Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 21:45:10 +0100
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Roundtable on the state and globalisation: 


John

Your argument is one that I have come across over the past half-decade or so,
however I think it is based on the mistaken premise that  it is not possible to
draw lines of common resistance to the dominant thematics of globalisation. I
suggest that the very examples you produce below are all deeply and intrinsically
related. In addition it suggests that the current media representation of the
groups, encouraged by the local states, does not in fact represent something that
is real, curiously the mass media represents them in ways that are not dissimilar
in some ways from the understanding of the points of resistence from Negri and
Hardt's text 'Empire'... excepting of course that the mass media are representing
them from reactionary perspectives.

In itself the understanding of the diversity of the protesting groups is not
particularly useful and never has been. In addition it should be recognised that
some of the protests are occupying what are in fact quite reactionary positions,
but the occasional allainces that emerge - for example during the 'stop the city'
event of a few years ago - which was described to me as being 'unsupportable' by a
colleague, because of the neo-fascist positions occupied by some of the green
groups, but nonetheless the allainces  and differences between the groups remain
deeply fascinating because of the possibility for divergent and proliferating
social and political action. True immediate mass social change is unlikely but I
gave up thinking that was achieveable during the late 1970s.

The point is not that there are not important distinctions but rather that they are
all in their distinctive ways responding and resisting the forces and processes of
globalisation.  The recent proposal that we are dealing with a group of
'professional protesters' was and is an inevitable part of the mass media process -
the representation of social and political militants nearly always goes through
this phase. If the groups succeed in connecting, as they are doing in Italy at
present, with a larger public then this representation will fade. However the risk
is that there will be a mass social and political repression as happened in Italy
in 1979 when autonomia were incarcerated without trial as a partially successful
attempt at destroying autnomia- but this in itself is not necessarily the end of
the issue - witness the ongoing work of Negri and consider the situation with sein
fein...

(ciao roberto and toni! if you are listening)

Specifically in relation to the Animal Liberation movements the anti-specism that
lies at the heart of the movement remains one of the most radical refutations of
the centrality of humanity in the scheme of things - if Irigaray was/is correct and
no revoltionary perspective can/could be constructed without a change and the
development of a new ethical perspective. Then animal liberation must be one of the
starting points.... Hence...

I personally do not object to the mass media mis-representing and lying what else
do they ever do?

regards

sdv

John Croft wrote:

> on 3/7/01 10:46, steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com at steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com
> wrote:
>
> > anti-capitalist
> > protesters
> [...]
> > A side wing of the movement the animal-liberation section - scored and
> > extraordinary victory this week because huntingdon life sciences (animal
> > experimentation and extermination 'camp' it has been described as) has had to
> > have a special bank account opened at the bank of england as the normal
> > commercial sector will not support it any longer...
>
> In what sense is this a side-wing of the anti-capitalist movement? It seems
> to me that the lumping together of groups which have disparate agendas
> ("anti-capitalists and anarchists") is one of the most insidious tactics of
> mainstream media. It obliterates important distinctions, and detracts from
> "issues" and reinforces the idea of a culture of professional protestors
> which does not distinguish between anti-capitalism and environmental
> concerns and animal liberation and GM crops.
>
> john
> _______________________________________
>
> http://pages.eidosnet.co.uk/john.croft/
> http://homepage.mac.com/castalia/