Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 02:56:30 +0000 (GMT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= <s_h_hamilton-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Porto Alegre - sectarianism and the left


 
you won't find me saying that the PT
> is the cure to our
> ailments. But they are, without question, an
> enormous improvement over the
> other offerings in the Brazilian political menu. 

Quite possibly this is true. There might even be a
place for tactical support for them in the forthcoming
elections - I have never been an advocate of an
ultra-left approach to bourgeois workers' parties. But
I never condemned the vast majority at the WSF, only
the leading lights and the *Popular Front nature of
the gathering*. Criticising a popular front does not
mean condemning the working class component in a
popular front - on the contrary, such criticism is
premised on a positive opinion of this component. Why
else bother?

no
> one that wanted to
> participate was rejected.

According to Argentinean group Workers' Democracy
thousands of people were turned away. I have also
heard that another Argentinean group, Partido Obrero,
were excluded from the advertised agenda at the last
moment. There are details of these complaints on the
Argentina Solidarity archives.

> In fact, one of the eight main organising bodies
> issued just about the
> sternest critique of "civil society" 

Wsn't this written by some of their rank and file and
illegally added to their official website? 

> I think that the somewhat nutty rejection of the WSF
> as worse than the WEF

Who made this statement? I think you need to remember
that the critique of the Popular Front has a long and
honourable place on the left.

we don't see is the huge
> grass-roots support of
> the forum 

Exactly why it's worth criticising! People are coming
to these things because there is a revolutionary
situation in Latin America. The place is in turmoil -
if Argentina goes, then there is a real prospect that
the whole continent will go. People are not coming to
see Naomi Klein and Negri and donate to Attac, so why
should the PF agenda these types represent dominate? 

 > So you have people posting stuff like "the real
> struggle is in downtown New
> York" referring to the anti-WEF protests rather than
> in PoA; that's a
> clinically narcissist response

Sure, but it has nothing to do with the critiques I
have been referring people to - critiques which were
written by Latin Americans.

> The WSF is loaded with problems and all manner of
> parasitic NGO scum love
> it, it is hardly a panacea for humanity's ills.

Which is why the best groups at the WSF went there
with the intention of breaking the domination of the
Popular Front leaders. Pleased you agree with their
approach.

Cheers
Scott

===="Revolution is not like cricket, not even one day cricket"

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