Kovel

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Fri Jan 21 11:55:30 PST 2000


Comparisons regarding who's got a bigger activist pedigree, when mixed with arguments about politics or ideas, are not constructive.

I am a little surprised by the treatment of "facts" by our two anarchist brethren. Joe Stalin might be embarassed, or proud. I couldn't say. To wit:

"The facts are:

Mike Dolan colluded with Seattle authorities in the mass arrests of peaceful anti-WTO demonstrators . . . "

[mbs] Exactly what constituted collusion in this case? That's not a rhetorical question, nor are those that follow. I'd like to know.

" . . . and then acquiesced in their illegal detention . . . "

[mbs] what should/could he have done to avoid 'acquiescing'? Throttle the Chief of Police? I sat on my ass while the Indonesian army slaughtered Timorese. Did I "acquiesce"?

" . . . (wouldn't want to embarrass Clinton, now, would we?) The Mayor of Seattle has verified this. (This, in addition to carrying out diversions at the WTO protests, . . . "

[mbs] What "diversions" exactly?

" consistently condemning the street warriors to the press, while, at the same time, taking a lot of "I did this" credit for the entire media attention the street protests garnered.)"

[mbs] This bit does not inspire confidence in the rest of the remarks. These seem at worst political opportunism, mixed with some egotism. Not exactly a rare commodity in any politics.

" . . . And, there is ample footage of Medea Benjamin and her cohorts assaulting black Seattle youth . . . "

[mbs] Really? Assaulting how, exactly? Pushing away? Punching out? Stomping? Cutting their hearts out? Where is this footage?

Then there's Bro. Chucky, who responds to a question why is Dolan "anti-labor" with:

"Several of the D.C. Wobblies attended the National Press Club press conference back in December which featured Hoffa and a variety of other labor and environmental leaders. Dolan was there, in the wings, and he scowled at us the whole time. Mind you, it was just 3 of us, wearing a few Wobbly things. If anything, maybe he was worried because there were some folks in the room who were younger than 30. . . . "

[mbs] Oh Bubby! But "anti-labor"?

"Anyway, he ran into our branch secretary the next day on the street and asked why we thought we had a right to attend that press conference. Our IWW guy responded, by asking Dolan how he got off acting like the leader of the anti-WTO actions, when nobody in Seattle had ever heard of him."

[mbs] So Anti-Wobbly = Anti-labor?

With this sort of regard for precision, you shall not be all.

mbs



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