Oh frabjous day! I had thought it would be much more difficult to smoke out the ideology behind all this, but, sure enough, it's an attack on drivers for "complicity." And he supports this by indicating that the war is about oil -- fair enough -- so that everyone who uses oil-generated power is complicit. Explaining to drivers and everybody else their complicity is a wonderful approach to organizing, sure to build a mass movement. Could we consider systemic solutions, involving challenging oil companies, governments, current foreign policy, the military? No, let's blame drivers, and block their access to gas.
Chuck says: "How does Jesse know [that blocking gas pumps at 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon would piss people off]?" Pure reason. Of course, I'm different: when I see people blocking my access to anything, it makes me happy.
Chuck says "There is no SDS 'leadership'. The SDS is not the RCP." It looks like time to read or re-read Jo Freeman's "Tyranny of Structurelessness" on just how dangerous it is to have people who are founders, deferred to, etc. while denying that there is such a thing as leadership. Any sensible examination of the organization would recognize the leadership of, among others, Tom Good, Brian Kelly and Paul Buhle. Rather than denying that there is leadership, we need to build organizations with responsible and accountable leadership.
Finally, he continues to insist on a point that nobody disputes: this was a Code Pink action. But of course he knows that it took place with SDS support, participation and praise -- including his own. It seems as if he wants at the same time to praise this action and to shift blame for it away from SDS.
Jesse Lemisch
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Cc: "Chuck Munson" <chuck at mutualaid.org> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 4:01 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Fwd: Jesse Lemisch on the KC gas station action
> [Chuck0's response to Jesse Lemisch; I'm not going to spend a lot of
> time forwarding a back & forth, should one develop.]
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org>
> > Date: July 27, 2006 3:57:55 PM EDT
> > To: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> > Cc: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> > Subject: Re: Jesse Lemisch on the KC gas station action
> >
> > Jesse Lemisch just doesn't get it.
> >
> >> From: "Jesse Lemisch" <utopia1 at attglobal.net>
> >
> >> So, of course Chuck is totally wrong about the stated goal of the
> >> demo. Was the demo intended, in addition, to piss people off?
> >> Chuck says, "The goal of the group was not to piss people off."
> >> He may well be right: they had no idea that shutting down gas
> >> stations at 5pm on a Friday would piss people off. What shape
> >> will our hoped for new new left be in if it can't see these
> >> connections and doesn't want to?
> >
> > Lemisch is either being dense here or defensive after being
> > corrected on his confusion about the demo.
> >
> > I was at the meeting of the Code Pink people in the parking lot
> > before the demo. The parameters of the demo were discussed and one
> > person brought up a concern about pissing off motorists. One of the
> > Code Pink organizers emphasized that the goal of the protest was
> > NOT to shut down the gas station, but to talk to people.
> >
> > They had the misfortune to run into a deranged motorist who
> > attacked one of the activists.
> >
> >> Whatever the intent, the demo did indeed piss people off.
> >
> > How does Jesse know this? The only thing I know about pissed off
> > people is the one guy who assaulted one of my friends and then had
> > the police arrest her.
> >
> > If people protested according to Lemisch's view of dissent, nobody
> > would leave the safety of their barcalounger.
> >
> >> If you were hurrying home to your little family, dog, etc, in
> >> your PT Cruiser, saying, "thank god I made it through to another
> >> Friday in these last days of capitalism," you'd be pissed off
> >> too. But as I indicated on my satirical posting on the SDS list,
> >> who cares about gas station owners, attendants, and -- least of
> >> all, drivers, who I described as "a tiny privileged minority in
> >> this country. mainly white and brimming over with false
> >> consciousness"? Such disregard and contempt is reminiscent of the
> >> collapse of the first SDS, amidst cries like the old Weather
> >> slogan, "Fight the People." (For sympathetic responses to the
> >> Weather Underground in the new SDS, see various postings on the
> >> SDS list, and my "Weather Underground Rises from the Ashes:
> >> They're Baack!" New Politics, XI, no. 1 (Summer 2006), pages
> >> 7-13. http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue41/Lemisch41.htm )
> >
> > Does Jesse Lemisch actually exist as a real person? This outrage is
> > out of touch with reality, especially what happened in Kansas City.
> >
> > I've run into types like Lemisch before. They are a rare species,
> > activists who don't want activists to do activism.
> >
> >> Do great demoes like those mentioned by SDSers -- civil rights,
> >> Free Speech Movement, draft resisisters, etc. -- inconvenience
> >> people? Of course they do. Is this such a great demo? There's no
> >> way of reading this as other than an attack on drivers for in
> >> some utterly unexplained way contributing to the war.
> >
> > So Lemisch is arguing that the U.S. invaded Iraq and is intervening
> > in the Middle East because there is a date palm shortage?
> >
> > People who drive cars are complicit in their government's policies.
> > What is wrong with an attempt to talk to these people?
> >
> >> Like so many Americans, these people, who are now conscripted in
> >> the role of enemy, are trapped in a system (gas power, no public
> >> transport, etc.). I suggest an SDS fall offensive along the lines
> >> of the KC demo, a kind of "gas summer," in which people on
> >> bicycles shut down gas stations across the country. surely this
> >> will end the war. Other related actions:
> >
> > Sounds good to me. Bring the war home.
> >
> >> Here in NYC, where the MTA notoriously cooks the books, degrades
> >> services, raises fares and fucks the union, I propose that we
> >> shut down the subway at 5 pm on a hot Friday, all singing
> >> "Charley on the MTA." This will help us build our movement and
> >> help to bring down capitalism. Afterwards, we should fight
> >> monopoly utilities like Con Ed by pulling the plug at 5 pm on
> >> Friday (if it's hot). This, too, will help to bring down
> >> capitalism and bring us many new supporters.
> >
> > So I take it that Lemsich was against the transti workers strike?
> > Heaven forbid that those transit workers should fuck up the ability
> > of working class people to get to their jobs!
> >
> > > But it bodes ill that SDS leadership has either
> >> vehemently supported obscene attacks on people trying to raise
> >> these points, or just remained silent.
> >
> > There is no SDS "leadership." The SDS is not the RCP. Thank god!
> >
> >> In a very short time, the new SDS has gone through all the stages
> >> of the original organization, and is now at June 1969, with
> >> people gagging, jumping off the list, revoking ther membership.
> >
> > Wow! What's up with this animosity towards the SDS? The Kansas City
> > action was organized by CODE PINK. The people who do Code Pink
> > aren't hard to miss. Hint. They all dress in PINK!
> >
> > By the way, Lemisch is confusing a DISCUSSION list with the SDS
> > organization. SDS has other lists, including an organizing list.
> >
> >> Seeing no connection, Chuck concludes, "I'm all for fucking shit
> >> up and pissing off people." I await the promised arrival from SDS
> >> of my "Fuck Jesse Lemisch T-shirt," to be rotated with the SDS
> >> "Fuck Shit up T-shirt."
> >
> > That's my take on things and I have a right to state my position.
> >
> >> * my posting on the SDS list included a statement of approval of
> >> the action by Kansas City SDS which identified the action as Code
> >> Pink initiated with SDS participation and enthusiastic apprioval.
> >
> > Whatever. The gas station action was done by Code Pink, but who
> > cares about the facts?
> >
> > Chuck
>
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