> 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).
> 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.
I can see why activists have so much hostility towards left academics. You guys treat us like some kind of lab specimens. I got this feeling when I appeared at that Marxist Literary Group panel with Doug a while back. I got the feeling that nobody was really interested in what I had to say as an organizer in the anti-globalization movement.
Carrol, you can demonstrate your ignorance and arrogance on this matter if you want to. You are just fuckign wrong when you suggest that people who do the black bloc are simply there to get their ya yas. There is alot of strategy and organizing that goes into black blocs, done by people with many years experience doing serious "long-range mass struggle." Black blocs are done on a whim and the tactics used during black blocs aren't just made up as we go along. Those of us who organize balck blocs have short term and long range goals in mind; we adjust our strategy accordingly, like we did last year after Genoa (we switched focus from planning street protests to planning an occupation of a closed-down public hospital).
There is no "cult" or "bomb-throwing" associated with the black bloc. It is a tactic used by anarchists and anti-authoritarians at major protests.
http://www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html
Chuck0
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)