[lbo-talk] Rhizomatic?

[Chuck Grimes]

i
f the rhizomatic is effective because power is arborescent, how is it
still effective if power and capital are also rhizomatic?  Makes the
"snake-oil" thesis seem more convincing. -s

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I can't defend either use, and don't really have much interest in
doing that. 

On the other hand you can see the original meaning and contrast in
Iraq. I imagine the US Military and Iraq government as
arborescent, or top-down, while the variety of resistance forces are
rhizomatic, underground horizontally spread out and interconnected
networks. Killing off various centers in this underground will have
some effect but such a strategy can not succeed in wiping out the
whole undergrowth. It will just budd new sprouts and reconnect in
different pathways.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in and of itself that makes such an
underground movement progressive---since in this case it
isn't. Somewhere down the way, the Iraqis will have to get rid of
both.

 
CG