Chris Clarke wrote:
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>
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> I disagree that that's the only possible solution, though it is a good one.
> I've had a fair amount of luck persuading such brickthrowers of their
> counterproductivity by way of personal discussion away from the barricades.
> No one likes to be seen as a coward, and conveying just how the mass of
> activists see those who toss bricks from the back of the crowds, leaving the
> Mothers Against Whatever on the front lines to walk on the broken glass and
> eat billy clubs, is, I've found, an effective thought-provoker. And the half
> dozen or so people I've talked to aren't much compared to the mass, but who
> knows how few we might have to persuade to deprive those mobs of critical
> mass?
I agree totally with this -- and it operates at a different level rather than contradicts my point you are responding to. At the one-to-one level on which you are focusing (and that one-to-one level is the heart of all mass struggle) you can, among other things, pick and choose the persons you speak to. You say, "the half dozen or so people I've talked to aren't much compared to the mass," but that is not true: the mass itself is made up of many such "half dozens."
>
> Given time, a few in the Black Blocs will become long-term, committed,
> effective radical activists who've rejected the cartoon cult bombthrower
> image.
I agree here too. I would only add that _most_ of their followers or supporters will desert that "cartoon cult bombthrower" cult to align themselves with militant but (for lack of a better quick term) sensible struggles. And the kind of one-to-one persuasion you speak of here is half of that process (the other half of course being creating the "sensible" struggle to begin with).
(The majority of their peers will likely go to work with Dad in a few
> years.) I was one of the brickthrowers twenty-five years ago: I'm glad a
> couple of old folks in their early thirties sat me down for a lesson in
> history, rather than consigning me to Enemy Of The People status.
I've tried in a couple off-list discussions to sway in that direction some posters (not on this list) who had been drawn towards "black block cult" simply because of its apparent militancy but who were/are/(hope)will be committed to a more long-range mass struggle.
Carrol
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> --
> Chris Clarke | Editor, Faultline
> http://www.faultline.org | California's Environmental Magazine