[lbo-talk] doom

Michael Hoover hooverm at scc-fl.edu
Sat Mar 25 04:25:13 PST 2006



>>> cbcox at ilstu.edu 03/21/06 3:47 PM >>>
Michael Hoover wrote:

> piven and cloward
> may well be correct in asserting that repeated use of direct action tactics
> produces policy benefits for working class and low income folks even if
> specific protest action does not lead to specific policy change... mh

I hadn't been familiar with their argument on this, but it is similar to my argument that anti-war movement is temporarily at least going to be in "neutral" as it were because we lack the "climate" of the '60s, a climate which consisted of innumerable different (some quite silly) struggles all of which did involve one form or another of direct action. That sort of climate drives administration, congress, & ruling-class thinktanks to cast desperately around for ways of 'cooling things off.' Various good things are apt to result. Since the emergence of such climates is quite unpredictable, all we can do in meantime is push on as many doors involving as many different people as possible. Carrol <<<<<>>>>>

see their _regulating the poor_ and poor people's movements_ (william gamson makes similar argument a few years later in _strategy of social protest_)...

looking at 1930s and 1960s, p&c assert that system contracted when concern about/fear of working class and marginalized political action subsided, so while 30s would witness federal gov't protection of union-organizing, following decades saw restrictions upon union activities that contributed to lessened working class influence, and if 1960s resulted in expansion of federal welfare state, 1970s initiated cuts backs in/elimination of various programs...

long-term problem seems to be failure/inability of direct action movements to either transform themselves into permanent institutions or to avoid losing militant elements/tendencies, necessity of 'politics of the streets' *and* ' politics of the suites', not one or other... mh



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