From: Mneillft-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:24:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Encuentro 2


To the organizers of the second Intercontinental Encuentro:

March 16, 1997

>From Monty Neill, for Midnight Notes

1) The esssential focus of the second encuentro must be how to strengthen the
struggle against neoliberalism and for humanity: that is, it must be
strategic and organizational.

2) In the first encuentro, the participants did a lot of work to summarize
what neoliberalism is. The resulting book (which unfortunately is not
available in English; it may not be available in other languages as well)
should be a basis for further discussion.

a) This means we should not have a focus on "what is neoliberalism";
inevitably as we discuss strategy and organization, we will have to return to
the various meanings, understandings, analyses, experiences of neoliberalism
to in order to further deepen our knowledge, but we should, at encuentro 2,
do so in the context of discussing strategy and organization.

b) If possible (that is, the text is available in all relevant languages), it
should be expected that participants in Encuentro II will have read the text
>from the first encuentro in order to be prepared to build on, not repeat, the
work of the first encuentro.

3) This is not the first effort to build an "international." We need to learn
>from previous efforts and analyze their limitations, bases, etc.  These
include the various "marxist" internationals, feminist and ecological
efforts. Some means of presenting some of the analysis of these and other
efforts, in terms of overcoming capital, needs to be undertaken. 

4) Implicitly, somewhat explicitly, the guiding organizational and strategic
principle from the first Encuentro seems to be (in the words of Gustavo
Esteva) "one no, many yeses." That is, an agreed no to neoliberalism, but
many forms of developing/living non-capitalist life. 

a) Is this the guiding principle? Should we affirm it? Recall that at least
previous internationals tended toward "one no, one yes."

b) If it is the guiding principle, what does it mean in practice? Many yeses
could contradict each other, could become "partial no's", could perpetuate
exploitations and hierarchies of power, justify continuing oppression, etc.

c) How, that is, are the yeses to develop real cohesion against capitalism
and yet remain "many." 

5) At the first encuentro, the proposal was for two networks, one for
communication and one for support.  

a) This seems to be not a good distinction; they overlap -- should one not
communicate resistance, and does not support entail communication? Therefore,
this proposal for two networks should not be the basis for strategic and
organizational discussions.

b) If the "network" is the mode of organization, we need to have clear
discussions about what this means (e.g., electronic networks exclude most of
humanity; people get deluged with "information"). How do the networks not
just support via such things as letters to Zedillo, but support in ways that
strengthen the capacity to organize everywhere. Is this the political form
that allows "one no, many yeses"? 

6) Midnight Notes' analysis concludes that internal divisions within the
class must be overcome in the process of attacking capitalism/neoliberalism.
These include racism, sexism/patriarchy, hierarchies of wages and skills and
labor, nations, and more.

a) we should discuss, based on the concrete experiences of encuentro
participants, how these hierarchies operate and how people are fighting them
(how to overcome the capitalist/neoliberalist aspect of our own lives as part
of overcoming neoliberalism).  

b) we should discuss how capitalism/neoliberalism continually creates new
divisions, hierarchies, contradictions within humanity (to us, the broad
working class), in every sector of life; and how to stop capital's creation
of new divisions.

7) Participants in encuentro 1 were involved in many struggles, as will no
doubt be true of encuentro 2. How do we learn from each other and build them.
Space for sharing and analyzing and learning from our struggles could be
helpful. 

In sum, we need to have a focus on strategy and organization that must build
on the first encuentro. We propose a number of questions for discussion: What
can we learn from the past; Do we proceed with "one no, many yeses" and if
so, how? How can we actually develop and strengthen networks that help us
move against neoliberalism and for humanity? And, how can we overcome
divisions within humanity that we know must be overcome both as part of the
struggle against neoliberalism and part of being the humanity we want to be?
These questions, we propose, can be a way to think about organizing the
second encuentro.

A final note: We did not find the questionnaire to be very helpful for
thinking about the nature of the second encuentro.  We conclude that if we
are to go to the expense and time of attending, we need to know that it is
organized to focus on essential issues and build on the first encuentro.  We
hope our comments above help in that process.  






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