============================================================================ Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2000 16:10:41 +0100 To: •••@••.•••,•••@••.•••,•••@••.•••, •••@••.••• From: charlton <•••@••.•••> Subject: Anti-capitalist actions Mime-Version: 1.0 Hi friends, Since Seattle I have been working on a project (Talking 2000) tracking the emergence of the anti-capitalist movement. I am anxious to record examples of activity across the world during the past year. Can anyone report on web sites/LISTS/organisations/individuals reporting on demos/marches/strikes/boycotts etc. concerned with ant-capitalist themes? Secondly if you know of discussion LISTS/sites on the strategy and tactics of the movement that would also be of great interest! For your information I can heartily recommend a new report --States of Unrest by Jessica Woodruffe and Mark Ellis-Jones, published by the World Development Movement. (http://www.wdm.oorg.uk). ============================================================================ From: "Diana Victoria Jewell" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Cc: "Jeff Jewell" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Canadian Election Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 13:46:40 -0700 Dear Richard: Just to let you know that both Jeff and I are running for Member of Parliament in next month's Candian federal election. We are representing Paul Hellyer's Canadian Action Party www.canadianactionparty.com and are up against two tough encumbents from Big Money parties, but it will give us a voice to tell the truth to a lot of people who have bought the propaganda in the media. Cheers, Diana Jewell North Vancouver ============================================================================ Delivered-To: moderator for •••@••.••• Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:06:15 -0700 From: frank scott <•••@••.•••> X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: fwd: wake up, lefties? fwd...letter to a publication, from john manning... [John Manning is a veteran communist and trade unionist] Sobeslav, Czech Republic, October 13, 2000 Dear Monthly Review, My copy of Number 4 of Vol. 52, for September, reached me here yesterday and I have now read it cover to cover, since I was much distressed by the title and beginning of the lead editorial, "SOCIALISM: A TIME TO RETREAT?". (The issue as a whole is high level and everyone, particularly if with health problems, should read Richard Levin's "Is Capitalism a Disease?" It helps to know what you are fighting. As for the editorial, living in the "new territories", outside the continental boundaries of the empire, I continually fail to appreciate the extent to which the overwhelming blanket of big business propaganda affects everyone living inside USA and remain amazed that, in ten years of trying, I have been unable to get any U.S. socialist-inclined publication to print a word on, or even consider, the road to socialism opened up after the Soviet collapse by the completely unshaken advance of the communists of Japan. The only opening was momentary and not on the Left. The Boston GLOBE ran a quite-factual article on page 21 of its Sunday, June 18 issue, when it appeared certain the left alliance led by the communists would actually displace the ruling Rightist parties in the July elections. Your editorial accepts Perry Anderson's finding that the socialist movement is "no longer alive", though it cites Singer's historical analysis in "WHOSE MILLENNIUM?" that socialism can not and should not be given up. But it leaves out Daniel Singer's great contribution to last year's Socialist Scholars Conference that "WHAT WE NEED IS A PROJECT WITH VISION!" Not only is there movement in the outside world but - - the "PROJECT WITH VISION" HAS APPEARED!! - and is arousing the people in droves.. And it had to be started by a non-Left, democratic source with decades-long credentials of honest public service, Ralph Nader. The movement has real similarity to the successful movement in Japan in its objectrive to wrest control of the government from the big companies and return it to the people. In Japan the movement is led by communists and stretches through Social Dems and Democrats to Liberals. In the U,.S. the movement is new, and nearly all official bodies still remain in the official structure. Beyond the independent and active, the big source of strength is the majority who had given up voting. The CPUSA dismisses Nader as "bourgeois" and endorses Gore! The Japanese, considering Marx's prediction that socialism would come first in an advanced capitalist country, decided to undertake it. They further decided that the first strategic objective must be, not socialism, but people's sovereignty and democratic control, the move to socialism to be left to when the people's majority would be ready to move on it. This, with total honesty and democracy, has proved capable of mobilizing millions, and making alliances reaching far into those who consider themselves "conservatives", while arousing the horror and boycott of rule-of-the-book socialists. The Nader objective is democratic control, pure and simple. It will be an enormous step, sufficient for the present. What is important is that those who have learned from Marx should realize the importance of the democratic movement and take active part, in order to be there when capital says, "If you force democracy, you'll put us out of business", to be able to say, "Well, then, the people will run it." The failed Soviet experience showed that the technical running of it is no great problem - IF - the people themselves control, with no commissar over their head. The long struggle (and it won't be short), for democratic control will necessarily mobilize the people, and from telling managers and governors and senators what they have to do, they will learn responsibilities of government and constitute the "millions" Lenin visualized as running the society of producers. This is not to red-bait the Nader movement. It is a democratic movement, pure and simple. That is revolutionary enough! It is the socialists who can't yet understand it. Come out into the SUN! ! ! Meszaros "Beyond Capital", which you printed in 1995, explained clearly what was wrong with the Soviet Union - that capital still ruled and that you can't get there that way. He also showed that capitalism was going nowhere. The road for the socialist offensive which he showed and the Japanese have proved, is wide open. As for Nader being bourgeios and the Japanese friends being communists - it's not the name, it's what you do! In this movement everyone who believes in people and in living can join! Let's get with it! John Manning, Czech Republic (Legal and voting address, Berkeley, CA.) ============================================================================ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 09:24:56 -0700 To: •••@••.•••,•••@••.•••, •••@••.••• From: CyberBrook <•••@••.•••> Subject: Thousands of protestors slam Asia-Europe summit in Seoul, Korea Mime-Version: 1.0 Thursday, October 19 2000 Thousands of protestors slam Asia-Europe summit SEOUL, Oct 19 (AFP) - Thousands of protestors staged a boisterous anti-globalization rally Thursday as Asian and European leaders gathered in Seoul for a cross-continent summit. "No globalization," chanted some 4,000 students, labor leaders and civil rights activists at Soongsil University campus in southern Seoul on the eve of the third Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). The evening rally drew some 100 foreign activists taking part in a forum of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) held to coincide with the summit on Friday and Saturday. Tens of thousands of police, backed by helicopters and armoured riot vehicles, have been deployed throughout Seoul to stop protests. But no violence was reported. The protestors punched the air, surrounding a podium decorated with a banner reading "We Oppose Neo-liberalization and Globalization!" and a large picture depicting an angry slogan-chanting worker. Students and union activists held up placards blasting ASEM for promoting a US-led globalization movement and vowed to lead a protest march on Friday, which will be kept several kilometers from the ASEM convention center. The march will be headed by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a militant union group which has opposed sweeping economic reforms since an economic crisis forced South Korea to accept a 58-billion-dollar bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in late 1997. The protestors blasted the lending policies of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the IMF for increasing the suffering of poor nations by imposing harsh repayment obligations. "Globalization is a main cause of worsening labor conditions." read a statement distributed at the rally. "Disband the international organizations soliciting neo-liberalism. Stop negotiations about free trade measures and block the WTO New Round." South Korean pressure groups have pledged there will be no repeat of the violence that dogged the WTO conference last year in Seattle, and the World Bank/IMF meetings in Prague last month. But organizers of ASEM, South Korea's biggest international event since the 1988 Olympics, are desperate to avoid violent clashes with protestors and are taking no chances with security. From Thursday, riot police sealed off all public access to within two kilometers (1.2 miles) of the sprawling ASEM site. A South Korean photograher reported seeing around 20 local student activists detained by police after trying to break through police lines. However police denied any arrests had been made. ============================================================================ Richard K Moore Wexford, Ireland Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance email: •••@••.••• CDR website & list archives: http://cyberjournal.org content-searchable archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/ featured article: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/Whole_Earth_Review/Escaping_the_Matrix.shtml A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon Permission for non-commercial republishing hereby granted - BUT include and observe all restrictions, copyrights, credits, and notices - including this one. ============================================================================ .
