> Let us rehearse the names of some of these
> movements: Shining path, FARC, PLO, IRA, ANC,
> PAC..... To what extent does this work of armed
> propaganda, which sacrifices the lives of workers,
> peasants, civilians, etc. differ qualitatively and
> quantitatively from that of the BB et al? (genuine
> question)
What I had in mind was strictly property damage, like the Starbucks in Seattle. For an example of the BB/Labor comparison: sadly I can't remember his name (anybody?), but his photographs of the Detroit newspaper strike appeared in Baffler #9, - I think, since that's the labor issue - and I heard him speak in San Francisco in '97 where he was quite adamant in stressing that the *only* way the strikers felt they could get proper notice was through property damage (overturning cars, etc.).
So qualitatively and quantitatively these differ in scale and context. The Detroit strike had a particular objective - apart from the fact that "an injury to one is an injury to all," as such it was unrelated to a broader political movement, so its violence was focused on definite ends rather than stirring things up for ideological reasons. That is, its violence didn't erupt in lieu of organization, it was organized "direct action," a tactic aimed at definite ends. Could it be that larger movements held together by more ideological interests are prone to "armed propaganda" and the kind of violence you note, because of a lack of organization around definite material ends, *along with any conceivable systemic means of achieving them* (of course the PLO or IRA have definite material ends in mind, but see know systemic means of achieving them)? I'm not sure where this leaves the Black Bloc, which seems more along the lines of this second kind of movement, since I'm not convinced they're really as violent as the examples you cite.
> Next question: to what extent is it not true that
> Che, Mao and Ho were living out their own fantasies
> and that the precise nature of these fantasies and
> their outcomes alienated huge numbers of people from
> the left (besides recruiting many others who shared
> the fantasy?)
That makes sense to me.
Alec
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