Mark, You wrote as follows: Ken wrote: >charity begins at home. For you and > me, home is the United States, and the object of our charity > ought first to be the well-being of the US laboring population. Ken, for what it is worth, more than half the members of the Crashlist do not live in the US. There are people here from Nepal, India, China, Taiwan, Australia, Africa, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and the UK. I'm not sure what who is distributing what charity anyway, but let us keep up an internationalist spirit here. Mark IMO, this criticism is way off base. In the first place, I was addressing Tony, a fellow US citizen, and not the entire list with my remark. In the second place, the implication is that Tony is free to advocate against immigration controls because that is what you have decided to call the "internationalist" position which you support, whereas I am not free to insist on the opposite, namely, that US workers have a right to protect their jobs and wage levels so long as capitalism continues, because that position you deride as "chauvinist" and nationalist. In a way, this perfectly parallels the program of globalism, though here you are promoting it under guise of "internationalism." Attempts by national groups to preserve jobs, labor standards and environmental quality (you deprecate the Sierra club for this attempt in another message) through legislation such as immigration limitation are swept aside in your righteous defense of "internationalism," perfectly paralleling capital's own global sweep of such "obstructions" to its goal of global domination, and the maximum hyper-exploitation of labor that will accompany it. As far as I am concerned, your lengthy demurral about the "Left" and finance capitalism having so much "superficially" in common is entirely unconvincing. Indeed, I think you actually make the case for those whom you would casually dismiss: the right-wing fringe theorists who posit that modern Communism is a conspiracy of finance capitalists. I confess that after reading your convoluted rationalization here I am more than ever convinced of the plausibility of this theory. And BTW, if you are going to disparage all immigration controls as "dilute fascism," you may as well go ahead and apply this to other forms of population control, such as birth control (you won't be the first!). You, Mark, have less excuse than some of the others (who can at least plead ignorance) for arguing this way. You have just fininished making a very nice exposition here of the correlation between absolute population growth and the economic growth that capitalism feeds on. And now, here you sit in the bleachers on the other side of the stadium cheering on that very thing: absolute population growth which will enable the process of accumulation to continue unhindered, and US capitalism to extend its life and vitality. Yet you meanwhile deplore fascism which "vamipirically" extends capitalism's natural life. I am sorry that I am apparently the only one to see the irony in this pot calling the kettle black. There is only one dialectic with which socialism is concerned: it is not men against women (the protestations of "radical feminists" notwithstanding), it is not whites against blacks, it is not (the comments of Tony, Nestor and you notwithstanding) a question of redistributing the crumbs of capitalism between various groups of workers, it is solely a question of the working class in its struggle against capitalism, and all of these divisive reforms only hinder the realization of that one, all-important goal. The nation-state is a fact of life under capitalism. True, as you and virtually everyone else reconizes by now, capital itself transcends (or is always seeking to transcend) national limits, but nevertheless, the parameters of the nation-state are those within which we have the opportunity and the responsiblity as socialists to improve the RELATIVE lot of labor, while we seek for its absolute long-term good, which can only ultimately be realized internationally. The attempt to confuse these two, and to anachronistically call for the latter to be realized under capitalist conditions is purest utopianism, and inasmuch as it grates against the common sense of the workers who have jobs and would like to keep them, and fully realize the threat of a massive influx of foreign labor, it drives a wedge between the Left and labor, and forces the workers politically into the hands of waiting opportunists like Buchanan, who was waiting for them in Seattle, and who will promise them prot! ectionism till hell won't have it, but is not about to challenge the rule of capital over their lives, nor even begin to explicate it for them. There is a golden mean between these two positions of extreme nationalism and extreme internationalism in the here-and-now, as I've pointed out: it is the path of moderate socialism, that does not seek to build "fortress America," but indeed seeks to demilitarize US foreign policy, while promoting alternative economics (Cooperation) to replace capitalist productive relations: ecologically enlightened Cooperative industry in every country will yield, in time, the highest form of internationalism worldwide. But as long as "socialists" continue to yield the economic field to capitalism, no matter how loudly we make our utopian demands politically, we can expect to see nothing but a greater pauperization of the proletariat, such as you are already beginning to describe in your recent message about US mega-cities. Yes, third-world conditions are slowly insinuating themselves among the working poor -- those lucky enough to find work. Capitalism can indeed say, a la Nietzche: "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Rescinding immigration controls not only does not kill capitalism, it makes it stronger. No responsible socialist, and no responsible ecologist, can possibly advocate this. Peace, Ken ------------------------------------------------------------ ((( GREAT DEAL: Home Depot: Home Improvement 1-2-3 on CD-ROM ))) Get it FREE! at: http://nettaxi.free-irewards.com ( plus S&H ) _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
