Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- I agree. The same for Brazil. On Fri, 3 Dec 1999 02:50:56 -0500, YnrChyldzWyld wrote: This country was FOUNDED via violence, and emerged as a world power via violence... Every major political and social change in this country only came about as a result of violence... DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- In a message dated 99-12-03 02:51:06 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, nessie wrote: The task is not to join them at the table but to overturn the table. If violence is not a wholly appropriate method for dealing with people who exploit slave labor, then the American Civil War was a mistake. This country was FOUNDED via violence, and emerged as a world power via violence... Every major political and social change in this country only came about as a result of violence... Electoral politics is a shell game: Don't vote KEVIN KEATING San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 3, 1999 In my neighborhood, the Mission, many tenants, working people, desperate housing activists and even a few self-styled anarchists are elated by Tom Ammiano's surprisingly strong showing in the Nov. 2 election. Ammiano's popularity is clearly a function of The City's catastrophic housing crisis. When compared to Downtown Willie Brown, Ammiano appears to be a pro-tenant candidate and a friend of working people. Ammiano has even pledged that as mayor he'll declare an all-out war against gentrification, which is destroying the unique character of this city. By all accounts Ammiano is a decent human being, especially when compared to the other mayoral candidates in the November election. He is also an excellent stand-up comedian. But working and poor people who trust Ammiano in particular and electoral politics in general operate under a staggering number of illusions. As a Democratic Party politician, Ammiano is not an ally of working and poor people. In a recent debate with Mayor Brown, Ammiano said he supports the San Francisco Police Department ticketing homeless people for possession of shopping carts. Ammiano supported Proposition E, the "Rescue Muni" [Municipal Railway = public transportation] initiative that won passage on Nov. 2. It scapegoats Muni employees for the systematic mismanagement by Muni bureaucrats and City Hall. Prop. E will increase workplace surveillance and harassment of Muni workers. It will result in fare hikes, massive wage and benefit concessions from Muni employees and Muni's eventual privatization. Prop. E was also supported by the Committee on Jobs, a downtown lobby of bankers, stockbrokers and real estate speculators, including billionaire GAP CEO Donald Fisher. This is strange company for a supposed "radical." Regardless of who wins the mayor's race, all of San Francisco's elected officials will ensure that a profitable and well-policed corporate order thrives at the expense of wage workers, tenants and poor people. The right to vote is not a significant mechanism of political power in this society. Billionaires, millionaires and their servants in the media, legal and academic professions decide what the issues are and frame the terms of discussion. The rich determine the policies of the state. As mayor, Ammiano would be at the mercy of big-money special interests, like the suits behind the Committee on Jobs, people who were never voted into power and cannot be voted out of power. No "good intentions" on the part of the most idealistic elected official can change this. You cannot vote your way around it. No real improvement in the lives of working class and poor people was ever brought about by voting. In the labor movement of the 1930s and the more militant wing of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, large numbers of people shut down whole industries and made major cities ungovernable until the ruling class and their goons backed off. In France, bosses and corporations haven't been able to reduce the living conditions of working people to an American level of exploitation and impoverishment because wage workers there have staged massive strikes that forced bosses to back down. They play to win when they refuse to play the system's game. The appalling, market-driven housing crisis in this town won't be affected by a mayoral election - but if San Francisco tenants organize an unlimited citywide rent strike, with a modest goal of reducing all rents to 25 percent of their current rate, we could destroy the gentrification craze. Only large-scale, collective direct action can keep San Francisco from becoming a sterile, culturally vacuous Disneyland for the rich. Instead of voting, talk to your fellow tenants and co-workers. Fight for your interests against the interests of landlords, bosses, corporations and the rich. Liberals and conservatives alike are out to make this city uninhabitable for the wage-earning class. Don't be a chump. Make an intelligent choice; join the two-thirds of eligible voters nationwide who refuse to play the shell game of voting. Examiner contributor Kevin Keating, an audio technician, is alleged by San Francisco police to be "Nestor Makhno" of the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project. DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and
[CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector-
Dave Hartley
http://www.Asheville-Computer.com/dave
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE
It will never be the same for the bulimic boomers of brutal capitalism. The
serial rapists of the planet's economy and environment still retain their
power but they have finally lost their cover of respectability. Even C-SPAN
felt obliged to interview a union leader. As Matt Drudge said, "The news was
becoming real again."
Wrote one newspaper: "Not since the days of the Vietnam War and the civil
rights movement has the entire downtown core of a major American city been
seized by popular uprising; rarely has so diverse an array of groups linked
elbows against a common enemy, in this case the faceless forces of
globalization."
Not that the television industry didn't try to keep a lid on the story. The
TV cabal of silence was in marked and totally unjustifiable contrast to the
excessive coverage given such events as JFK Jr.'s death, school shootings,
and highway chases. On the first night of demonstrations only Fox News gave
serious face time to the most important new movement since the beginning of
the dismal era of Thatcher, Reagan and Clinton. Even then, however, Fox's
White House correspondent distinguished himself by misinforming his viewers
on the meaning of both the WTO ('nothing more than a traffic cop') and the
protests against it.
The major print media did better until, of course, you got to the editorial
page where you found such gems as this from the Washington Post: "In
principle one might object that unelected advocacy groups have no right to
special treatment. But the Internet has handed these groups too much power
to make their complete exclusion practical." Of course, nobody elected the
WTO (or even got a chance to debate it under constitutional rules) but such
blatant disinformation by the Post is sadly familiar. It was, in fact, the
Post that created and then shamelessly promoted an "unelected advocacy
group" called the Federal City Council that has grossly exaggerated
influence over local affairs.
Some of the coverage leading up to Seattle revealed the deep corporate bias
of the media. For example, NBC financial correspondent Mick Jensen concluded
that "most experts say getting rid of trade barriers on both sides is a good
thing for American workers and consumers." An Associated Press report called
protesters' concerns "far-fetched," and continued by noting that "for every
campaigner lying down on a sidewalk this week to protest the WTO's efforts
to reduce trade barriers, there is a happily employed Seattleite whose job
depends on free commerce."
FAIR even caught ABC's Seattle affiliate bragging of its plans to censor its
own reporting. It announced that it would "not devote coverage to
irresponsible or illegal activities of disruptive groups," adding that "KOMO
4 News is taking a stand on not giving some protest groups the publicity
they want So if you see us doing a story on a disruption, but we don't
name the group or the cause, you'll know why."
As for the protests themselves, no one should be fooled. Demonstrations
don't make policy. They can only make it a little easier, especially when,
as in this case, the first task is to strip the mask of respectability from
those damaging the earth and its communities in order to improve next
quarter's profits.
These people are not to be trusted. The task is not to join them at the
table but to overturn the table. As Rep. Dennis Kucinich put it, the basic
issue is citizens' "control over civic institutions and over their own
government... that people can make decisions about clean air, clean water,
human rights, better health care, better retirement. If private interests
are simply running things, then that means that people are at their mercy...
The market is not going to be parceling out democratic rights."
The media seemed particularly confused that labor leaders and Pat Buchanan
could be on the same side, but as Carolyn Chute has put it: "There's no
right and left, there's only up and down. Up there are the fat cats having a
great time, while down here the rest of us are struggling to survive." The
problem for the major media facing such a story is that it has been up so
long it all looks down to it. What those paragons of photogenic pablum fail
to understand is that more and more Americans see them as part of the
problem. But then, Chesterton once noted that "to be smart enough to get all
that money you must be dull enough to want it."
Is it too early to talk about next? Perhaps, but a few cautions to file from
someone in his fourth decade of writing about demonstrations:
-- They are only the opening act. Too much reliance on demonstrations can
create a static ritual actually slowing a movement down or falsely
suggesting lessened interest in a idea when the real drop-off is in going to
protests that don't product results.
-- There are other ways to keep the public involved. For example, Tony
Schwartz, a guru in guerrilla media
Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- The task is not to join them at the table but to overturn the table. If violence is not a wholly appropriate method for dealing with people who exploit slave labor, then the American Civil War was a mistake. DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- nessie wrote: If violence is not a wholly appropriate method for dealing with people who exploit slave labor, then the American Civil War was a mistake. The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general---not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man---although that was not the motive of the war---as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle---but only of degree---between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree. If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or maintain liberty or justice generally, they had only to say: All, whether white or black, who want the protection of this government, shall have it; and all who do not want it, will be left in peace, so long as they leave us in peace. Had they said this, slavery would necessarily have been abolished at once; the war would have been saved; and a thousand times nobler union than we have ever had would have been the result. It would have been a voluntary union of free men; such a union as will one day exist among all men, the world over, if the several nations, so called, shall ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and murderers, called governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind continue to pay "national debts," so-called---that is, so long as they are such dupes and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered -- so long there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes; and with that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers (police), can be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for masters. --Lysander Spooner No Treason No. VI; Chapter 19 (1870) http://www.buildfreedom.com/ft/spooner.htm DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- And why did these men abolish slavery? The key word here is "these." Spooner is talking about politicians and the men who owned them. About them, he is absolutely right. However, Spooner errs in his assumption that these were the men who abolished slavery and that it was abolished by proclomation. These were not the men who abolished slavery. Soldiers abolished slavery. They didn't do it with proclamations, either. They did it with lead and steel. DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
Re: [CTRL] WTO, Sleepless in Seattle
-Caveat Lector- On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, nessie wrote: The task is not to join them at the table but to overturn the table. If violence is not a wholly appropriate method for dealing with people who exploit slave labor, then the American Civil War was a mistake. This country was FOUNDED via violence, and emerged as a world power via violence... Every major political and social change in this country only came about as a result of violence... June ;-) === When we are old as you? When we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how In this this pinching care Shall we discourse the freezing hours away? -- Shakespeare, Cymbeline III.iii === *---* revcoal AT connix DOT com *---* It is UNLAWFUL to send unsolicited commercial email to this email address per United States Code Title 47 Sec. 227. I assess a fee of $500.00 US currency for reading and deleting such unsolicited commercial email. Sending such email to this address denotes acceptance of these terms. My posting messages to Usenet neither grants consent to receive unsolicited commercial email nor is intended to solicit commercial email. ** DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substancenot soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
