Dear rn, Thanks to Sune Nordwall and Andreas Rockstein for attempting to shed light on what PGA and UP.Secr. are about and what the relationship is between them. You might want to read those yourself before going on to my comments. I want to say what I want to say, but I'd rather not prejudice your own interpretation... --- Evidently I was misled about the two groups being the same; it now appears that U.P.Secr. has been using PGA's name without authorization. According to Andreas, U.P.Secr. has _today ceased claiming the PGA mantle... perhaps because of what I said in the posting, unless the decision was just a bizarre coincidence. From what Sune comes up with, it seems that those behind the World Parliament are even more diabolical than I suspected, but fortunately, based on what Andreas says, there doesn't seem to be much following for it. Andreas - I appreciate your sincerity but I cannot find comfort in what you say about PGA, for the following reasons... 1) You do not address my primary concern about PGA - their habit of encouraging a style of confrontation (in demonstrations) that alientates people rather then attracting people to the movement. When activists destroy GM crops, many people respond sympathetically; when people throw stones at police and shop windows (as I've seen in PGA demonstrations), they're viewed more as simple hooligans. 2) Your attempt to explain that PGA isn't an 'organization' doesn't settle the issue for me. I realize they insist they aren't an organization, but if a duck quacks "I'm a cat" it remains a duck. You don't need membership forms and official titles to behave organizationally. >Of course, there are some 'coordination' structures, and peoples which are >'more' and some which are 'less' involved in decision making. But this is >not a question of 'exclusion' or 'hierarchy'. As I see it, PGA is acting as a leadership/organizational cadre in support of actions involving many other organizations. The critical question is on what basis this leadership group sets its policies. If it is accountably representative of the cooperating groups, then it can claim some degree of democratic legitimacy. If instead the 'more involved' coterie have their own agenda, by which they influence the direction of actions, then it smacks of manipulation by an activist-elite - a 'shadow organization'. When PGA talks about having 'no organization', then the thing we know for sure is that there is no established, accountable mechanism by which PGA can claim to act on behalf of the cooperating groups. In the absence of such a mechanism, you are left with a small group of people, whether they call themselves an organization or not, which exerts influence on its own volition. The way I see it, the absence of a visible organization is equivalent to an absence of accountability. You may yet convince me, but you would have to address the issues raised. Incidentally, could you tell us how to subscribe to the PGA list? I've been getting occasional forwards, but would like to get a more complete picture of what they're up to. cheers, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 12:35:22 +0200 From: Sune Nordwall <•••@••.•••> Reply-To: •••@••.••• To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: rn- broadbased actions against globalization Dear Richard, You write: > The existence of a vacuum creates 'a market' for all sorts of intiatives, > both good and bad. The best-organized (by far) player in this game is of > course the same folks who are bringing us globalization itself. I would > expect them to be among the first to launch a well-organized 'peoples > movement' aimed at channeling popular energy into counter-productive > directions. In fact, they seem to have done so - in the form of PGA > (Peoples Global Action), alias "U.P. Secr", which posts from the address > <•••@••.•••>. As it to me seemed to have the flavour of ELP, the organization of Lyndon LaRouche, I did some search on it. Using http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois, the search result for pga.org says that the Registrant of PGA is AMP c/o IAS, 5 Samuel Constant, Geneva, GE 1201 CH, and that the Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact of pga.org is a Alex, Iordachescu (IA303) •••@••.•••, where ARTAMIS has a site at http://www.artamis.org/intro.html A not uninteresting site (but in French only ...). Maybe U.P. Secr. ("United Peoples Secretary"?) has turned out to be too far out for them, as he has now constructed a new site of his own: A search for •••@••.••• led to a new site: http://www.unitedpeoples.net/ registered by a Ole Fjord Larsen (UNITEDPEOPLES2-DOM), P.O.Box 36, DK-6701 Esbjerg, DK-6701 DKwhere, according to http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois. On the site Ola Fjord Larsen(?)/"•••@••.•••" really tries to initiate something in the direction of the strange description in The Apocalyse of how the Second Monster, (the "Sun Demon" "Sorat" according to the Kabbalah) made it necessary for people to have his mark on the right hand or on the forehead to be able to buy and sell. And •••@••.••• out of some inspiration openly tries to make it a reality! One of the methods of ELP is to use shock to throw people out of balance, emptying the inner space for the I of man. In one of the writings of L LaRouche ("What is a Humanistic Academy?"), he says that one of the goals of education must be to teach man to regard "technical intelligence" as his proper "I". I don´t envy •••@••.••• his state of mind, whatever the reasons for it. A small counter effort; on the anthroposophical side a David Heaf, an anthroposophical biochemist, has set up a site at http://www.anth.org/socialthreefolding/, a small contribution to the understanding of social issues. He is since 1995 UK coordinator for Ifgene - International Forum for Genetic Engineering (http://www.anth.org/ifgene). Good wishes for all your work! Sune Nordwall Stockholm, Sweden http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/indexeng.htm - a site on science, homeopathy, cosmological cell biology and EU as a mechanical esoteric temple and threefolding of society ============================================================================ Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 17:11:03 +0200 From: Andreas Rockstein <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> cc: Jan Slakov <•••@••.•••>, Alain Kessi <•••@••.•••>, •••@••.••• Subject: Re: rn- broadbased actions against globalization Dear Richard, I'm writing to you again, because i think your (mis)interpretation of PGA is simply and solely based on a misunderstanding. ---<snips in quoted stuff below; also some redundancies snipped - rkm>--- >Nonetheless, we can't claim any >significant success with movement-building. The fact remains that >there isn't a movement with the kind of scope required to 'make a >difference' in the context of globalization. First --- this isn't a big surprise for me - you cannot create any movement only via internet without any "physically" structures beyond. Of course e-mailing is a suitable tool to maintain an international network but its impossible to buil up such a network without common (as well as local!) actions and regulary meetings like the international campaign to stop WTO's 'millennium round' as well as Peoples Global Action is doing ... >The existence of a vacuum creates 'a market' for all sorts of >intiatives, both good and bad. ... 2nd --- In my eyes this is a misunderstanding of what is happening today (since the 'stop-MAI campaign') I cannot notice any 'vacuum'. What I see are multiple ways of attempts of 'consensous building' by multiple and different organizations, groups and networks to find common strategies to built up a 'global' resistance against globalization. PGA is only a part of this 'global' resistance and like into the different movements there are different approaches also into PGA. > ... The best-organized (by far) player >in this game is of course the same folks who are bringing us >globalization itself. I would expect them to be among the first to >launch a well-organized 'peoples movement' aimed at channeling >popular energy into counter-productive directions. In fact, they >seem to have done so - in the form of PGA (Peoples Global Action), >alias "U.P. Secr", which posts from the address ><•••@••.•••>. NO NO NO, dear Richard! You mustn't put 'PGA' and 'U.P. Secr' in the same dip! PGA is a broad network of multiple basic mouvements from northern and southern countries and ... >PGA has its own set of proposals for a >"World Parliament" and for "Consumers' Power Committees >(CPC's)" at the national level. Their language reads like >something out of the days of Stalinist-front organizations, >and the content of their proposals sounds like something >Mussolini would have come up with. FYI, I'm including a recent >response I sent to Jan and to Aaron Koleszar regarding PGA. ... this Idea of 'world parliament is going out from an individuum (or a small group) which whant to present it as a common objective of PGA but which is rejected by a majority of activists acting 'below the banner of PGA' (*) from the beginning, but he didn't stop until today to sell it as a PGA project. (* with 'below the banner of PGA' I mean that principally any group can do its action in the name of Peoples Global Action so long it's accepting the PGA Manifesto [see www.agp.org] - but generally there is a type of coordination which mostly take place on grassroots level) Others actions you don't mention are much more 'conform' to the Idea of PGA (which aren't mentioned by "U.P.Secr" as well) like the InterContinental Caravan (see http://stad.dsl.nl/~caravan/) or June 18th - international Day of Action (see http://www.j18.org or http://www.infoshop.org/june18.html) and now a broad alliance to oppose WTO and its proposed 'millennium round' in November in Seattle. About 'Seattle' I could tell you much more - but so much here: There are very different groups, organizations etc. preparing to do something during the next WTO ministerial. PGA will be come to a major part. And if it will succeed PGA action will be coordinated with the international NGO campaign against WTO 'millennium round' (there's already a close cooperation of PGA activists in the US and Canada and 'Public Citizens Global Trade Watch' Washington which you can tell the 'flagship' of the US NGO campaign if you like) Because of its open and non-hierarchical structure of PGA we must expect, that occasionally there are arising ideas and projects settled below 'PGA' by its authors, which are not going conform with the Manifesto ... I regret that you didn't pay very much attention to the answers of different peoples a few months ago wich are much more involved in PGA than from "proples@post" or even from me - who is less implicated. >It most certainly is!! "PGA" & "U.P.secr" & "peoples@post" are >all the same organization. ... Please don't tell PGA 'organization'! It's a non-hierarchical grassroot network of multiple organizations and individuals. There is no membership nor 'office' or anything similar. You've heard oftenly enough these sentences and I know that you don't belive it. But how schould I exlain you? Of course, there are some 'coordination' structures, and peoples which are 'more' and some which are 'less' involved in decision making. But this is not a question of 'exclusion' or 'hierarchy'. When you're acting in your local group (for example preparing June 18th actions) you must'nt 'ask' any 'boss' and you're 'allowed' to do quite 'crazy' actions, so long these are not contradictonary to the 'Manifesto'. And even this 'Manifesto' is not our Dogma on which you mustn't cast doubt. Rather it's a proposal and everyone is invited do discuss about. > ... I'm on their mailing list. ... This is NOT the mailiunglist of PGA! > ... They started >using "U.P.secr" last September in their message "INTERNATIONALIZE THE >CORPORATIONS", which included: ... ... Messages send out from "peoples@post" alias "PGA & U.P.secr" are not comming out from 'PGA'. I get this messages too, but I don't pay too much attention on them. There is a sort of 'PGA secreatariat' which is spreading messages (and you've to notice the difference of addresses - •••@••.••• is not the same as •••@••.•••, which is the 'correct' address) which are consensous (and "peoples@post" isn't representing this consensous!). Beyond there are others 'PGA-mailinglists' couvering specific actions (Caravan, J18, Seattle). >There are so many things wrong with these guys that I don't know where >to start. > >Their "World Parliament" concept is totally top-down and closely >resembles Stalinist models of international communist organizations, >where local groups were sold out to Soviet realpolitik interests. ... but I don't like the Idea of 'World Parliament' as well as the majority of PGA activists but I wouldn't compare it with 'stalinist' models. Rather the author of this Idea seems to be a bit confused, and don't realize that he's creating a model with a serious lack of 'democracy' - failing to notice ways of basic democratic decision making which you can see in multiple groups and organization acting below the 'Banner' of PGA. Further the 'World Parliament' is still remaining a fantasy - I cannot notice any serious efforts to realize it and I cannot notice any support by much other activists not at all any global mouvement. I hope I've given you a comprehensible clarification and I'll suggest you to leave 'World Parliament' 'World Parliament' and to turn your attention to other - to 'real' PGA projects (I don't speak very much about, but it isn't very far from you, I don't know in which city you're locaded but you can find groups activists in Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver and others - if you like I can give you local addresses. You have to look for PGA as a grassroot network on local level but not too much in abstracts). No comment to the rest! All the best, Andreas ======================================================================== an activist discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance (mailto:•••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org) **--> Non-commercial reposting is encouraged, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. Copyrighted materials are posted under "fair-use". 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