[lbo-talk] great article on mrzine on local organizing

John Lacny jlacny at earthlink.net
Wed Mar 15 08:13:34 PST 2006


Chuck Munson writes:


> Engel makes some obvious points about the tameness of
> upper middle class activists, but I'm annoyed by his
> outdated calls for more authoritarian leadership.

I usually think that Chuck's contributions are worthless, but this one is at least valuable as a case in point. Chuck is an individualist who doesn't want to be accountable to anyone else; considers democratic decision-making in a mass movement context "authoritarian"; and favors free-floating "leaderless" (feel free to laugh) groups of "activists" who will never organize masses of ordinary people because they are simply not interested in doing so. They are interested in a subculture, not a movement, and if I recall correctly, Chuck has actually said this more or less explicitly in the past (statements to the effect that small groups of activists doing more militant stuff will get the job done).

I sometimes wonder if Chuck actually believes the stuff he says, because it is so caricatured -- he seems like a too-perfect bug in a jar.

- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com

Tell no lies, claim no easy victories



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