From: "chris wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Demo numbers worldwide
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 19:22:36 -0600


Hi Neil,

On all formal points, I agree.  There is no reason for us to promote any
belief in the UN.  That's really not my point.  I rather am wondering out
loud if the sense that many people have that a decision like this has to be
taken on a world scale has some other meaning than a simple false hope in
the UN.  Isn't it possible that this looking towards an international body
rather than settling for the drives of one nation indicates, potentially,
that many people have a grasp that no one nation can simply go around and
act of its own accord?

I mean, if people start coming back in bodybags, it won;t much matter that
they are UN versus US sanctioned bodybags.  But it might matter that many
people are looking at the matter more globally than 25 or 50 or 100 years
ago?

So how do we address this in a way that says "The UN can't bring peace, but
the realization that peace is a global problem is true now more than ever,
but it is not one that can be managed by the global organizations of
capital."?  Obviously less simple than that, but which nonetheless
encourages the global-mindedness that is part of the appeal to let the UN
handle matters...  I think, and I could simply be empirically wrong and if I
am please correct me, but this seems like a somewhat new development in how
many people are thinking about war and peace and we should be attentive to
the nuances.

That's all I was thinking and if anyone can really show me that this is
wrong, fine.  I am not making an argument here, but trying to grapple with
what some of the content of these demonstrations might mean in a new
context.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "neil" <74742.1651-AT-compuserve.com>
To: "autopsy" <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Cc: "Robert" <rubik-AT-1stnetusa.com>; "Christine & STeve"
<browningcm-AT-earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 6:04 PM
Subject: AUT: Demo numbers worldwide


> Chris W.--
>
> These stats on the incredible #s of people attending mass
> demos against the war  worldwide are  i think, a guage of
> rising social concern and may be a wathershed period on the
> road to rising new social movements spring up from below
> that would be  welcomed  by revolutionaries as well.
>
> That said,  i think we must be much more skeptical  on the issue of the
> increased  'appeals to the UN'  by new forces  to solve peaceably  this
>  crisis of capitals ongoing strife in the world.
>
> This mass trend , though as you imply are mostly  honest  new forces--
> are 'taking their problems to the United Nations' as the  ole' rock song
> says.
> The problem is they are also  being 'taken'  politically by the
bourgoeisie
>
> into a dead end and a death trap of a  Organization of capitals' nation
> states who hide their plundering behind sweet pharases of  hypocritical
> and empty UN  'peace' and 'human rights' declarations. In  fostering '
> 'internationalism'  , there is really a chinese wall between that
> of the working class and (vs.) the bourgeois type.
> The former in the interest of the vast  majority in their class struggles
> of the robbed and exploited.---
> the later is a sinister device mainly  to derail the actions of the people
> back  into the service of harmless channels  & serving  bourgeois
> interests.
>
> so. i would say the historical  track record (as much as possible) of the
>  UN idea  has to be laid bare from its origins stemming from the old
> League of Nations through its resurrection to the UN from the WW2 allied
> bloc-
>  then  up to today.
> We have tried to do some work on this in our leaflet
> "UN- Peacemakers or Peacefakers?: Time to wake up and smell the Kofi !"
> which explains the real activities of the UN , from  Vietnam, E. Timor up
> to,
> Panama ,  Rwanda and the last Gulf War, etc  and why it constitutes a
> graveyard
> for building any real oppositional (to capital) social movements..
>
> Neil
>
>
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>
>




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