Make Capitalism History - Protest the G8
Are you sick of being exploited? Or, if you are capitalist, are you sick of exploiting others? Are you sick of war? If so, then join the lunaticleft bloggers in protesting against the G8 summit this summer, June 6-8th. It takes place in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Germany’s Baltic Sea. For ideas of how to get involved, check out dissent - a network of resistance.
My understanding of this protest is that its importance lies not so much in the demonstration of resistance against the capitalist pig-dogs (I mean it’s not like they’re going to say, oh shit, we didn’t know people thought we were such assholes), but rather in the constructive effects of the protest, both in planning it and carrying it out: the deepening and widening of feelings of solidarity and networks of communication amongst the different social movements (environmentalists, anti-capitalist globalization, feminists, socialists, anti-war activists, etc.) from all over the world. Through their coming together to work on this common project of stopping the G8 summit, they will set the groundwork for initiating further projects on which they can coordinate their efforts to best meet their common yet singular goals (my view here draws on Hardt and Negri’s Multitude). Come join the protest at Heiligendamm and participate in radical democracy!
February 12th, 2007 19:39
Are their goals really singular?
February 12th, 2007 20:30
By “singularity” I mean what is different in itself, as opposed to what is different from something else (Hardt and Negri get this from Deleuze who might get it from Spinoza - see _Multitude_, pg. 127n.52). The singular-common couplet is meant to replace identity-difference. Singularities are able to communicate because of the common they share and produce (e.g., common conditions, languages, networks, projects). Their goals are still singular because every person and group develops them on the basis of their experiences and productions of these commonalities in the local, contingent circumstances and histories in which they live. … Does that make any sense?
February 13th, 2007 14:24
Eli, you and I have argued about this before, but I still wonder about the purpose of protesting the G8? What I think is sometime lacking in the left wing protests on the world stage like this is a sense of coherence. Everyone is there protesting something else and in the end it doesn’t really leave much impact and it is easy for the media to do what they want to and write it off as a bunch of hoodlums.
February 13th, 2007 18:18
Yes, I concede that the protesters lack a certain sense of coherence, they do not leave much impact, and the mainstream media can write them off as hoodlums. Yet, none of that defeats my argument in the above post about what I see as the greatest benefit of these protests: developing solidarity networks amongst groups who are protesting for different purposes. These networks are growing, as evidenced by the increasing number of protesters at these meetings and by their increasing abilities to pull off protest actions in coordination with each other. They do not have coherence in the sense of melding into a homogenous single group with a single message, but they do have temporary coherences that allow them to coordinate their actions for demonstrations (e.g., traditional opponents, such as the unions and the environmentalists, marching together at the Seattle WTO protest). As for their dismissal by the media, first, they are getting excellent coverage through alternative media, and conversely through their using alternative media to help them organize, they are strengthening it. Who cares what the mainstream media thinks? They function to serve the same system of domination as the G8 leaders, and thus they are part of what many of the protesters are protesting against.
February 13th, 2007 22:34
…on this same point, I would like to anticipate your reply that different social movements could develop these networks of solidarity without going to the protests, e.g., through networking on the internet, e.g., moveon. In response, I think that the unique benefit of the protests is that they provide an opportunity for the groups to meet face-to-face, which allows them to build affective relations that couldn’t be developed virtually. Further, the protests provide them with opportunities to work together, with face-to-face communication, on common projects, such as the planning of particular marches and demonstrations. This planning requires them to create ad hoc institutions, such as roundtables and councils, which are sites of real participatory democracy that can serve as inspiration and models they can bring back for further organizing at their home cities after the protests. Also, the solidarity networks they develop can serve as the affective bases for virtual communication networks that they continue after the protests, in anticipation and preparation for further radical democratic actions.