>ideology. If "world" refers to ideology, then the meaning could be 
>construed
>as "a party which wants to build a world state".  A Japanese contributor to
>the recent debate on wsn has a web site for a "Liberal World Party". Here
>you have an ideological orientation (="Liberal") and a geographical scope
>(="world"). So there is no confusion about the meaning of the name. The
>"thing" which is called "world party" in the wsn debate  could have a
>variety of different names with different meanings -- e.g., "World Party"
>(confusingly simple), "World Socialist Party" (relatively clear), "World
>Communist Party" (relatively clear), "World Party of Democratic Socialism"
>(relatively clear), "Salvation Army for the New Millenium" (relatively
>obscure), "World Congress of Democratic Socialists" (the component
>"congress" would put an emphasis on decentralized character of the
>organization), and so on. A shortcoming of all of the above names is that
>they do not mention any ecological concerns. A world party most Canadians
>could agree with would be a "world beer party".
>
>Gert Kohler
>Oakville, Canada
>
>