Is Obama's new age of multilateralism all it's cracked up to be? Okay, let me put this another way. Imagine you're an Anglo-American liberal. Now, there's no need to put on a self-righteous rictus smirk, or start reading the New Republic: I am not asking you to method act, just use your imagination. You've just watched for eight years as America has betrayed its ideals, its democratic mission, the humane and inclusive world posture that won it so many starry-eyed admirers during the 1990s. Yes, you understand that in the messy world of global power politics one sometimes has to gravely compromise one's own principles. But to be so open about it, to be so brazenly cynical in choosing to launch a major war and occupation with poor excuses and worse planning... After all, you might think, there was a principled case for war if only Bush had coopted a few Democrats and been more strategically multilateral. The Clinton administration had used the Bush troika - WMD proliferation, human rights abuses, and terrorism - as the basis for belligerence throughout the 1990s. There was no reason for Bush to parody this fine legacy with his grotesque grandstanding and overtly partisan domestic position. And throughout this gloomy midnight of Pax Americana, you watched years of massive strategic advantage being frittered away, as the containment of Russia finally broke down, the NATO alliance was fractured, allies were angered by protectionism and unilateralism, enemies were strengthened by the same, and populations in formerly friendly societies chose regimes hostile to the US. Worst of all has been the contribution this folly has made to rising anti-Americanism of which you yourself have falsely been accused.

But now it is different. Barack Obama, who speaks softly but carries a big stick, is the new "leader of the Free World" (astonishing to think that people still use this expression). He is wildly popular in naturally sympathetic European states, and the Euro clerisy are balls deep in his hopeful audacity. As a result, he will have the clout necessary to restore the shattered NATO alliance and solve the problem of overstretch. Obama has spoken of restoring relations with Russia. He has scolded Iran for its nuclear heresies, but also offered to chat, the better to weaken and isolate its fanatical and hate-ridden leadership. As a necessary evil, he has exchanged pleasantries with that poisonous caudillo Hugo Chavez, who will soon fall to a colour-coded 'revolution', you hope. He has taken a sensible approach to Iraq, with a prudent application of the 'Pottery Barn rule' - no precipitous withdrawal, no dissing the surge, and no defunding. He has cautiously sought to roll back the unpleasantness of officially sanctioned torture (Bush scandalously neglected to fully outsource the practise). He has pledged to revive multilateralism and build a strong deterrent force in Afghanistan, and if his preference for 'security' over 'democratisation' saddens you, then you are equally saddened that Afghanistan is not yet ready for the liberal institutions that Bush so hubristically sought to impose. But this only strengthens the case for defeating the enemy. By appointing Clinton era officials, he has offered a reasonable chance of reviving that golden age. And perhaps Obama might better Clinton on Africa. With some intelligent planning, the crackdowns on Somali piracy - an early Obama success, drafting the EU into shouldering more of the imperial burden - can become the basis for a series of actions to stabilise that unfortunate continent, with the pacification of Sudan its crowning achievement. And even France has normalised its relations with the US by electing a neoconservative leadership that has already rejoined NATO. At any rate, you are optimistic for the first time in this young millenium.

Still, you can't help but find something disturbing in all this. If the new president, surely at the height of his appeal, can't get more than 5,000 extra non-combatant troops out of NATO, or reform the alliance to more adequately meet its interests, what has become of his dynamic multilateralism so soon? A boost in NATO commitments was supposed to give Obama room to cut taxes domestically and stimulate the economy. And if the potent POTUS can't get the EU to even agree measures to accept prisoners from the closing Guantanamo, does this point to European moral shortcomings or to US diplomatic shortcomings? Or to something worse? If European states can't see their way to defending the energy frontiers of what Brzezinski called the 'global Balkans', how can they be expected to commit to interventions where their commercial interests are less obvious? Moreover, the Obama administration seems to be remarkably slow at getting the right personnel, with no assistant secretary of state for African affairs appointed five months after his election - is this administration really going to lead an international (ie, Euro-American) coalition to save Darfur? Perhaps it is at this point that you wonder if the whole idea of a renaissance in American foreign affairs is a mirage. The political-economic basis for Clintonite multilateralism is gone, after all. Washington's unipolar dominance is disappearing, its hegemony over potential rivals ending, its mode of dominance through what Peter Gowan calls the 'Dollar-Wall Street-Regime' possibly coming to an end. Now you find Italy and France siding with Russia, while Germany - which, while its banks have suffered terribly from the crisis, is not a heavily leveraged society compared to its Anglo-Saxon competitors - bucks the financial 'bail out' plan. What if Bush was right? What if the neoconservative prospectus as of 2001 was not an extremist, adventurist programme but a realistic engagement with a world in which America's ability to control affairs was undergoing long-term decline? What if, while mobilising antique doctrines of empire, it was in practise an emergency management programme for a society that only survived the 2000-1 recession on the basis of a temporary housing bubble, with poor subsequent growth rates? Suppose the protectionism of the last administration was a sensible response to competition that America could no longer withstand. Even Clinton's handling of WTO disputes was thoroughly protectionist, or does no one remember the "banana wars"? And, after all, Obama isn't exactly abjuring protectionist measures, what with his proposed Patriot Employer Act. What if, moreover, the Bush government could do little else but pursue a 'unilateralist' course given the extreme measures forced upon it by the circumstances of obvious decline? The PNACers would probably have had little influence were it not clear that the US was losing some of its dominance, and was destined to lose its financial 'leadership' (to use one of your favourite euphemisms). What if Obama is obliged to do the same, only more forcefully? What if, unable to draw allies alongside him, he has to expand his Afpak war into other zones of Central Asia? Would Bush's rough-riding henchmen have acted any differently? What if, objectively, your stance for the last eight or so years has been objectively anti-American?

I'll be heading to New York tomorrow to participate in the Left Forum. If you're in the city, or within reasonable SUVing distance, I order you to attend. My two confirmed panels are as follows:

Liberalism, Imperialism & the Politics of Human Rights
Jacob Stevens (Chair)- Verso Books
Richard Seymour - author, "The Liberal Defense of Murder"
Samuel Moyn - History, Columbia University
John R. MacArthur - Publisher, Harper's
Sunday 19th April, 12-2pm

SCREENING: Malalai Joya: Enemies of Happiness
Women rights and the state of occupied Afghanistan
Post-screening discussion by
Derrick O'Keefe - Editor, rabble.ca
Richard Seymour - Author of "The Liberal Defense of Murder"
Saturday 18th April, 3-5pm

Otherwise I'll be around, cheerfully imposing myself on whoever doesn't see me coming.

Guest post by Futurecast:

For reasons that perhaps are not entirely inexplicable, the demonstration against NATO last Saturday has been all but ignored by the bourgeois press. Over 30,000 activists demonstrating on the city of Strasbourg has been reduced to the activities of tens of Black Block supporters. Unfortunately it has also somewhat slipped through the lefty-media as well, (barring Socialist Worker). This is a shame as throughout the weekend there were clearly considerable steps forward to building international solidarity with other anti-capitalist/socialist organisations throughout Europe, but there were a lot of hard lessons learnt as well.

One of the particularly exciting events that I was not able to attend was the international rally held the NPA (New Anticapitalist Party/Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) on the the 3rd of April. While I’m sure everyone is currently in the know by now, the NPA is the new united left party in French that socialists throughout Europe have been dampening their underwear with in excitement. While there were whispers of the rally not having enough time for discussion everyone who was there seems to have found it impressive indeed, hopefully more coverage will soon be on its way.

Stop the War Coalition sent three coaches (two from London, one from Manchester) to Strasbourg on the 3rd of April, many of those going were young and some of them politicized from the recent wave of University occupations. Arriving there was incredibly difficult as effectively the entirety of Strasbourg’s outer roads were blockaded by police - which made getting a coach load of demonstrators to the peace camp fairly difficult to say the least.

The Peace Campsite was in many ways similar to Climate Camps in Britain of recent years, it was a central rallying point for all those taking part in the protests where food, information, and electricity were available and where you could attempt sleep to the pleasurable sounds of multiple surveillance helicopters circling the site 24 hours a day (often doing so particularly low and loudly at night) and black drone helicopters circling at night also. The key difference with Climate Camp was who was manning the blockades, in our case it was hardened Black Blockers. As we walked down the barricaded street leading up to the campsite for the first time a STWC organiser told us ‘not to be concerned with the looks of things as it was all a bit theatrical.’ But walking through thick fog, down a clearly residential, yet very deserted-looking and very ransacked road guarded by an army of anarchist-ninjas, it just looked to like they’d taken the fucking street and buried the residents in their patios.

On Saturday STWC and the NPA marched together toward the front of the demonstration often sharing the same chants together in each others languages :

Hell Yes We Can - Stop the War!

Oo Ah - Internationale Solidarité!

Soon the demonstration began to swell with numbers as we reached the outer parts of Strasbourg. As the surveillance helicopter followed us some of the anarchists engaged in bizarre and complex methods to remove CCTV cameras from there poles and at this moment at least we all felt pretty united.

The protest reached a bridge where for reasons unbeknownst to any of us the police had blockaded the way forward. Such a thing was expected, but much later along the route than this. Soon enough tear gas canisters were fired into the air. Although some were fired directly into the crowd at very high speeds (something which I’ve been told breaks human rights law) narrowly missing people’s heads and faces. Supposedly at least one activist took one to the head. Despite many activists experiencing the CS in STWC our block held together stoically and extraordinarily well, refusing to run in the face of the gas or sometimes to fall back at all. My first experience of CS was on this demonstration, the first round was something like having citrus jabbed in your eye, which is pretty bearable. But the second time felt like being kicked repeatedly in the lungs and breathing had suddenly been assassinated by a coup d'état of deep and painful coughing (solidarity to the faceless protestors who gave me water and eye droplets while I spluttered by way to the ground.)

Eventually the protest broke through the police lines and pushed up the bridge. There is some debate within the STWC as to why this happened, some believe it was the actions of the Black Block, e.g. setting up fire blockades and throwing projectiles at the police. But in a discussion later it was agreed by the majority that what the police didn’t want was a melee clash with far larger number of protesters than policemen, which is precisely why they kept firing tear gas from such a distance.

The demonstration continued, the Black Block celebrated by burning garden allotments, smashing a petrol station, a post office and bus stops - all ‘collateral damage’ I’m assured. The demonstration continued to a huge gravel plain where the demo became its largest with tens of thousands assembled representing the IFA anarchists, the Black Block, Maoists, NPA, PCF (French Communist Party), Kurdish independence supporters, the SWP, STWC, SEK (Greek Socialist Worker’s Party) and their respective STWC, Linkswende, as well as very solid peace/pacifist pressure groups and so on. From here began the rally and all speakers that spoke from the platform unilaterally condemned the role NATO has played throughout the world as well as the actions of the police on the demonstration. Andrew Murray delivered an excellent speech by being the only speaker to actually sound suitably pissed off about his topic.

The representatives of ‘Blockade NATO’ announced they had delayed the summit by one hour with civil disobedience which met huge cheers. Yet that same day Sky News weeped tragic-bile one moment on how they prevented Michelle Obama from visiting a cancer hospital at and at another time how the protesters have made no impact at all:

“Clive, it seems as if this has had no actual disruption to the summit and effectively NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER?”

“Well you’re right Jane, it does seem that despite all this interference there has been NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER. Back to you.”

The rally ended with Bianca Jagger. Someone who clearly has done herself considerably proud with her defense of human rights and solid opposition to Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Just before she began to speak we were informed that the dark clouds continually growing in the background (but being pretty much ignored) where in fact large buildings in massive flames, i.e. hotels and houses. At around this point continual rounds of tear gas were shot into the sky. While none of it reached the rally’s location it was considerably close and the nearby helicopter was circling extremely low. The fact that this somewhat distracted people from her speech made Ms Jagger become rather flippant, moaning like a school teacher: “I can tell you’re not listening..!” and eventually she threw a strop leaving the stage altogether. The selfish bastards.

The demonstration continued for many more hours in the blistering heat, but the police had totally blocked off the way forward with multiple vehicles on the bridge we were hoping to turn down. Instead we were lead onto an island by the demo organisers. Eventually after waiting a long time for the authorities to put out a fire so the demonstration could move on in the opposite direction from the bridge, clashes between the anarchists and the police begun once again and endless rounds of tear gas were fired into the sky. By now the demonstration had become so disorientated that it more or less collapsed, yet activists marched back to the camp site with their heads held high, still chanting and protesting, the IST’s block was out in full force and vigor which for many was a huge morale boost. Later that night there was a deep and detailed discussion with various comrades on the lessons of the demonstration, mostly focussing on the tactics of the Black Block, the state and how to fight repression by drawing in the masses and not isolating them with individual acts of extreme direct action.

On Friday and Sunday there was a rival anti-Nato peace conference which was good on left unity, with a broad turnout of different organisations, but when I was there it certainly suffered from a relatively low attendance. Some of the most valuable contributions I heard came from John Rees who said that he didn’t realise that the Hotel Ibis was one of the top ten imperial sites in the world, or that burning homes in working class areas of Strasbourg helps fight imperialism in anyway whatsoever. Further debate was had in a British caucus on the lessons and mistakes of the protest by the organisers, as well as improvements to be made for STWC’s actions also. The level of debate was strong and reflects a growing sense of democracy, accountability and internal challenging that is excellent to see alongside the movements of the left.

While the demonstration was entirely chaotically organised, heavily policed (there were more police in Strasbourg than there are troops being sent to Afghanistan on the back of the summit), misdirected by the poverty of politics of some protestors, ignored and attacked by much of the media, it won many key victories. It helped us further bridge international solidarity with our comrades across the various borders, it reminded the ruling class that their current projects of imperialism will be protested in huge numbers even when they police their summits to a ridiculous level, or hold them in cities with fairly small populations and even when they block the roads relentlessly (preventing an additional 7000 German comrades getting across the border).

On our way out of the campsite the police politely searched all of our belongings, asking us to empty everything we had into the street, confiscating Socialist Worker papers, flags, leaflets, books, clothing or anything remotely political. When questioned several times they said they had ‘a permit’ and it was ‘orders’. Clearly an odd few of them sensed a sort of guilt and awkwardness about this, yet little effort was made by them to do anything against their orders. Regardless if we can make the Gendarmerie feel unsure and awkward about the status quo and their rulers, then surely another world is possible.

ps: in related news, the Met are in trouble. And their case against supposed anticapitalist 'terrorists' in Plymouth has fallen to pieces.

There is simply no controversy about it. The Obama administration is using this crisis to transfer wealth and power to the already wealthy and powerful. Even Jeffrey Sachs can see it. This is no surprise. As I said before, the aim of leading capitalist states at the moment is to restore the neoliberal system intact, with a further concentration of power and wealth at the top. Neoliberalism has been an extraordinary success story for the rich, so far. The raw data demonstrates it: the top 0.1% of US income earners held 2% of national income (not wealth) in 1978, but this had risen to 6% by 2000. The ratio of wages to CEO salaries rose from 30:1 in 1970 to 500:1 in 2000, as the financialisation of the economy boosted (inflated) the value of ruthless CEOs capable of delivering high short-term profits. As for wealth distribution, check out my candy-coloured bar charts. The share of the top 0.5% of wealth owners rose to 31.4% by 1989. As for financial holdings, in 2007 it was estimated that the top 10% of Americans possessed 80% of all financial assets, while the bottom 90% held 73% of all debt.

The question is, can they fix it? Can it work this time? The commitment to the existing model means firefighting an horrendous financial crisis, which could be as bad as 1929/1930. Just consider the consequences of this breakdown for a moment. The credit system, at its most functional, temporarily repairs the disparities in production created by competition. If, in pursuit of profit share, a producer splurges on capital investment in a way that is dysfunctional for the overall economy, then the credit system can partially iron out that imbalance. It can ensure a quantitative balance between production and consumption, in the short run. It can be used to accelerate production and consumption simultaneously, directing investment toward structurally important areas of the economy etc. When profit rates are reduced, it can make up the shortfall by providing the means of investment, and when wages are down, it can stimulate demand.

For the capitalist class, it also operates as another means by which workers' wages are further modified and reduced, just like all rentier activity, through the payment of interest on mortgages and loans. The financialisation of the economy just meant that this logic would be intensified and extended to hitherto 'neglected' areas of society. Even better than this, if they can get their hands on our deferred wages through the privatization of pensions, benefits and social security, they can take a nibble off that as well. In the meantime, we are encouraged to believe that those deferred wages will magically expand because of the Rumplestiltkin-like value creation of the stock markets. Sadly, the one thing the credit system can't do is produce goods, or 'use values' - if it could, we wouldn't have to work. Still, people are conditioned to behave as if that the appropriation of their income is actually a form of added wealth - their debt equals stuff. The mortgage is a house, with a perpetually soaring price, which can be repeatedly borrowed against. Politically, for as long as this project is successful, it deepens the hold of neoliberal ideology among a layer of workers as well as in the middle class. Being indentured to interest-bearing capital also inculcated a kind of small-c conservatism, to the extent that a house cost more than six times the average salary, and thus a person had more to lose by engaging in resistance. Remaining in paid work is, for the mortgage-holder, at least a thirty-year commitment and the basis of building a family. Accepting pay cuts, being recruited to productivity drives, putting up with longer hours, tolerating abuse, and so on, becomes an essential part of staying alive. It can also contribute to large-C conservatism to the extent that tax cuts are experienced as a pay rise rather than part of a means of undermining public services (which no longer appear to function very well).

So, when that system breaks down, as it eventually must, the abnormally high profits, the artificially high growth rates, the booming consumer markets, the relative political stability in spite of polarised social conditions - all of this is in mortal peril. Profitability has already taken a nose-dive, investment is shrinking, house prices plummeting, unemployment rising at record levels and set to reach 3.2m in the UK by next year, and the viability of neoliberal capitalism is in doubt even at elite levels. So, to the previous question: can they fix it? We know what Obama's answer to questions of that kind is - but we also know that he plagiarised it from Bob the Builder, which means it can't be taken too seriously.

Realistically, the only way they could possibly restore even an attenuated neoliberalism would be to hammer the working classes, plunder public spending, and savagely repress wages. This would definitely do the trick. It would restore profitability to the system, and open up vast new avenues for exploitation and stock market capitalisation. The main difference between the two parties at the moment is not whether to do this, but how. The Tories intend to tear up existing public sector pay agreements (already so miserly as to have produced the highest levels of strike action since the early 1990s), cut public spending and hasten privatization (one of their rising stars has openly called for the privatization of the NHS). New Labour's plan is to keep the public sector working for now, allow manufacturing to continue to slump, sell off public assets piecemeal (parts of the Post Office, and the UK atomic energy agency are the latest on Mandelson's list), and then drastically slash public spending in a couple of years time. Either approach involves a confrontation with the organised working class of a kind that we have not seen since the 1980s. The left may be historically weak, and union organisation lower in density than in previous periods of crisis, but does the ruling class have the organisation and unity for a battle of that intensity? The kind that, for example, they had in 1979? It is unlikely. It feels as if we are in for a protracted period of crisis and struggle, in which, because neither side has decisive strength, subjective factors will have exaggerated importance. At the moment, the main form of resistance that is appearing in the UK is that of mostly unionised workers renegotiating the terms of their dismissal. Other forms of ideological radicalisation are evident, over Gaza for example. And the anticapitalist protests showed that young people are generalising about their own experiences of being laid off, subject to demeaning work for low pay, and being treated like shit at the benefits office. But the resistance that will have force will come from those who are as yet confronting 'economic' problems (as if there was a purely economic issue) such as pay cuts or redundancies. It is their latent social power that can turn protests of thousands being beaten in the streets into mass strikes and protests of millions. It's happening on the continent: it can happen here as well.

It has been said that neoliberalism is experiencing a prolonged death rattle. Perhaps it is. But there is little evidence of it in the G20's announced deal. And this makes sense, as the neoliberal settlement has boosted capitalist class power enormously: this is what is euphemistically referred to when commentators discuss 'rising inequality', since the concentration of money wealth represents nothing other than the accumulation of surplus value (stop me if I'm getting too technical). Why overhaul a system that has been so effective, if you can get it running again for another decade or so? Gordon Brown claims that "the old Washington consensus is over". What the $1 trillion stimulus amounts to, in fact, is another component of the effort to save the Washington consensus, this time by making global growth dependent upon massive borrowing from the IMF (with the usual extortionate conditions attached thereto). As Graham Turner writes, when the IMF was sent in to the collapsing south-east Asian economies in the late 1990s, it imposed harsh fiscal restrictions that resulted in a deeper recession. The proposed regulations do contain some minimum necessary measures, but do not substantially break from the 'light touch' approach of the past thirty years. Take the tax havens. Brown says there is to be an 'end to tax havens' that don't share information. Now, that is already to concede that the rich can go on hoarding their wealth, avoiding taxes, and depriving states of billions in revenue. But in fact, there is to be no 'end': the proposition is simply to 'name and shame' the havens that don't share information. I'm sure they're terrified. They'll be raking in the billions but they will look, and feel, terrible. In toto, the financial system will emerge much as it was before.

As Larry Elliott points out, the $1 trillion stimulus, isn't even a $1 trillion stimulus. Not all of the money will be spent. In its best light, it might temporarily boost world demand, but it is highly unlikely to produce anything like that global 4% growth envisaged by the communique. The G20's growth claims are based on the IMF's consistently optimistic projections. While global growth is going to contract by 1.7% this year according to the World Bank's estimate, the first decline in world output since WWII, the IMF actually foresees a rise of 0.6%. The business press is anxious to talk up the prospect of a speedy recovery in the financial markets, in world demand (thus in trade volume) and in overall GDP growth. There have been numerous bear market rallies on the stock exchanges, and each time there has been a chorus of Polyannas anxious to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or the corner turned, or whatever equivalent metaphor is ready to hand. The most comical of these was a Financial Times video commentary on Timothy Geithner's ridiculous 'put' scheme (essentially another massive handover of public wealth to the banks), which strained desperately to be optimistic but concluded that "if the plan works, the crisis may be over, but if it doesn't, it isn't". The predictive power of bourgeois economics! Recently, the slight improvement in the US housing market after months of calamitous decline has been taken as an omen that 'the worst is over'. The ruling class needs to believe in that 'v-shaped' recession, because otherwise the basic structures of the neoliberal system that they are struggling to retain intact will have to be more than modified.

Lookit: the US government has been so determined to rescue finance capital and maintain its royal prerogative over fiscal policy that they have blown about $11.6 trillion on the banks, or just over 80% of total GDP in 2008. All of that will be paid for by the 'fiscal hawks' reaching into medicare, social security and so on. Obama's budget planners are reportedly giving serious consideration to a GOP plan to reduce social security entitlement. Indeed, the recession is being taken as an excuse to eviscerate the system. The US government have also signalled that they are prepared to let the car industry go under, thus further eroding the manufacturing base, and taking down one of the few remaining strongholds of organised labour in the process. And the dominant thinking on both sides of the Atlantic appears to be that the sooner this stimulus can be withdrawn, and fiscal austerity introduced, the better. None of this looks like a break with neoliberalism: quite the contrary. If there was to be a break with neoliberalism in the US, there would surely be a well-funded insfrastructural development programme, a boost to local state treasuries to fund vital services, the full nationalisation of most of the banking system and its subordination to public need, debt relief, house-building, interest-free loans, etc etc. Just for a start. But there is none of this, and nothing to restore the huge loss of wealth experienced by the working class, and the African American working class in particular, bar a paltry tax cut. The size of the much-vaunted "public works" programme, supposedly intended to create 2.5 million jobs and hailed as the biggest since the 'new deal', was $80.9 billion, or about 0.6% of total GDP - by comparison the Public Works Administration was funded with about 5.9% of GDP in 1933. The so-called stimulus package mostly consisted of tax cuts for those who didn't really need them.

So, wherein lies the rumoured crisis of neoliberalism? Despite Gordon Brown's formal renunciation of its tenets, no alternative vision has emerged among the ruling classes - and the working class movement is not as yet organised and militant enough to impose its own solutions. If the magnificent movements taking place in Greece, Italy, France, Ireland and Iceland don't spread; if the factory occupations in the UK don't spark off a wave of working class revolt; if the American working class doesn't explode in apocalyptic fury, then there is absolutely nothing to say that a new Frankenstein version of neoliberalism, with more Keynesian nuts and bolts, will not become the new dominant orthodoxy. I'm not expressing pessimism here, by the way. I think a renewed socialist ideology can emerge in the near future. In the meantime, however, we have to expect a certain lack of coherence. One of the most redundant, and condescending, complaints about the G20 protests was that "they don't know what they want". Of course there is not yet unity around a way forward, or what outcome should be obtained. There has been plenty of intellectual labour dedicated to exploring possible post-capitalist scenarios, but these remain dry, academic exercises in the absence of a movement capable of realising them. The best ideas, and the best perspectives about the means to get there will emerge precisely in the context of struggles over day-to-day issues.

*From Gotta Get up and Go To Work [.ram] by the California Ramblers.