Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2001 18:33:04 +0100
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Roundtable on the state and globalisation: 


John

Conscious of my cyborg like inability to address the present sometimes - and
unable ever to leave things be - I refer you to one of my favorite pieces of
writing by Gilles Deleuze -

"What characterises our situation is both beyond and on this side of the state.
Beyond national states, the development of a world market, the power of
multinational companies, the outline of a planetary organisation, the extension
of the capitalism to the whole social body, clearly forms a great abstract
machine which overcodes the monetary, industrial and technological fluxes...."

But he continues ..."But the abstract machine, with its dysfunctions is no more
infallable than the national states which are not able to regulate them on their
own territory and from one territory to another..."

And then "...Instead of gambling on the eternal impossibilty of the revolution
and on the fascist return of a war machine in genereal, why not think of a new
type of revolution is in the course of becomeing possible, and that all kinds of
mutating, living machines conduct wars, are combined and trace out a plane of
consistence which undermines the plane of orgnaisation of the world and the
states...?"

Many Politics p146/7 in Dialogues...1977.

regards

sdv

John Croft wrote:

> Steve,
>
> I appreciate your point that resistance *per se* is perhaps more important
> than differences between various protesting groups. However, as one who has
> some residual allegiance to "rational thought", I feel, personally, a very
> strong objection to certain groups while supporting many others. We seem to
> differ on "specism", but you seem to acknowledge that important differences
> do exist so I won't deal specifically with that just now. My question is, do
> you regard resistance *as such* as more important than the drawing of
> distinctions between, for example, views such as extreme anti-GM stances
> which, if successful, could cause net harm to some populations and to the
> environment, and other more pressing issues such as climate change. (You may
> well disagree with me on these issues, but my point is about resistance as
> such versus reasoned/discriminate resistance.) For example, should those of
> us engaged in the resistance of global capitalism *not* raise an objection
> if others object to the same thing on the grounds that the world is run by a
> shadowy Zionist elite? Or lizards? Do you think that the connection "with a
> larger public" that you speak of is expedited or jeopardised by the image of
> an indiscriminate resistance?
>
> john