Defacing Websites, "Stealing" Free Papers

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Mar 28 19:55:36 PST 2001


Dennis P. says:


>And to compare me to Medea Benjamin was a bit much, especially
>given that I consider myself an anarchist.

Are you an anarchist? I've been completely unaware of _that_. :-)


>This is the third post in which I said ad dollars DO NOT equal free speech.
>I said that the Brown paper has a right to take money from whoever they want
>and print or not print whatever they want, just as leftwing papers do. If
>the Brown paper had rejected Horowitz's ad, I would not criticize them. It
>would not be censorship. But they accepted it, as is their right. You don't
>like it? Quit school, get a working-class job and help to overthrow
>capitalism. Until then, spare me your paper darts from the academy.

Doesn't the above sound awfully like, "if you don't like America & free enterprise, go to Soviet Russia!"


>Break all the windows and steal all the newspapers you wish, Yoshie. So far
>as I can see, this does nothing save to alienate the majority of workers who
>don't buy into this form of grandstanding. If there was something immediate
>at stake, like resisting violent strikebreakers for instance, then yes, I
>think workers would have no trouble taking aggressive action, and I would
>support them. But to throw a brick through a Nike window or steal a bundle
>of racist newspapers simply because it makes a "statement" in a rather
>divided atmosphere is acting out and little more, and usually plays into the
>hands of those who hold real power.

Resisting violent scabs with force may likewise alienate the majority of today's workers. In fact, that's very likely. Anarchists used to be fond of people like Henry David Thoreau who were not afraid of the "majority opinions." What happened?

Yoshie



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list