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1st Birthday Manifesto: Gloves Off calls for a global year of economic and political education NYC, FEBRUARY 15, 2004  Gloves Off launched its first page out onto the internet on February 15, 2003, the same day that millions of people all over the world came out into the streets to protest the impending war on Iraq. This global demonstration of opposition to US imperial designs—a "second superpower," if you will— was a popular “preemptive strike” against the Bush and Blair administrations in the streets and squares of cities around the world, before the act of war was actually perpetrated, and with a display of grassroots “shock and awe" that emboldened governments sitting on the Security Council to reject the call to support Washington’s drive for war. After February 15th, one lie the Bush administration could not get away with was that it was conducting a war in the name of the world’s people. In fact, F15 will likely be remembered as the first day in decades that a widespread movement of international solidarity could show unity in action resulting from autonomous grassroots mobilization. Gloves Off is an expression of the new energy that erutpted on that historic day. The members of Gloves Off were in the streets and working behind the scenes on February 15th to make that movement stronger, deeper, and more consciously anti-capitalist in its intentions. As we celebrate our first birthday, looking back on the last year, Gloves Off condemns the continued war and occupation of Iraq, the deepening of global poverty and inequality, and the intensified repression inside and outside the US that we see as three of the most salient characteristics of the past year. To help us curse, celebrate, analyze, and stimulate debate, we’ve expanded the editorial collective and plan to bring you the first issue of our new edition on the Global Day of Action called for on March 20, 2004. So we write to you now as the new editorial collective of Gloves Off. Gloves Off opposes the new Janus face of global capitalism: both the neoliberal outlook that informs the current project of empire building, on the one side, and the resurgent militarism that propels neoconservative ideology and the Bush administration, on the other. The hand that wields the cleaver hacking away at the Iraqi infrastructure and passing the parts to corporate bidders is the same hand that is feeding deficits, starving social programs, and disemboweling civil liberties at home. Gloves Off urges us all to examine the long-term political strategies the neo-cons have devised to ensure American domination of the globe as put forward in documents such as those produced by The Project for a New American Century. On May 1st 2003, George Bush “piloted” a jet onto the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and announced an end to major hostilities beneath a massive banner that read “Mission Accomplished!” At the time the mainstream media portrayed Bush’s moment as one of triumph. Today, the administration reeks of scandal and is in retreat. An administration that once cleverly used crisis as an instrument of policymaking to keep its critics off-balance is now experiencing a legitimation crisis of its own. In retrospect, Bush’s May Day version of triumph of the will may prove to mark the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency. However, Gloves Off cautions the anti-war movement against the debilitating logic of “anyone but Bush.” While we agree that the removal of the present administration is an eminently worthy goal, we need to LOOK, THINK and ORGANIZE beyond November 5th. A Democratic Party president will not challenge the basic premises of American foreign policy any more than he—and sadly it will be a “he” in 2004—will question or challenge the inequalities generated by capitalism itself. Gloves Off opposes the imperialism of the Bush administration. The unilateralist turn in US policy that they have attempted to impose on the world’s people poses the threat of endless war in the name of the war on terrorism and threatens the undoing of the constitution at home. Gloves Off opposes these imperialist adventures abroad and the repressive domestic policies reflecting the increasingly neo-fascist character of the Bush Administration. In light of this Gloves Off applauds the growing grassroots movement against the Patriot Act that now includes some 255 communities as well as three statewide resolutions. The struggle against the Patriot Act inside the US is in solidarity with people’s struggles for self-determination and against the rule of the Empire outside the US. Gloves Off opposes Washington Consensus-style policies of structural adjustment (privatization, trade liberalization & financial deregulation) whether they are imposed through multilateral institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank as in Argentina, or whether they are imposed unilaterally through the barrel of a gun, as in Iraq. MISSION | 2004 ISSUE But more emphatically, Gloves Off calls for a global year of economic and political education. We urge global justice and anti-war activists to move beyond activism as an end in itself and organize to educate the movement in the tools, theories and history of political economy. Learn how capitalism works. Study its long-term development. Start with the basics. Read [or re-read] Marx's Capital, for starters and discover how Marx's analysis of capitalism continues to be relevant today, as it exposes the myths propagated by mainstream economics. DISCUSS, DEBATE, and EDUCATE others. The intellectual and critical empowerment of each of us individually lays the foundation for the liberation of all. RECOMMENDED LINKS (We will add more as we discover them): International [Act Now to Stop War & End Racism] ANSWER
United For Peace and Justice [UFPJ]
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