--------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message includes replies to: Wojtek Sokolowski, Doug Henwood, Wojtek Sokolowski, Nathan Newman ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Messages:
* Re: Kos on Marches
* Re: Responses to various threads
* Re: Kos on Marches
* Re: losers [ was: Lyndie England
* Re: Kos on Marches
=== Message 1: Re: [lbo-talk] Kos on Marches =========================
At around 30/9/05 5:22 pm, Nathan Newman wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Chuck0 wrote:
>
>>Contrast the political accomplishments of the anti-globalization movement
>
> -And these are...?
>
> Hmm...let's see
>
> ** Wrecking the start of the Seattle round of global WTO negotiations.
>
> ** Putting the scumsucking actions of the pharaceutical industry up to the
> light and helping force them to negotiate lower prices for the third world.
>
> ** Putting debt relief on the international agenda culminating in the past
> month or so agreements on debt cancellations.
>
> ** Building new solidarity between environmentalists, labor unions and
> community groups in the US and around the world.
>
you guys seem to be shifting the ground constantly in this debate. chuck0's first reference was not to anti-glob but to "seattle". i am yet to see a real response on what "seattle" achieved that is of great significance.
now, that has been expanded to anti-globalisation. ok, but what is the anti-globalisation movement?
* isn't it driven a lot by activities and activists in "third-world" countries?
* india, due to its laxer IP/patent laws, was a place where local pharma could produce and sell drugs at very low costs (e.g: india's $1/dose AIDS drugs). IIRC, that actually changed for the worse recently, when india bowed to western pressure and agreed to start recognizing such patents.
* what amount of overlap exists between the anti-glob and sept24 movements? where does bono fit? is he part of the "seattle" crowd? or the sep24 crowd?
* are you assuming that the sep24 organizers, in their three days of events, did not work towards further grassroots organizing, solidarity issues, etc? how about environmentalists and labour groups that *were* at sep24?
* regarding environmentalism: where do sierra club, greenpeace, etc fit? how about overlap in membership (i was a sep24 marcher and am a member of greenpeace)?
=== Message 2: Re: [lbo-talk] Responses to va ========================
At around 5/10/05 10:32 am, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> Ravi opined:
> <<< if like wojtek you believe in retributivism (if that's the right term),
> by which i understand some form of theory of revenge, then yes, punishing
> lindy england becomes a high priority. i do not see much value in revenge
> and tend to place a lower priority on england, i would argue, from a
> utilitarian point of view: getting the larger culprits contributes a lot
> more to prevention. >>>
>
> WS:
> That is a particularly vicious and misleading caricature of retributivism.
>
well then, i withdraw it. i should have been more expressive in my post, than just nothing "by which i understand".
> Perhaps some vulgar popular views may use the term to denote revenge. But
> philosophically, retributivism is a position that sanction - or punishment -
> is a necessary element of law, for without it law would not have any
> gravitas.
i am not sure that mentioning 'gravitas' avoids the danger of circularity in the text above, but as noted below, i do not want to veer off into a "retributivism vs utilitarianism" debate.
i unfortunately have neither the time nor the eloquence to defend utilitarianism. suffice to note that if my misunderstanding of retributivism is a vicious and misleading caricature, i wonder what can be said about the [much bandied about] claim that utilitarianism compels condoning genocide, exxon, etc.
but to return to the topic on hand: ignore then my last bit on retributivism. the rest of my argument on the lyndie england business is mostly independent of that text.
=== Message 3: Re: [lbo-talk] Kos on Marches =========================
At around 30/9/05 4:25 pm, Nathan Newman wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
> -I'm confused. Several hundred posters to a blog are a greater social
> -force than over a hundred thousand people gathered in the nation's
> -capital in a demonstration that received sympathetic coverage in all
> -the major media?
>
> No, Doug-- nearly a MILLION visitors a day, hundreds of thousands of dollars
> raised for antiwar candidates, and a range of organizing on local antiwar
> initiatives-- that's what I mean by serious organizing force. Antiwar
> candidate and Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett, who is now looking to run for
> Senator in Ohio, raised $400,000 from online support, much of it generated
> off of Kos, and the fact that Hackett came within a few votes of knocking
> out a pro-war GOPer in a heavily Republican district not only got
> "sympathetic coverage" in the media but actually scared the hell out of a
> lot of politicians who fear losing election next year because of that
> campaign.
>
* million visits != million visitors, yes? i have dailykos in three RSS readers and 2 web aggregators. that's five visits every 30 minutes. and i actually read kos only rarely, once i get past c&l, thinkprogress, rawstory and BBC.
* million visits a day does not of course mean million unique visits across days.
* i couldnt find anything on the kos site for hackett fundraising totals (there is a "hekebolos diary" that talks about what seems to be a few 10s of thousands). according to actblue, the kos community raised a total of ~ $500,000 for a whole bunch of democrats. can you provide more detail on why think much of hackett's fundraising came from kos?
* moveon.org has what, a few 100,000 signed up members? they have raised how much money? perhaps in the millions now? they are on the left end of the spectrum. but i am not sure they should be the only game in town.
* dean's internet fundraising and reach out brought in 100s of thousands of people and dollars too. (see below on the relevance of this point: plurality of methods).
* hackett's run and his strong showing surely has to be attributed primarily to the facts that (a) bush is unpopular and so is the iraq war, (b) public sentiment has turned against the war, (c) hackett served, so he is somewhat immune to the use of the patriotism card, (d) IIRC, a significant number of ohio soldiers lost their lives that month. to say that kos promoted and fundraised for hackett, along with 100s of others, does not lead (it seems to me) to your using hackett's success as a validation of kos' reach or utility.
as it has been pointed out multiple times, donating through kos or other means, providing alternative news outlets, marching, organizing, etc, etc, need not be mutually exclusive activities. further, a plurality of methods is a healthy approach to solving a problem.
>
> I know folks think big marches are somehow threatening to the pro-war crowd,
> but the most threatening thing to them is losing power. And local
> organizing is one of the ways to do it. Part of the denigation of Kos is
> the denigration of electoral organizing, but the fact remains that Daily Kos
> is now one of the national centers for electoral political strategy, which
> is a form of organizing that many people think is effective, and frankly
> more effective than just one more DC march.
>
> <...>
>
> A bunch of folks may not like that Kos is succeeding in such organizing,
> which is a tactical debate, but it's still organizing.
>
a) it is fine to rank the effectiveness of methods but it is a reach to use this ranking to rule out certain methods. else we should all be participating in organized civil disobedience.
b) if you want to read denigration, go back in the archives and read the material on this list (you can search in particular for chuck0's posts) about the dc marchers (which by the way includes many listmembers, not just me, whom you would think are worthy of a little more respect).
c) it is not "just one more DC march" any more than kos is "just one more 'site of the moment'". in fact, the DC march seems to have grassroots activists involved in it: i saw labour representatives, environmental groups, among various others. i could easily argue that internet sites are at best entertainment. how long before say c&l, with much more amusing content, overtakes kos in "hits"?
d) which folks do not like that kos is succeeding? not me at least! i am all for the entire spectrum of effort succeeding: from bono and arundhati roy, to chavez and kucinich, and the bloggers too. in one of my earlier posts, i mentioned that i wish to support almost all such efforts, including events such as the march you were promoting. what i see in this thread is the opposite: a bunch of folks who do not want *certain* marches to succeed (because they hate ANSWER, perhaps with reason).
=== Message 4: Re: [lbo-talk] losers [ was: L ========================
At around 29/9/05 7:26 pm, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>> OK guys, let's settle this silly shouting match:
>>
>> 1. Every prisoner in the US is a political prisoner, victim of capitalist
>> oppression.
>
> Etc. So what is it about US society that makes us produce so many
> "criminals," and so many prisoners? There's almost nothing comparable
> anywhere else on earth.
>
correct me if i am wrong, but isn't the answer simple and well known? drug laws. aren't 50+% of those in US prisons there due to non-violent drug related offences?
--ravi
=== Message 5: Re: [lbo-talk] Kos on Marches =========================
At around 29/9/05 5:24 pm, Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> The point is that big marches, aside from being morale boosters, are
> attempts to influence the media. And the question is whether people
> are deluding themselves about their effectiveness compared to many
> alternatives. He's arguing thsy "letters to the editor, contributions
> to anti-war candidates, politicians, and organizations, calls and
> letters to their elected officials, creating anti-war media (e.g.
> Flash animations, documentaries)" would be a better focus for all
> that energy. That's hardly burn out. It's a debate on tactics.
>
> Which folks here seem completely resistant to.
>
> But that's my problem with the traditional left these days. Any
> criticism of tactics is treated as a betrayal that marks you as an
> enemy of the movement, a "liberal imperialist" or whatever.
>
i believe the problem with the left these days is unilateralism (my way or the highway) that often goes hand in hand with a sort of purism.
be that as it may, i am not resistant to anything. i am all for flash animations, letters to the editor, calls to politicians, *and* marches. each of these has, without doubt, different levels of effectiveness, but they are not mutually exclusive and often serve different functions.
> I find the some of the scorn towards Kos to be unbelievable
as opposed to his scorn for the marchers:
> People marching on the street? Boring. <...>
>
> Ultimately I was agnostic over the march this past weekend because I
> can appreciate that people want to gather to fight for the cause, I
> appreciate that they want to feel like they're doing something.
that's unsubstantiated and patronizing.
> support for antiwar candidates across the country. And it provides
> an interactive community for progressives that involves four times as
> many people as participated in the march on Friday.
so a web click, in your arithmetic, is the same as someone who gets out there and marches on the street? what am i getting wrong?
--ravi
-- If you wish to contact me, you will get my attention faster by substituting "r" for "listmail" in my email address. Thank you!