This is why I rarely read Kos. There's an argument to be made that big demonstrations have their moment, just as any tactic can work or not work in particular contexts, including a penchant for fine-tuning the media, to which Kos seems addicted. But this piece is over-the-top dismissive of last weekend's rally without actually weighing and measuring what was accomplished, or could have been accomplished. Arundhati Roy has argued more persuasively--and with less obnoxious 'tude--that the media, focusing as it does on the counterintuitive if not the bizarre, operates on the basis of what is new or sensational. We used to call it the cult of the new. So demonstrations are by definition "old." Cindy Sheehan is "old." Even mass land seizures in Roy's native India are now "old," and can be violently repressed without so much as a shrug from the media. Roy's point is to be flexible and creative, given how hard it is to get the media to cover your actions, but not to suspend all actions. Kos counsels packing up the tent and going home. That's not politics; it's burn out.
Nathan. Be clear. I am NOT saying the rally and march were above criticism, or that working with the ANSWER-droids is a day at the beach, and I don't fetishize big marches. For me, the weekend in DC was deja vu all over again, and this time with my kids in tow. The best sign I saw (which was also posted or linked here on LBO-talk) was something to the effect of "I can't believe we have to do this shit again." Well, we do, because we've got the scum of the earth ruling in DC, planning imperial adventures and because we don't have a lot of options. Read him again. Kos doesn't provide those options. He just disses the organizers.
Mike Hirsch
-----Original Message----- From: Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> Sent: Sep 29, 2005 4:13 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Kos on Marches
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/28/124717/957
________________________________________ `And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again -- again -- again-- `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.' --------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]