Seth
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeffrey St. Clair [SMTP:sitka at home.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 5:40 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Groundhog's Day
>
> My point was twofold: a.) that there were many writers, enviro, biotech,
> human
> rights and labor organizers,and experienced activists out on the
> barricades, being
> maced, being pepper sprayed, being shot at at point-blank-range while they
> were
> locked down, who know these issues intimately, and who have thought about
> them
> deeply; and b.) the people on the streets don't have power to broker
> deals, the
> "elites" do and they have done so in the past and they will do so in the
> future--which is how they remain where they are. I have interviewed
> organizers of
> the rally/parade who were sent a memo from their clique of funders during
> the
> weeks before Seattle. In sum, the memo said: soften your message. Money
> talks,
> especially in the land of the ngos. But fortunately those foundations,
> incestuously tied to the DNC, weren't bankrolling the
> street-fighters.--jsc
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Jeffrey St. Clair wrote:
> >
> > >This is fairly patronizing stuff, particularly the part which
> > >suggests that the
> > >people on the streets couldn't figure out why they wanted to be there
> on their
> > >own, without having digested the blizzard of pre-WTO prose poured
> > >out by the elite
> > >commentators.
> >
> > By the way, this relates to the conversation we've never had about
> > the virtues of the "grassroots." There's a tendency among validators
> > of the grassroots to turn conventional discourse on its head -
> > instead of the elite commentators being the subjects presumed to
> > know, the rank and file becomes that. Life isn't so simple. Fear of
> > being patronizing shouldn't stop one from admitting that the folks on
> > the street don't always know as much as we'd like them too.
> > Otherwise, why be a journalist/writer at all? Presumably we have
> > something to contribute from all that time we spend researching and
> > thinking about things. That isn't to say we should deliver
> > pronunciamenti from on high, but we shouldn't get carried away with
> > false modesty either.
> >
> > Doug