JB wrote:


<<
it's the usual warping that occurs when a straightforward thought enters the
twisty ravines of your serpentine thought -- especially the last segment of
your interpretation of my question.  O where is the Democracy of wei-en-lin?
does it echo in the musty dungeons of his imagined Confucianism or in the
trembling reminisces of the Name-of-the-Father?
>>

You may or may not know, that in Chinese culture, the serpent or the snake
(along with the dragon) can have very positive associations.  To speak of
serpentine thought is, in one sense, complimentary.

So I thank you for this compliment, intended or not.

As to your specific question, I am asking you to flesh it out a bit, to be a
bit more specific.  I have already explained my idea of democracy several
times, in many areas of discussion.  In the area of labor and economic
organization, it is best illustrated in the anarcho-syndicalist thought of
Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Chomsky; and in the practices of the early Spanish
anarchosyndicalists of the revolution of 1936, who were successful in
putting such ideas into practice in many areas of Spain, until Franco
suppressed the social forms they had created.  Some have developed since
then, quietly and effectively, in Mondragon (Basque country).  See
http://www.mcc.es   Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which is a
democratically run, democratically worker owned, worker managed cooperative,
the largest in the world.

In France there was the Paris Commune of 1871, in China the Shanghai
Commune, which arose and was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution in
China.  During the first year of the Russian revolution there was genuine
democratically controlled industry;  the anarcho-syndicalists, and council
communists were a very powerful force until Lenin and Trotsky suppressed
them.  Nestor Makhno, in Ukraine, helped lead one of the most profound
syndicalist revolutions in history, but his work was also supressed and
destroyed after Trotsky and Lenin betrayed their alliance with him against
the Whites in the Russian Revolutionary struggle.

During the French Revolution of 1789-1794 numerous genuinely democratic
tendencies and movements were born.  As Zhou En Lai once said, when asked to
explain the overall significance of the French revolution, "It is still too
early to tell."  But if you read French history, particularly that of the
French Revolution (and the Commune of 1871) you will find numerous
developments and encouraging acheivements which have become signposts on the
path leading to the eventual realization of democracy.

Democracy is a work in progress on this planet.  In France and Scandinavia,
I would argue, the most progress has been made.  In the US the best hope
lies in the new youth movement which is spreading like wild fire across
campuses, through sections of the labor and environmentalist commmunity, and
the new Alliance.  Thanks to the development of the World Wide Web, the
possibilities for democracy are opening up to a far greater degree than
would have been believed possible five years ago. Not since the 60's, in
Europe and in the US, has there been such optimism among the youth, the
environmentalists, and labor.  I recommend such web sites as the Independent
Media Center, and A-Infos

http://www.indymedia.org

http://www.ainfos.ca

I was present in Washington DC for the recent demonstrations against the IMF
and World Bank (which was a follow up to the Seattle demonstrations).  Many
of the people present there were present at Seattle.  I spent two days there
and talked to scores of committed youth, labor activists, and many people
from around the world, from India, Latin America, and Europe.  Democracy is
being created.  The process is slow, will take hundreds of years, but the
movement now appears on a sort of cusp, where motion can be made in the
right direction.

So you ask me "where is the democracy of Wei En Lin?" There is no such
thing.  There is only democracy of the people.  When struggles succeed in
making structures More accountable to the people, or better yet, in creating
new structures which are in essence more accountable to the people, there is
democracy.  In Bolivia there was a people's victory recently when massive
popular demontrations forced the government to go back on water privisation
deal (selling Cochabamba's water supplies to Bechtel, a large US arms firm),
and compelling the elected leader rescind martial law, and return control of
the water supply to the publicly controlled board.  Democracy -- or movement
toward greater democracy and away from tyranny --- triumphed in that moment.

Democracy is not one system which exists in one place for all time,
perfected and complete. Democracy is a process, requiring new systems, and
people's participation.  People need to be educated; and forms of social
organization need to be improved.  Of all the political parties which are on
the stage right now, the Green Party and Ralph Nader appear to be the ones
who are closest to advocating and working for genuine democracy, in my view.
  Certain intellectual figures, like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, as well
as some popular talk figures like Jim Hightower and Michael Moore make very
clear statements about what needs to be done to make the movement toward
greater democracy possible.

You asked.  And that is my opinion stated as briefly as possible.  But each
of the topics mentioned in each of the above paragraphs merits volumes of
discussion.

You say you have "never seen democracy."  I can appreciate that.  No pure
democracy exists, and no pure democracy, as we might imagine, will ever
exist.  But there is movement towards and away from the ideal; there are
practical and theoretical strivings which take the person closer to and
further away from the realization of a more just social order.

Pound is very relevant to this discussion (but mostly by negative example).


---Wei








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