[lbo-talk] Stop Flogging the Dead Donkey and Own the Power of a Spoiler

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Jan 14 10:30:40 PST 2005



>[lbo-talk] Stop Flogging the Dead Donkey and Own the Power of a Spoiler
>Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
>Fri Jan 14 06:59:46 PST 2005
>
>Chuck0 wrote:
>
>>Isn't it kind of amazing that after all the rhetoric about Bush and
>>Co. being evil, not one Democratic or progressive leader issued a
>>call to take to the streets after Bush won?
>
>With what message should people take to the streets? The election
>was a fraud? Elections in general are a fraud? There was some funny
>stuff in Ohio, but Bush really won this time. Do you want to protest
>the American electorate? Or is it just fun to take to the streets,
>and who needs a message?
>
>By the way, I just heard that busses from NY to DC for the inaugural
>protest have been cancelled for lack of interest.
>
>Doug

It wasn't Chuck0 but you, Tariq Ali, and other utopian AnybodyButBush intellectuals who made a promise that they would promote voting for John Kerry until November 3rd and then would organize huge protests at the inauguration of the next POTUS. For instance, you wrote that "He [Tariq Ali] also said in a part of the interview I didn't transcribe that should Kerry win, his inauguration should be the occasion for the largest antiwar demo in U.S. history. I agree with that as well" (<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-October/024586.html>). Therefore, you have a bigger political responsibility to make the counter-inaugural happen than Chuck0 does, since that's what you advocated.

I didn't think that we could turn on and off protests just like that, like flipping an electrical switch, and neither did Chuck0. One of the reasons for opposing ABB politics was that it would demobilize activists and dissolve independent social movements. And, indeed, it has to a large degree. You have no business putting down people who are trying to remobilize under difficult circumstances that you helped to create. -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>



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