Talk:Peoples' Global Action

Re: hallmarks the text of PGA hallmarks is a direct citation. it is not appropriate to change their text because of NPOV concerns, because the hallmarks reflect a specific political perspective which in itself is *not* supposed to be NPOV. imagine someone changing the text of a citation from the US constitution to incorporate NPOV concerns - it clearly makes no sense. To avoid confusion, the text is now in quotation marks.

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That was, in fact, the confusion. To me it looked like someone was inserting personal political beliefs into an article. It was not clear as a direct quotation. I'm still changing it, though.  ;-) --MTR (严加华) 23:04 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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I think most of what appears in the criticism section needs to appear not here, but in the article on the [anti-glbalization] movement. PGA is not 'responsible' in any way for events in mobilisations - the groups who call them and participate in them are. In addition, there are some factual concerns:

• A frequent criticism of the euphemistically-termed "decentralised mobilisations" is that they are, in fact, simple riots.

Riots are doubtless an element of some mobilisations, but they are by no means the only extant feature. Saying that the website shows 'pictures' of peaceful protest is to imply that it is lying. Most of the 'rioting' is directed, moreover, not against property but against police repression of demonstrations.

Having been in two places where PGA-inspired riots occurred, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call "bullshit" here. Once a riot starts, the violence quickly becomes unfocused. Mob mentality and collective rage tends to spread and diffuse as individuals with grudges other than the main cause use the opportunity of (by them) presumed anonymity to lash out at extra things. That's why riots are considered counter-productive to the cause by people who support the central cause of any protest. --MTR (严加华) 17:25, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

• The smashed windows, overturned cars and burned shops tend to belong to small business owners and private citizens, not to government officials and mulinational executives.

This is simply untrue. The overwhelming majority of property that is attacked belongs to multinational corporations such as banks, oil companies and chain stores.

Again I call "bullshit". In Seattle I saw independent (i.e. not Starbucks!) coffee shops that had their windows smashed and furniture trashed. I saw a klunky old station wagon that was practically obliterated. Which multinational corporation drove around a rusting station wagon from the '70s? Similar things can be trivially found left, right and centre whenever the PGA member organisations go to war. And, again, even those who support the anti-globalisation cause of the PGA member organisations find this counter-productive. --MTR (严加华) 17:25, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

• The PGA claims to speak on behalf of "the People", but, it is argued, many groups with highly conflicting goals all claim to speak on behalf of "the People". Who is right?

This is again untrue. PGA does not claim to speak on behalf of anybody, and only movements that are invloved with it speak on behalf of themselves. Besides, this is a general criticism of every social movement!

When you have to resort to childish semantics, it means you're losing the argument. The PGA is identified pretty much strictly by its member groups. If its member groups claim to speak for "the People" then pretty much by definition so does the PGA. Further, what does the "P" in PGA stand for again? Oh....

As for "general criticism of every social movement" -- well, yeah. It is. Because most social movements do not in any way, shape nor form represent the people they claim to represent. It's just useful rhetoric to claim that you do. The Moral Majority also claims to speak for "the People". Do they? The People's Republic of China claims to do what it does for the sake of "the People". Does it? Personally I find the PGA's claim (or, if you want to be an anal retentive twit, "the PGA's member organisations' claim" that they speak for "the People" to be laughable and a good sign that they can be safely ignored. --MTR (严加华) 17:25, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I could just pitch into the debate here, but somehow I don't think it would help, and I don't think we would ever end up agreeing. The question we have to concern ourselves with is not 'who's right?' but 'how should we present our disagreements in the article?'. Let's get down to working on that. At the moment the article is far from 'NPOV'.

ChickenMerengo 20:42, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

link to executive intelligence review article

Perhaps it would be good to change the text of the link to the executive intelligence review article to identify its source and the connections to LaRouche that the organization has and then add a hyperlink next to it to the LaRouche entry in this encyclopedia?

PGA Riots?

PGA calls for actions and demonstrations, but doesn't stipulate what these actions consists of. It is a facilitative network, and constituent groups and individuals can do what they like on the group or in situ. The criticism of PGA for 'riots' is stupid and should be removed.