> From: Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org>
> Date: July 22, 2006 7:39:03 PM EDT
> To: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Cc: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Subject: Re: Jesse Lemisch on closing gas stations
>
> Doug: Please forward this message to your list.
>
> The exchange that Jesse Lemisch started on the SDS discussion list
> has gone from merely insulting to me and my friends to a downright
> ignorant crossposting to the LBO list. I've always had a low
> opinion of people who crosspost arguments from one list to another
> list. This kind of thing is almost always a waste of time, as the
> forwarded messages are decontextualized and a selective take on the
> exchange.
>
> Does Jesse Lemisch understand yet that he is assuming that the SDS
> organized this demo in Kansas City, when in fact it was organized
> by Code Pink?
>
> Obviously not, as he paints the decontextualized exchange as being
> generated out of an action taken by SDS members:
>
> "There were a few who made more sense than this, and of course we
> never know how typical of an organization are those who post on
> its list. I continue to wish this organization well as it
> approaches its first national convention, at the University of
> Chicago."
>
> Here Jesse mentions the upcoming SDS convention. In his first
> message to the SDS list, he dissed the protest and SDS activists
> with a reference to a discussion about SDS t-shirts.
>
> I haven't read one word in Lemisch's emails that recognizes that
> the protest in Kansas City was organzied by Code Pink.
>
> Code Pink, not SDS.
>
> My reaction to Lemisch on the SDS list was directed at his
> reactionary language that assumed that the goal of the Code Pink
> activists was to "piss off" people. Activist organizers sometimes
> hear arguments like this from people who whine about protests
> causing problems for working people, such as traffic tie-ups or
> messes that need to be cleaned up. This kind of argument not only
> doesn't recognize that protest and dissent cause inconvenience to
> working people, it's completely divorced from reality.
>
> Lemisch's post to the SDS list contained assumptions about the
> organizers of the Code Pink protest in Kansas City. Lemisch has a
> right to sound off about any protest, but Lemisch went with an
> assumption about the protest organizers. Lemisch di not ask a
> question first about the motivations for the protest.
>
> I was not involved with the Code Pink protest, although I was
> kicking it with the activists in the parking lots before they took
> off for the gas station. I had just attended a meeting of the KC
> SDS, but again, the gas station demo was organized by Code Pink
> activists.
>
> Before the group set off for the gas station, one of the organizers
> made it clear that the goal was not to shut down the gas station.
> The goal of the protest was do be visible at the gas station,
> engage in some talking with drivers, and then move onto another gas
> station. The group was not the type that set off to piss people off.
>
> The story about the protest and the incident is clear about how a
> motorist assaulted an activist with a megaphone and then another
> person taking video. From what I understand, the activists then
> retired to a bar around the corner. The irate motorist had
> contacted the police and they arrested the activist at the bar for
> "assaulting" the motorist.
>
> There may be plenty of issues worth discussing around this protest
> and the incident, but I took exception to the assumption that these
> activist sought to piss off people. And it was a Code Pink protest,
> not an SDS one.
>
> I'm not trying to soft peddle militant tactics here, because I'm
> all for fucking shit up and pissing off people, but let's at least
> be accurate about what these activists did.
>
> Chuck Munson