Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 21:37:39 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re:Toni on Porto Alegre



Ben, I don't disagree with what you are saying, based
on what I have heard about Sydney: the point I take
issue with is your classification of outfits like the
ISO and the DSP, surely the makers of 'idiotic appeals
to liberalism', as anti-imperialist. Clearly, they are
not! Even a cursory examination of their literature,
or at the platform of the Socialist Alliance, shows
that they have become centrist or even, in the DSP's
case, left social democratic parties. 

The IS group in NZ, which is in a rather pathetic way
these days, has taken up positions that are in some
respects to the right of the liberals and left social
democrats: for instance, they criticised and refused
to join in a picket of the conference of the ruling
Labour Party because it was too 'confrontational'
(they preferred to ahve a separate 'lobby')! By
contrast, quite a number of liberals and social
democrats took part in the picket. The behaviour of
groups like the ISO and DSP does not indicate that the
split I claimed does not exist - it indicates that the
said groups are on the wrong side of the split! There
is no mechanical way of predicting who will fall on
the right and wrong side of the line.

> So why does anything other than "anti-imperialism"
> automatically suggest
> liberalism or sectarianism to you? 

Show me some practice built on a post-imperialist
theory which isn't either liberal or sectarian. It
would be interesting to hear about the details of Love
and Rage's anti-war activities.


I'm waiting for
> the "big-character"
> poster condemning the "Negrite capitalist roaders"

Negri is doing a very good job of discrediting
himself!

Cheers
Scott



====For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea":
THR-AT-LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/
THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/
and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/

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