I wouldn't take Negri and Hardt as official spokespersons for the NYTimes.
At 03:28 PM 07/23/01 +0200, Christoph Reuss wrote:
>As a follow-up to the recent FW thread on democracy and globalization,
>I'm quoting an article from the NYT which shows that even the NYT now
>admits what Keith seems to deny...
>
>Chris
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>________http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/20/opinion/20HARDT.html________
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>New York Times July 20, 2001
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>What the Protesters in Genoa Want
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> By MICHAEL HARDT and ANTONIO NEGRI
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>[...]
>
>The leaders, however, seem detached somehow from the transformations
>around them, as though they are following the stage directions from a
>dated play. We can see the photo already, though it has not yet been
>taken: President George W. Bush as an unlikely king, bolstered by lesser
>monarchs. This is not quite an image of the future. It resembles more an
>archival photo, pre-1914, of superannuated royal potentates.
>
>[...]
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>If it is not national but supranational powers that rule today's
>globalization, however, we must recognize that this new order has no
>democratic institutional mechanisms for representation, as nation-states
>do: no elections, no public forum for debate.
>
>The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. The protesters
>take to the streets because this is the form of expression available to
>them. The lack of other venues and social mechanisms is not their
>creation.
>
>Antiglobalization is not an adequate characterization of the protesters
>in Genoa (or G�teborg, Quebec, Prague, or Seattle). The globalization
>debate will remain hopelessly confused, in fact, unless we insist on
>qualifying the term globalization. The protesters are indeed united
>against the present form of capitalist globalization, but the vast
>majority of them are not against globalizing currents and forces as
>such; they are not isolationist, separatist or even nationalist.
>
>The protests themselves have become global movements and one of their
>clearest objectives is for the democratization of globalizing processes.
>It should not be called an antiglobalization movement. It is
>pro-globalization, or rather an alternative globalization movement � one
>that seeks to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor and between
>the powerful and the powerless, and to expand the possibilities of
>self-determination.
>
>[...]
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Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213
