Bloody good talk. Very good debate afterwards too.

I’d be really good if the major points coming from the debate after this address were also put out for a wider network to think about. I’ve summarised what I understand as the main points of this address, with my comments below in brackets.

Point one. The best way to beat the shock tactic is mass confrontational direct action, without centralised leadership, but with an active analytical network.

[I’m not convinced, but also not against the idea. The key issue for me is the amount and type of work required to make organisation happen and be accountable. I cant see such a strategy being sustainable unless there is sufficient trust and sufficient accountability. I guess this relates to the third point of people other than neo-liberals using crises to force through change. With the second point (below) coming in as a linked tactic of creating or magnifying such crises by opening home fronts, maybe based more on solidarity with particular marginalised peoples than on general liberal human rights.]

Point two. Struggles taking place offshore can be extended back to the places which provide key resources, such as here.

[This reverses the situation of elite oppressive military forces only presenting their hardened cutting edge to a largely vulnerable population. Instead, crucial supplies become vulnerable to specialised opposition, through direct action and political methods. In the process, everyday back-home normality is shown to be both an ideology and a power structure which requires repression and self-domestication to keep existing. Existing social fracture lines are thereby encouraged to open wider, potentially destabilising key institutions.

The ‘bringing the struggle home’ tactic seems to conflict in at least some ways with the first point unless concerns about overseas injustices are sufficiently widespread that mass actions can take place. There seems a risk of such activism becoming isolated rather than becoming a catalyst]

Point three. The neo-liberal tactic of using crises, contingent or manufactured, to force through change, is more than just an implementation of domination. In actuality it is a general principle/tactic of political change that can be used by anyone.

A major shock is coming from their side when ecological forces impact on global markets and energy prices. The costs will be shoved onto the most vulnerable and expendable. But this ecological shock can also be used by others to oppose such intensification of exploitation by elites.

[I agree, but there seems a potential conflict with the widespread, but not universal, anarchist principle of requiring the means to fit the ends. This ‘fight fire with fire’ tactic seems likely to become a strategy, but in which case, a future of perpetual struggle seems likely. Is this what people want and would identify with as a collective goal if the local repression maintained a smiley face?

In my studies I’ve noticed that short periods of intense change are frequently separated by longer periods of consolidation and inertia. Its not a rule, of course, but it suggests to me that change is in a sense the motor, but different from and in some ways opposing the coherence (‘relational mass’?) of an alternative society. I would say that both motor and structural integrity (relational mass, coherence) are needed for there to be sustainability. Without a ‘graspable’ sustainability, will people make the personal sacrifices to make change happen, rather than have change forced upon them?]

I guess I’d better read Klein’s book before commenting further. Its clearly very relevant to issues that are very important right now. But such issues have also been around in different shapes and names for several hundred years of ‘progressive’ western activism. Not to mention a whole of human history of opposing injustice.

cheers
Steve L

Big business is manipulating the issues of this election; a government in the outcome is a puppet while the people of Democracy are nullified.

A practical solution is for the people to campaign on Ethanol Fuel, especially making the home brew version available asap. This will naturally bring down the price of petrol because some vehicles can use a proportional percentage of ethanol, and hopefully further modifications would make it 100%.

Second, the people would have to campaign on removing GST from basic food such as bread and milk.

Big multi-corporations have signed up both National, Labour, and Mr. Dunn leaving them out of choices. This means the people would have to vote New Zealand First and the Maori Party to cause a significant effect, expecting either National or Labour to become a minor Party after the election. It’s a big ask but not impossible.

Also, Oil and Gas will continue to drive upward in the sound of bombs and tornadoes. We don’t need a Terrorist War to sustain the Blood for Oil industry. It can be stopped by opting for Bio Fuel.

yeah fuck you too!

Klein's discovered nothing. She's just got excited about the obvious. Its called class war. All the new imagery and verbiage she and others use can't hide it or dress it up as anything different.

The class war is fought on many fronts, the enemy have a battle plan (stupid as it may sometimes seem eg.the US$3 Trillion war on Iraq)which is invade, occupy, blockade, destabilse, arrest, and necessarily, kill. This is not merely some rightwing conspiracy by the institutions of the ruling class headed by the neo-cons. It is written into the DNA of capitalism.

Calling this Friedman/Klein "shock" or "fire" loses a lot of information and minimises all the other things that the ruling class does in the class war. If you don't have an understanding of the enemies tactics across all the fronts, especially the critical fronts, from Iraq to East Timor, you can't organise an international resistance to defeat them.

Proletarian class war resists, occupies, organises, defends, mobilises, and militarises to seize power. But it has to know what its up against, and what to seize.

Calling this fighting 'fire' with 'fire' impoverishes the wealth of our historic struggles and victories, as well as the lessons of our defeats. You don't win the class war by making an instant stew of all of this history and then throwing a few matches into the pot.

There are a number of critical hot spots where imperialism is confronting the advance guard of the worlds workers today. Tow of these are Iraq and Bolivia. These are two places where the class war between hegemonic US imperialism and an organised militant popular movement are critical to our future victories or defeats.

These hot spots have flared up under the impact of the US recession which means it needs to resolve its economic crisis at the expense of its rivals and the workers and can't afford to back of open fights.

So winning Iraq becomes even more important for the US to advance its challenge to China and Russia in Central Asia. So does opposing the Bolivarian bloc in Latin America which is threatening US hegemony in its own 'backyard' by doing deals with the EU and China. The secession of the Eastern part of Bolivia is the bridgehead for the US destabilising the Bolivarian bloc and re-asserting its hegemony in the hemisphere.

These two fronts of the class war are critical because it is in Iraq where the future of the popular masses in the Middle East and Central Asia will be decided, and in Bolivia, where the outcome of the class war in LA will be decided for years to come.

In both cases the armed, organised resistance of the masses following tactics of national self-determination, but breaking from the bourgeois regimes who want to coexist with imperialism like the BOlivarians, and Islamic nationaists, and moving towards socialism, is the winning strategy for the working masses.

Dave Brown