> ravi wrote:
>
>> I don't give you shit, but I still find your general rant against
>> the sept 24 rally (generalizing from a criticism of ANSWER)
>> ill-reasoned, and your suggesting "Seattle" as an alternative
>> pretty unsubstantiated.
>
> Ah, a stale thread.
>
> I think my criticism of the September 24th rallies was right on
> target, as those events fade quickly from even the participant's
> memories. Six months from now, people will be unable to recall even
> the date of those protests. Seattle, on the other hand, is memorable
> and historic. It had far-reaching consequences way beyond the sum
> total of all ANSWER protests.
>
> This should be pretty obvious.
>
No... it isn't... what people talk about years later, and what they accomplish because of those events, can be two very different things. I mean... Jerry Rubin became a STOCKBROKER fer crissake! (Yeah Doug, imho, that's a bad thing).
People remember the Pomp... The Circumstance, and "it was a BIG TIME", but it was never ONE BIG TIME. As Ravi suspects, sectarianism is part and parcel of social movements (until, as Marcuse insinuated, fubar "politics" is overthrown) and is best left to the "professionals", while the rest of us get on with making the revolution, and not getting busy talking about how the other person... group... organization, isn't. Boring, alienating, and unconstructive.
[Not necessarily in that order]
Leigh www.leighm.net
The roots of repression are, and remain real roots; consequently, their eradication remains a real and rational job. What is to be abolished is not the reality principal, not everything, but such particular things as business, *politics*, exploitation, poverty.
To forget this is to mystify the possibilities of liberation." --Herbert Marcuse
Leigh Meyers leighcmeyers at yahoo.com