Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Solidarite to the Workers and Students in France
First of all, lots of solidarity to the workers and students of France. We could all sit around speculating about whether or not this unrest, developing from a defensive protest to prevent the passage of a law (and, some days later, to force its repeal), will lead to anything bigger further down the road. However, whatever the outcome, as far as I’m concerned, the students and workers must be supported and admired for their collective response. They are showing an exuberance in their resistance that the rest of us would do well to emulate as our own government and business leaders hit us with one blow after another in the relentless class war.
I don’t know of any rules in the U.S. that even prevent people (of any age) from being fired without cause in the first place – unless you count a few useless and ineffective anti-discrimination laws. So, it wouldn’t make any difference, hypothetically speaking, if somebody came along with an American CPE. However, there are many other reasons that we need to be fighting more.... There should be general strikes and riots with burning cars over healthcare alone, not to mention all the steady incomes lost due to government-backed corporate globalization and outsourcing, the drastic decline of so many workers' wages, the destruction of pensions, the unfair tax laws, the bankruptcy laws...but no need to go into this list in any more detail; I believe I've talked about all of it before.
Anyway, let’s keep an eye on what the people of France are doing, as they might be setting a good example for the rest of the people in the "advanced" capitalist nations of Europe and North America.
------------------
P.S. There are several good Web sites we could refer to for the latest information, as well as some illuminating analysis. In fact, I've learned more stuff about this movement in just the hour or two since I wrote my first draft of this blog post (which is why I decided to revise).
To start with, as many already know, there is extensive coverage in an Unrest in France blog, connected to the Libertarian Communist Web site. I’ll be visiting there pretty frequently in the days ahead.
The World Socialist Web site has a good report about how the trade unions and the major left parties are doing everything they can to make sure that they can get this movement under control, especially before it actually threatens the government:
The French trade unions, the Socialist Party (SP), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the petty-bourgeois radical left are striving to establish control over a movement which has embraced broad layers of the population. Although it is clear that the government is neither willing nor able to withdraw its legislation, all of these organizations are studiously avoiding any sort of call for the resignation of the government. Instead they are seeking a way of resolving the conflict as quickly as possible and stabilizing the government.
...Which means, of course, that they will kill the protests altogether if they can:
In reality, the mass movement against the CPE is doomed to defeat if it does not free itself from the crippling influence of these organizations and develop its own independent strategy. The government has already made clear that it has no intention of backing down. For their part the SP, PCF and trade unions will do everything to ensure the movement is diverted down a dead end.
...All of which might elicit the response, So what else is new?
Meanwhile, there's this very spirited communique coming out of the Sorbonne Occupation Committee in Exile, which I found at Infoshop. Although they're probably not planning the specific kind of strategy that the WSWS is calling for, they've certainly got the right spirit of resistance to stand up to all the bureaucrats, and then some. I thought that these passages were particularly good:
Revision #2: The union bureaucracies, even though they continue with their habitual manipulations, are not as serious an obstacle to the real movement as the reflexes of pacifism that spread amongst us. The night of the eviction of the Sorbonne, part of the students had no idea why they were there or what they could do, let alone what they should do. They were wandering in anguish of the freedom offered but impossible to grasp, because it was not desired. A week later, after numerous occupations and confrontations with the police, their asserted impotence is finally giving place to an innocent taste for direct action. Pacifism finally becomes what it has never stopped being: a benign existential pathology.
Revision #9: We are the heirs of the failure of all the "social movements" and not just those of the last three years (teachers, retirees, seasonal workers, high-school students), but many more dating back to at least 1986. We have learned some lessons from these failures. The first is about the media. By becoming the echo of the movement, the media effectively becomes a part of it, a part which, when it pulls out (usually at the same time as the union bureaucracies) provokes the movement’s collapse. The strength of a movement is in its effective power, not in what is being said about it, and the malicious gossip about it. The movement must protect itself by all means, even by force if necessary, from the grasp of the media. It must develop its own voice.
P.P.S. [March 24] As the always helpful poster Anonymous points out in the comments below, the ICC also have posted a few articles on the matter, some of which contain very interesting analysis as well as first-hand observations from France. I had actually glimpsed one or two articles of theirs on the subject before making the main post above (since which more articles have been added), but I had yet to digest them (and still have yet to read through all the analysis thoroughly), and I guess I had already gotten what I needed for this post when I posted it (that's how blogging goes sometimes). Besides, I figured plenty of people were already linking to their site if they'd read one of my other recent posts...
I don’t know of any rules in the U.S. that even prevent people (of any age) from being fired without cause in the first place – unless you count a few useless and ineffective anti-discrimination laws. So, it wouldn’t make any difference, hypothetically speaking, if somebody came along with an American CPE. However, there are many other reasons that we need to be fighting more.... There should be general strikes and riots with burning cars over healthcare alone, not to mention all the steady incomes lost due to government-backed corporate globalization and outsourcing, the drastic decline of so many workers' wages, the destruction of pensions, the unfair tax laws, the bankruptcy laws...but no need to go into this list in any more detail; I believe I've talked about all of it before.
Anyway, let’s keep an eye on what the people of France are doing, as they might be setting a good example for the rest of the people in the "advanced" capitalist nations of Europe and North America.
------------------
P.S. There are several good Web sites we could refer to for the latest information, as well as some illuminating analysis. In fact, I've learned more stuff about this movement in just the hour or two since I wrote my first draft of this blog post (which is why I decided to revise).
To start with, as many already know, there is extensive coverage in an Unrest in France blog, connected to the Libertarian Communist Web site. I’ll be visiting there pretty frequently in the days ahead.
The World Socialist Web site has a good report about how the trade unions and the major left parties are doing everything they can to make sure that they can get this movement under control, especially before it actually threatens the government:
The French trade unions, the Socialist Party (SP), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the petty-bourgeois radical left are striving to establish control over a movement which has embraced broad layers of the population. Although it is clear that the government is neither willing nor able to withdraw its legislation, all of these organizations are studiously avoiding any sort of call for the resignation of the government. Instead they are seeking a way of resolving the conflict as quickly as possible and stabilizing the government.
...Which means, of course, that they will kill the protests altogether if they can:
In reality, the mass movement against the CPE is doomed to defeat if it does not free itself from the crippling influence of these organizations and develop its own independent strategy. The government has already made clear that it has no intention of backing down. For their part the SP, PCF and trade unions will do everything to ensure the movement is diverted down a dead end.
...All of which might elicit the response, So what else is new?
Meanwhile, there's this very spirited communique coming out of the Sorbonne Occupation Committee in Exile, which I found at Infoshop. Although they're probably not planning the specific kind of strategy that the WSWS is calling for, they've certainly got the right spirit of resistance to stand up to all the bureaucrats, and then some. I thought that these passages were particularly good:
Revision #2: The union bureaucracies, even though they continue with their habitual manipulations, are not as serious an obstacle to the real movement as the reflexes of pacifism that spread amongst us. The night of the eviction of the Sorbonne, part of the students had no idea why they were there or what they could do, let alone what they should do. They were wandering in anguish of the freedom offered but impossible to grasp, because it was not desired. A week later, after numerous occupations and confrontations with the police, their asserted impotence is finally giving place to an innocent taste for direct action. Pacifism finally becomes what it has never stopped being: a benign existential pathology.
Revision #9: We are the heirs of the failure of all the "social movements" and not just those of the last three years (teachers, retirees, seasonal workers, high-school students), but many more dating back to at least 1986. We have learned some lessons from these failures. The first is about the media. By becoming the echo of the movement, the media effectively becomes a part of it, a part which, when it pulls out (usually at the same time as the union bureaucracies) provokes the movement’s collapse. The strength of a movement is in its effective power, not in what is being said about it, and the malicious gossip about it. The movement must protect itself by all means, even by force if necessary, from the grasp of the media. It must develop its own voice.
P.P.S. [March 24] As the always helpful poster Anonymous points out in the comments below, the ICC also have posted a few articles on the matter, some of which contain very interesting analysis as well as first-hand observations from France. I had actually glimpsed one or two articles of theirs on the subject before making the main post above (since which more articles have been added), but I had yet to digest them (and still have yet to read through all the analysis thoroughly), and I guess I had already gotten what I needed for this post when I posted it (that's how blogging goes sometimes). Besides, I figured plenty of people were already linking to their site if they'd read one of my other recent posts...
Comments:
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Have you ever been on the libcom forums? I linked to your blog post about the ICC meeting to counter all the folks who were making claims about how loony the ICC is. A poster from NYC said he showed up at the last ICC meeting and saw one presenter and a few academic types sitting around a table and then he left. I guess he thinks you dress like a professor.
On a second note, apart fron Quinlan's blog, are there any other blogs by left commie types around?
Thanks
On a second note, apart fron Quinlan's blog, are there any other blogs by left commie types around?
Thanks
# posted by 
: 12:50 PM
: 12:50 PM
Hi, Alibadani. I actually mentioned the forum and your link to this site in my latest comment below my post about the meeting. (I discovered all of this through my stats check - lots of visits courtesy of libcom forum!)
I don't believe I saw the guy who claims to have visited the ICC meeting. Maybe he poked his head in while I was out of the room. (I had to run out for a minute near the beginning in order to call someone.)
This "Newyawka" must have poked his head in when I wasn't there, because he underestimated the number attending by one.
And I don't think I was dressing like a professor. I wore a big hooded green sweat shirt-jacket sort of thing and, if I'm remembering correctly, a khaki army-surplus kind of shirt and some plain, worn-out off-white pants.
I don't think anybody there looked so "academic," actually, so I don't know what this guy was talking about. (Unless he expected everyone to be dressed in caps and overalls, or maybe he expected to see a bunch of crusty punks with patches?)
Re. "left commie" blogs... Well, that may be a complicated question, because over on my list on the side, I've got some ultra-leftist blogs and I've got some autonomist-leaning blogs and also some libertarian communist blogs, but I haven't decided yet which would count as being truly "left commie." And I need to go to sleep now (morning after a midnight shift), but maybe I'll get back to it later. Meanwhile, please feel free to browse through my blog links, and maybe some of these will answer your question.
By the way, do you have a blog, by any chance? (I remember some ICC supporter who'd posted at Quinlan's blog who had a blog of his own...but I'm not sure if that was you...)
I don't believe I saw the guy who claims to have visited the ICC meeting. Maybe he poked his head in while I was out of the room. (I had to run out for a minute near the beginning in order to call someone.)
This "Newyawka" must have poked his head in when I wasn't there, because he underestimated the number attending by one.
And I don't think I was dressing like a professor. I wore a big hooded green sweat shirt-jacket sort of thing and, if I'm remembering correctly, a khaki army-surplus kind of shirt and some plain, worn-out off-white pants.
I don't think anybody there looked so "academic," actually, so I don't know what this guy was talking about. (Unless he expected everyone to be dressed in caps and overalls, or maybe he expected to see a bunch of crusty punks with patches?)
Re. "left commie" blogs... Well, that may be a complicated question, because over on my list on the side, I've got some ultra-leftist blogs and I've got some autonomist-leaning blogs and also some libertarian communist blogs, but I haven't decided yet which would count as being truly "left commie." And I need to go to sleep now (morning after a midnight shift), but maybe I'll get back to it later. Meanwhile, please feel free to browse through my blog links, and maybe some of these will answer your question.
By the way, do you have a blog, by any chance? (I remember some ICC supporter who'd posted at Quinlan's blog who had a blog of his own...but I'm not sure if that was you...)
Hello. I would recommend my dear friend Sam's blog which is at breakingthesocialcontract.blogspot.com
He doesn't update very often, and when he does it tends tp come in spurts, but he is very similar to me in most every matter, he is certainly a "left-commie type". Lately both of us have gotten extremely interested in Camatte.
He doesn't update very often, and when he does it tends tp come in spurts, but he is very similar to me in most every matter, he is certainly a "left-commie type". Lately both of us have gotten extremely interested in Camatte.
http://meeting.senonevero.net/
article.php3?id_article=87#forum782
Interesting and radical reports and commentaries, mostly in french.
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article.php3?id_article=87#forum782
Interesting and radical reports and commentaries, mostly in french.
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