From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Cobas/SUD
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 01:59:28 -0500


harald

i'm not entirely sure what you're talking about considering that i didn't
try to put forth any meaningful critique (since that was not what was being
discussed). and i do find your statements to be more than condescending --
that is: it sounds as tho i am supposed to learn from you, worthy master,
what actually "makes capitalism go around"... and thus understand how
unionism is not part-and-parcel of capitalism at this stage in the game. am
i correct?

my critique of unionism has everything to do with the counter-revolutionary
nature of mass organizations in non-insurrectionary moments. or better put:
forcing mass organizations into being, whose necessary agenda must be one of
compromise and/or complacency in non-insurrectionary moments. and how these
contrived, compromised "revolutionary" organizations become a burden on the
working class when insurrectionary moments to arrive.

history bares this criticism out, spain, may 1937 being the most notorious
example of (supposedly "anarchist") union hierarchies disolving revolt and
causing mass confusion, ultimately ending in the imprisonment and exucution
of revolutionaries! interesting that they did not act too differently than
the stalinist union hierarchy of france may 1968, even given the extreme
differences in situation, isn't it? of course, the actions of the stalinist
hierarchy didn't end with many executions.

as far as the iww, it is struggling with precisely what i am talking about
(or at least was 3-4 years ago). namely: to be a revolutionary organization,
or to be a union. unfortunately, you can not have your cake and eat it too.

as far as what it will take to get past capitalism: i agree that there must
be organization, even mass organization. but this organization must arise
organically, in opposition to capitalism. that was what i was hoping the iww
to be. unfortunately, i found debates raging as to whether or not it was,
essentially, 1998 or 1936 (let alone the fact that "unionism" failed the
working class in 1936, and before).

as far as latent anti-unionism in the bulk of the working class i am aware
of: i find this to be a heathy, if subconscious, tendency... showing a
distrust in the agents of capital, regardless of whether or not they come in
the guise of revolutionaries or not.

this does not mean that unions can not be useful in the short-term in many
senses, only that it is a waste of time for revolutionaries to be forcing
mass organizations into being, or to be trying some half-baked attempt to
reform already existing ones. i saw the "revolutionary industrial unionism"
of the iww as different for two reasons:

1) i had hoped that the anti-hierarchical stance also meant an
anti-vanguardist stance; practically this would mean focusing on the quality
of organizing, not the quantity.

2) its structural difference seemed to me to open up the possibility of
grouping people in tactically advantagous ways, and opening up possibilities
beyond traditional workplace-based unionism into neighborhood / town / city
based possibilies that could not only destroy the false seperation between
"workplace" and "neighborhoods [et al.]".

unfortunately, while this tendency was definately a part of the iww, i found
that too many people were stuck, in my opinion, in the past (in notions of
capitalism / class composition that were dated by at least 50-60 years, if
not more)... sufficiant enough, at least, to render the iww basically
useless right now.

i'm sorry harald. i don't mean to be rude here. i think my tone may have
gotten out of hand a few times, but i'm much too tired to go back and edit
this. please look past any meaness, and try to engage this more closely and
honestly. i try to keep better control with my next response.



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