Second, you anarchists have got to stop using the word "bourgeois" as a synonym for "those intellectuals we don't like" or "those non-anarchists who like effective organization" or "those uncool people who'd rather have a social revolution than a street party." Hell, bourgeois isn't even a synonym for the dreaded "rich people." So please get your terminology right.
Besides, "bourgeois" isn't an insult, except to the more infantile sectors of the left community. The bourgeoisie have written some pretty damn good novels and plays, made some good sculptures and paintings, and composed some decent music. I also think constitutional democracy has served a nifty purpose over the years.
So tell me Gordon, what are the street parties doing to *really* topple capitalism? They can call attention to an issue, but to be effective, you need to follow it up with effective long-term organization. The Nader campaign can serve as an organizational center for that.
------Original Message------ From: Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Sent: June 27, 2000 1:33:45 PM GMT Subject: Re: Nader
> >Neither. Voting implies you accept parliamentary "democracy".
> >Decreasing the number of people that participate in our "democratic"
> >system will help expose it for the sham it is.
Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU>
> And then we can replace it with the absolute dictatorship of the
> central committee!!
Alex LoCascio:
> Or the unaccountable, interminable snooze-ocracy of the consensus-based
> affinity group model. Either way, the prospects for humanity are rather
> dim.
We already have the dictatorship of the central committee, Brad. I think you're projecting.
As for the snooze quotient of the consensus-based affinity group model, I thought the complaint was that it was all too exciting -- the affinity groupers so far having refused to come to the bourgeois appointed to oversee them (see Naomi Klein's article) and instead gone deliquently about the streets looking funny and making trouble and loud noises. Y'all should synchronize your critiques, after finding a few facts to salt them with.
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