This is what one autonomist wrote (forwarded from a discussion on aut-op-sy) in response to a J20 pamphlet written by another list subscriber:
" Certainly, I'm all for people slowing down at
> work and trying to stiff the boss, but folks hardly have to be informed of
> the need to do that since they already do it everyday, in one way or
> another.
> It seems to me what needs to instead be brought out is the significance of
> what they are already doing, since most probably don't realize the huge
> political and indeed philosophical implications of their seemingly
> "simple" everyday acts. That would in turn become a bridge for saying
> why involvement in some of the "bigger" (i.e., more publicly recognized)
> "political" issues you mention flows from what they are already
> encountering in their experience. "
This ties up with my and my friends' experience - people are often not conscious of the "meaning" of their acts. They feel isolated, like they can't talk about certain stresses and problems. This is where a public critique might open up possibilities. One big difference between the autonomist approach and that of many other groups (not just Leninists, but also as far as I can tell Platformist anarchists like the WSF) is that while I'd entirely recognise the need to link up disparate 'Fuck You!'s, I don't see this linking as happening through a centralisation of energies under the auspices of some organisation or pre-cooked political ideology, but rather I see the concept of a 'circulation' of struggle/solidarity as central.
My experience is that the attempt to 'organize' struggles under the banner of a central organisation tends to involve a process of translating struggles from the language of those involved into some 'political' language, thereby usually alienating the majority of the exploited. The first part of looking for a big Fuck You! is understanding and acknowledging the little fuck you!s that are constantly going on in our society.
Maybe Harry Cleaver's debate with the Australian DSP will clarify things:
and for an excellent attempt to get to grips with the little fuck you!s of US life, see:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/fragile_prosperity.htm
Oh well... I guess that's it for today. I'll sign off and look forward to selective quotation, and general dismissal of my post. Let me just say that I think it is better to be autonomist than to be cynical and despondent.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844 OpenPGP: 1024D/0517502B : DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF 9295 6A26 6A92 0517 502B